The Vatican has condemned as "shocking, wrong and myopic" a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that Italian schools should remove crucifixes from classroom walls. Skip related content
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Vatican condemns European crucifix ruling
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said: "The ruling of the European court was received in the Vatican with shock and sadness. It is wrong and myopic to try to exclude it (the crucifix) from the world of education."
The court's decision has sparked uproar in Roman Catholic Italy, which has already said it will challenge the ruling.
The case came about when an Italian woman, who opposed the display of a crucifix at a state school attended by her two children, took the issue to Strasbourg, saying it contradicted Italy's separation of Church and state.
Soile Lautsi, from Abano Terme, near Padua, was awarded €5,000 (£4,473) in damages, with the court saying that the school had violated religious and educational freedoms guaranteed under the European Rights Convention. However, it did not order the Italian authorities to remove the crucifixes.
The ruling could encourage a review of the use of religious symbols in state schools throughout Europe.
Mariastella Gelmini, the Italian Minister for Education, said that the ruling was "an offence against our traditions. The presence of a crucifix in the classroom does not signify adherence to Roman Catholicism, it is a a traditional symbol. In our country nobody wants to impose the Catholic religion, let alone with a crucifix. But no-one can cancel out our identity."
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