The crux of the Crucifix question

The ruling of a court in L'Aquila, Italy, which has banned the crucifix from a local school, is the subject of a heated controversy in Italy. The court ruling came after an Islamic activist, Adel Smith, protested that his two boys had to study with a crucifix at their elementary school in the small town of Ofena, 125 km northeast of Rome. Judge Mario Montanaro's ruling stated that "the presence of the crucifix in classrooms communicates an implicit adherence to values that in reality are not the shared heritage of all citizens".

Before commenting on this decision and some of its implications, we note that the Italian Justice Minister not only appealed from the ruling but also said that an inquiry would be held to see if the judge had acted correctly.

Augusto Barbera, editor of a journal on constitutional law, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he considers this sentence as a deeply flawed one since there are laws in effect on this issue, which a judge cannot ignore.

The Pope has spoken twice on this controversy. On October 29, John Paul II said the image of Christ on the cross is a source of consolation, and he invited believers to be builders of the "civilisation of love".

Addressing pilgrims at the general audience, the Holy Father urged them to be "builders of the civilisation of love, of which the cross of Christ is an eloquent symbol, source of light, of consolation, and hope for the men of all times."

The Pope's words are in great contrast with the words of Adel Smith, president of the Union of Muslims of Italy, a fundamentalist party. While taking part in the RAI Uno programme Porta a Porta in November 2001 he had described the symbol of Christianity as a "corpse in miniature".

During the TV programme, Smith said: "The crucifix represents the naked corpse of a man, nailed to a piece of wood, used by the Romans to punish the worst criminals."

The Pope spoke again on October 31 when he addressed a meeting of European interior ministers. He said that the religious symbols of the Christian majority in Europe deserve respect, even as the continent's population is shifting because of immigration. The Pope argued that religious symbols in a Christian country simply couldn't be cancelled from public life in the name of inter-religious tolerance.

"Recognition of the specific religious patrimony of a society requires recognition of the symbols that characterise it," he said. It would be a misinterpretation of the principle of equality, he added, if a country had to give up the free expression of its basic religious traditions and the associated cultural values. Such a move would help fragment and destabilise today's increasingly multicultural society, leading to conflict. "Social harmony and peace cannot be attained by cancelling the religious distinctiveness of every people," he said.

It would be a very serious mistake to try and depict this issue as an example of a struggle between Christianity and Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. Italy has a population of 57 million. There are now an estimated 800,000 Muslims in Italy. Adel Smith's organisation represents around 5,000 of them. Smith does not represent mainstream Islam. He is only an extremist and speaks only for extremists. You find fundamentalists like him in all groups and religions.

During several programmes broadcast on different Italian TV stations one could see and listen to several Italian Muslims who strongly oppose Smith's actions. They said that they studied in schools under the shadow of the Crucifix and never felt offended. On the contrary, many said, for them the Crucifix was a positive symbol.

We do not need crusaders to tackle people like Adel Smith. We only need a lot of common sense, tolerance and love. The voice of the many Muslims of good faith who oppose him is the voice of the true Islam. With those and others like them all Catholics should try to intensify a fruitful dialogue.