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The Roman Catholic Church in Italy was in uproar yesterday after a local court ordered crucifixes to be removed from the classroom walls at a state-run nursery attended by Muslim children. The ruling by the presiding judge at the tribunal in L'Aquila, a city in the traditionally conservative region of Abruzzo, upheld a complaint by Adel Smith, president of the Union of Italian Muslims, whose children are pupils at the Navelli kindergarten and elementary school.
Judge Mario Montanaro said that "in a scholastic environment the presence of the symbol of the Cross induces a pupil to a profoundly incorrect understanding of the cultural dimension of the expression of faith".
The Italian Bishops' Conference condemned the court ruling. It was "in contradiction with state law that no parliament or even the Constitutional Court ever has changed," Monsignor Giu-seppe Bertori, the secretary of the bishops' conference, said.
A law that dates back to the Fascist era requiring crucifixes to be hung in classrooms has never been fully repealed.
The centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi also entered the fray. Roberto Maroni, the Labour Minister and a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party, condemned it as "an abhorrent ruling that must be cancelled as soon as possible".
Commentators said that church leaders saw the case as a potential setback in their efforts, supported by the Italian Government and repeatedly requested by the Pope, for Europe's Christian heritage to be mentioned specifically in the proposed constitution for the European Union.
Signor Smith, the son of a Scotsman, had initially requested that a symbol from the Koran should be displayed alongside the Cross. When the school declined to comply, he took the case to court. The judge argued that the crucifix showed "the unequivocal desire by the State, when it comes to public education, to place the Catholic religion at the centre of the universe", in disregard of other religions.
Estimates of the number of Muslims in Italy range from about 700,000 to one million.
A teachers' union welcomed the move on the ground that it reinforced the secular character of the education system.
The court gave the school 30 days to remove the crucifixes.
A revision of the Concordat agreement between the Italian State and the Roman Catholic Church in 1984 ended Catholicism's status, established by Mussolini' s regime, as Italy's state religion. Yet it has often been left to individual head teachers to decide whether to display crucifixes in classrooms.
Letizia Moratti, the Minister of Education, said last month that the Cross should stay in state schools and hospitals and endorsed plans by the Government for state funding of private Catholic schools, something that the Church has been demanding for decades.
The Government also won praise from the Vatican recently when it helped to defeat a Bill in parliament that would have made it easier for Italians to divorce.
The latest controversy may lead the post-Fascist National Alliance party to reconsider its policies toward immigrants. Gianfranco Fini, the party's leader and Deputy Prime Minister, in a surprise move, called on the Government recently to give the vote to immigrants in local elections.
But Francesco Storace, a party hardliner, the president of the regional government of Lazio, said yesterday that this risked undermining Italy's cultural heritage. "Do we want to give Adel Smith the vote?" he asked.
Signor Smith, 43, who is now an Italian citizen and converted to Islam in 1987, has few supporters among Italian Muslims, but he was in the headlines in January when he was physically attacked twice in one week on Italian television shows.
About 20 members of a neo-Fascist group incensed by Signor Smith's anti-Christian views, stormed into the studios of Telenuovo, a Verona-based television station, roughing him up and splattering him with eggs.
Earlier he had a fistfight on a live Padua television channel with Carlo Pelanda, a conservative columnist. The brawl began when the columnist slapped Signor Smith on the face during a heated debate on Israel.
Other Italian Muslim leaders have distanced themselves from Signor Smith, who has been quoted as disparaging the crucifix as "a little body hung on two pieces of wood".
The mainstream Union of Italian Muslim Organisations said then that by making "offensive public statements against the Christian tradition" Signor Smith was acting in stark contrast with the teaching of the Koran.
Family file
Adel Smith was born in Egypt, where
his father, a Scottish architect who had long worked in Italy, met Adel's
mother Mona, according to Corriere della Sera. His father, who designed
palaces for King Farouk, became a Muslim but brought his children up as
Roman Catholics. The family returned to Rome when Nasser seized power.
Adel converted to Islam in 1987.
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