Neil McNicholas: Strasbourg court sees sense at last over symbols ruling

It was also my reaction to yet another example of possible interference by the European Court in Strasbourg under so-called human rights legislation.

The original case, back in 2009, involved an Italian non-Catholic mother whose two children attended a state school, and her complaint that they were “exposed to crucifixes” in their classroom.

The court in Strasbourg had stated that the presence of religious symbols violated the children’s “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and duly awarded her £4,500 in damages. The Italian government appealed and thankfully last week’s appeal was upheld. Had it not been, it might have resulted in all Christian symbols having to be removed from classrooms throughout Europe.

By way of justifying their original ruling, the judges said that the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Human Rights Convention was not limited to the absence of religious services or religious education, but “extended to practices and symbols which expressed a belief, a religion or atheism”.

It crossed my mind to wonder what symbols of atheism might include? Presumably nothing overtly religious and so, if classrooms display nothing overtly religious, doesn’t that promote atheism and therefore isn’t that, by definition, a violation of freedom of religion under that same guarantee and couldn’t parents-of-faith everywhere then sue under the same legislation?

Things may be a little different in nominally Catholic Italy in terms of crucifixes being displayed in state schools rather than in Catholic schools only, but in this country objections would understandably be raised if state schools displayed crucifixes and, indeed, it would be unlikely ever to happen because it would be foreign to the non-religious character of such schools.

Not so in church schools (and certainly Catholic schools), but would an adverse ruling from Strasbourg have effectively taken away that aspect of religious freedom? And wouldn’t that in itself be a violation of our rights?

My experience, having served on a number of school governing bodies, is that when parents apply to a school they are informed of that school’s admissions policy, which will include and address practical issues such as discipline, uniform policy, ethos, etc.

It is always, therefore, somewhat inexplicable when parents raising clouds of invective over the enforcement of discipline or uniform policy. They knew what the policies were when they applied and, if they didn’t like what they saw, they were free to send their children elsewhere.

The same is true of whatever expectations a church school might have of its pupils. If that isn’t the sort of ethos and education parents want for their children, then don’t send them to a church school in the first place.

However, places at church schools are typically in great demand precisely because of that ethos and because they run a tight ship discipline-wise and, as a result, often offer a better standard of education than might be the case in state schools.

And it has been my experience that Muslim parents, for example, will happily send their children to a church school for exactly those reasons, and generally also have no objection to their children taking part in school assemblies and religious education lessons (even though they are free to opt out of them) because they value the general message that their children receive and the fact that, at the same time, no one is attempting to convert them.

Was the mere presence of a crucifix on an Italian classroom wall really forcing those two children to practice a religion they didn’t believe in? Of course not. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, we acknowledge and teach that parents are first educators of their children in the way of faith and we therefore rely greatly on that home influence over and above what our Catholic schools seek to achieve.

Surely those two children could have happily ignored any and all symbols on their classroom wall – whether religious or otherwise – and I can’t for a moment imagine them going home to their parents and complaining that their right to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” was being violated..

On this occasion the court in Strasbourg saw sense and the ripples on the litigation pond were not allowed to spread – which, on this particular matter, is just as well because we churches are answerable to an even higher court.

Father Neil McNicholas is a priest at St Hilda’s Parish, Whitby.