I believe in the complete separation of Church and State. The recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights is quite welcome. State schools, that are schools funded by the tax payer, should “observe confessional neutrality.” Sadly this enlighten view of religion (or the lack thereof) in the public space is yet to reach some places in the world. Now I wonder when the court of human rights will ban the wearing of headscarves and other blatant displays of religion in public schools?

But I find this paragraph from the article puzzling:

“Although more than 7% of Italy’s population is now of immigrant origin, multiculturalism has made few inroads and most Italians argue passionately, as did their government’s advocate in Strasbourg, that the crucifix is a symbol of national identity.”

This is assuming that 7 per cent of Italy’s population is non-Christian. It is assuming that all immigrants are non-Christian in Italy. It neglects the number of Italians who are not followers of the Christian faith. And again we see the term multiculturalism used to describe the concept of the separation of Church and State. This is just wrong. Am sure they would say that wearing headscarves in public schools is a positive sign of how multiculturalism is making inroads into Italian life. It is about time we dispense with that awful word multiculturalism, which sounds a lot like multi-tribalism.