The crucifix in the workplace

Corrado Gnerre

The recent ruling of the European Court says that crucifixes must not be present in classrooms and public offices. It seems unacceptable to me. I have the impression, however, that the cultural motivation (crucifixes must be there because they are a sign of the identity of the Italian people) is a bit weak. What do you think?

Usually the answers given to defend the crucifix in public offices are two: the first is of a cultural nature and the second is concerning a correct conception of secularism. Dear …, I will explain them to you in detail.

The first states that the crucifix has a cultural value. The Italian nation has its roots mainly in Christianity, so it is quite appropriate that the crucifix is displayed in public offices, in this regard.

The second answer concerns a correct conception of secularism. Secularism can be of two types, that which originates from the French Revolution, or secularism as the elimination of the public presence of any religious identity; or that which originates from the American Revolution, that is secularism as an offer to all religious identities to publicly attend a house of worship.

In the first case, religious identity must be omitted as a religious identity; in the second case all religious identities have the same right of expression.

In the first case, prohibition avoids confessionalization of the state; in the second case it is the legitimation of religious pluralism.

Dear …, I feel I can agree with you. The “answers”: the crucifix as a cultural symbol or as an expression of one of the many religious identities to be safeguarded, show evident weakness.

In the first case, if the crucifix is considered as a cultural symbol, another significant representation could also be made.

In the second case, if the crucifix must be safeguarded as the public presence of any religious identity, then it is not clear why only the crucifix and nothing else. A believer of another religion could very well claim to post their symbols in a classroom or office.

In reality, what is happening is the outcome of how the state-Church relationship has been set up in many states with a Catholic tradition. It would be naive not to recognize that the concept of state secularism (better than the “neutrality” of the state in matters of religion) as expressed in Italy in the New Concordat of 1984, makes the motivation to keep the crucifix in public offices very weak.

Professor Roberto den Mattei, with great foresight, wrote just after the signing of the New Concordat: “The abolition of the confessional principle and the proclamation of the opposite principle of religious neutrality will have its symbolic expression in the removal of the Crucifix from all public buildings: schools, courts, hospitals, barracks and prefectures. The presence of the Crucifix in state buildings expressed in fact the public homage paid by Italy to the Catholic religion. If the Italian state ceases to be officially Catholic to proclaim the principle of religious neutrality, this public homage no longer has any reason to exist and on the contrary constitutes a prevarication against other religious confessions and atheists.” (R. de Mattei, Catholic Italy and the New Concordat, Rome 1985, pp. 54-55).

The Church has always affirmed that the State and the Church are both necessary and supreme in their own order and relative to their end. However, between the earthly end, proper to the State, and the spiritual one, proper to the Church, there is a relationship of subordination of the first to the second. Indeed, what would temporal happiness be worth if eternal happiness is not achieved? The Church, therefore, does not intervene in purely temporal affairs; but what concerns both the natural and the supernatural sphere (such as, for example, marriage, the education of young people, etc.) must be treated by the State so that, in the opinion of the Church, the superior goods are not damaged of the supernatural order. Here comes an important point: the duties to God must be rendered to the divine Majesty not only by individual citizens, but also by the civil power, which, in public acts, represents civil society. God, in fact, is the author of civil society and the source of all the goods which, through it, are addressed to all its members.

This discourse concerns the social kingship of Christ. Pius XI, in Quas primas of 1925, affirms that Christ is King by native right, because he is the Son of God; but he is also King for his humanity, or for acquired right, because he has redeemed us. This kingship is directed on spiritual things, while on temporal things it is equally direct but not directly exercised (St. Thomas, S.T.III, qq. 58-59).

It must be said that one thing is having to accept a fact and then try to collect what it is possible to collect; it is quite another to theorize the principle of the religious neutrality of the state. In short, it is contradictory to try to safeguard a preferential option for Catholicism (for example by claiming the presence of crucifixes) and then to favor the doctrine of the religious neutrality of the state.

When it is stated that Catholicism can still claim a preferential role because it is a more consistent religion numerically, one does not realize that something dangerous is affirmed: first of all because a religion is not measured by sociological or quantitative criteria; second, because the greater consistency of Catholicism is precisely the result of a de iure recognition of the same that has taken place over the centuries.