Answering Atheists: Italy’s New Government Promotes Christ in Schools
by Selwyn Duke
TheNewAmerican.com
Saturday, 08 December 2018
The Italians don’t have anyone like the Nebraska principal who recently tried to ban even candy canes and red and green items at Christmastime. But they do have a war on the season, as some Italian schools have moved to prohibit Nativity scenes and crucifixes in the name of “inclusiveness” and “respect for other cultures.”
This prompted a backlash from the ruling patriotic government, with Interior Minister Matteo Salvini calling the move “idiocy” and writing that the Christmas displays are “not just about religion, but about history, roots, culture.” He added, “I will not give up! Long live our traditions, and may they spread!”
Chiming in was Education Minister Marco Bussetti, who said, “For me, the crucifix is a symbol of our history, our culture, our traditions”; moreover, he told “a meeting of 180 teachers and school leaders from across the country he believed the same to be true for Christmas trees and nativity displays at this time of year,” reports Breitbart.
This comes as the “Italian media is describing an ‘open war’ on nativity scenes in the classroom, where local administrators were forbidding the Christian imagery [from] being displayed in schools across the country,” Clash Daily adds. “Parents in Venice, however, protested the decision[,] which was blamed on ‘lack of funding.’”
The site continues, “This explanation was quickly shot down by the populist Lega party[,] who said that local officials had set aside 50,000 euros for Nativity scenes at schools.”
Funding excuses are often the last refuge of cowards; they justify monetarily what they can’t defend morally.
There are other cop-outs, too. For example, Italian website Aleteia blames a “malevolent atheism” that continually uses the now stale excuse, “There are students of other religions, [sic] we must respect them.” (It should be mentioned that aiding these anti-theists are naïve sorts genuinely imbued with cultural/religious-equivalence doctrine.)
A case in point is a school in Terni, Italy, that canceled its traditional nativity recitation, claiming it was “‘a sign of respect’ for pupils from other cultures,” Breitbart also informs. Yet reacting to this, local populist Lega Party representative Valeria Alessandrini pointed out, “‘Only by respecting [our own traditions] … can we make others understand everyone is free to practice their own faiths but that it is also required they respect the history and culture of the country in which they live,’” Breitbart relates.
In reality, weakness breeds contempt. It’s hard to command respect from others if you clearly don’t respect yourself — this applies to cultures, too. Just consider what foreigners may infer from the West’s lukewarm attitude: “Wow, if Westerners’ won’t defend their faith and culture, they must not be worth defending.”
And then are they worth embracing?
The Rest…HERE
