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kimmielittle
Guest
IMHO, this speaks to the dangers of aligning to a One World Order type of governance such as The European Union.
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CeciliaS
Guest
I lived in Italy for many years, and still follow events there quite closely. The whole story was not properly told in the BBC article. This poor, suffering Italian mother who wanted to give her dear children a secular education, and thus would find no peace until she got all crucifixes banned from every school in Italy… this mother isn’t even Italian!! She is Finnish, married to an Italian, and wants to apply her secular mentality to Italy. Do Italians go to Finland and demand that Italian rules be applied in Finnish schools? Do I, as an American, feel that I can drive up to Canada and demand that bilinguism be banned, since in the US there is only one official language? The woman in question had some friends in high places at the European level, and decided to get pushy. Politics being what they are, we can only wonder whether this case was planned at higher levels, to start the ball rolling for crucifix bans.
I can understand that someone raised in a secular society, especially in northern Europe, can be taken aback at the Italian practice of hanging a crucifix in public places: in Italy, you don’t find crucifixes just in schools, but any public place, such as government offices, the post office, courtrooms and hospitals. In the smaller shops, it is quite common to find a crucifix, along with images of a saint, an olive branch from Palm Sunday, and maybe even the blessing card brought when the priest came to bless the shop, (Of course, non-Catholic shopkeepers don’t do this, and no one expects them to!)
In Italy, the public schools even put up a manger scene in a highly visible part of the school, during Christmastime, and Religion (Catholic) is always offered as a class, although it is optional. There are plenty of Italians who, for whatever reasons, think that all these signs of religion shouldn’t be there, but most of them accept the importance of Cathoicism as part of Italy’s history and cultural heritage, even if they themselves don’t practice it. Interesting that these Italians never protested: it took a Finn to take action. (Nothing against Finns in general, of course!!)
My two cents’ worth, gotta let off some steam here.
CeciliaS
I can understand that someone raised in a secular society, especially in northern Europe, can be taken aback at the Italian practice of hanging a crucifix in public places: in Italy, you don’t find crucifixes just in schools, but any public place, such as government offices, the post office, courtrooms and hospitals. In the smaller shops, it is quite common to find a crucifix, along with images of a saint, an olive branch from Palm Sunday, and maybe even the blessing card brought when the priest came to bless the shop, (Of course, non-Catholic shopkeepers don’t do this, and no one expects them to!)
In Italy, the public schools even put up a manger scene in a highly visible part of the school, during Christmastime, and Religion (Catholic) is always offered as a class, although it is optional. There are plenty of Italians who, for whatever reasons, think that all these signs of religion shouldn’t be there, but most of them accept the importance of Cathoicism as part of Italy’s history and cultural heritage, even if they themselves don’t practice it. Interesting that these Italians never protested: it took a Finn to take action. (Nothing against Finns in general, of course!!)
My two cents’ worth, gotta let off some steam here.
CeciliaS
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Dale_M
Guest
Yep, those of us on this side of the Atlantic need to remember that the European Union and the Council of Europe are unrelated. Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights (part of the Council of Europe) is unrelated to the European Court of Justice (part of the European Union.)
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kimmielittle
Guest
Thank you **(name removed by moderator) and **Dale_M
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