At this point in time the word on everybody’s lips seems to be ‘crucifix’ – alluding to the polemic that rose when a woman from Finland ended up in the European courts pleading her case against crucifixes in the Italian classroom because her two children were not being raised as Catholics.

The two parties in Malta have agreed that had this case concerned the Maltese, they would agree that crucifixes would not be banned from public places. In a nutshell, crucifixes in Malta are here to stay. The Italian government stand, though thoroughly against the removal of crucifixes from the classrooms, was dismissed by the European court of law as one would dismiss a fly. This was a thoroughly unfair thing to do considering that Italy, like Malta is a Catholic country.

What should bother the Maltese is what if the case had to happen in Malta where some parent decided to bring up his children as non Catholic and take his case to the European court too, would the judge agree in the parent’s favour? Although it goes without saying that everybody should applaud the two parties for being compatible over this case, would they be completely ignored by the European court the same way as the Italian government was?

Valerie Borg

Valletta