Symbols have a tremendous power to convey meaning, and the secularizing forces reigning in the European Union seem bent on eradicating all signs of the Christian civilization which once flourished in every one of its 27 member nations.

As the Lisbon Treaty tightens the noose around the necks of the nations of what was once Christian Europe, an appalling circumstance in Italy summarizes the shape of things to come. A report at Catholic.org (“Italy’s Bishops Irate over Crucifix Ban by European Court”) demonstrates what ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ actually mean in practice: A ban on expression of a nation’s Christian heritage.

Italy's bishops are saying the European Court of Human Rights is guilty of a partial and ideological outlook with its Tuesday decision that crucifixes in public school are a violation of freedom.

The Vatican and the Italian government expressed dismay with Tuesday's decision and Italian bishops expressed their own perplexity.

The court ruled in favor of an Italian citizen of Finnish origin who complained in 2002 that the state school where her two children studied violated their freedom by displaying crucifixes.

The school's administration refused to remove them, contending that the crucifix is part of Italian cultural patrimony; Italian courts subsequently backed this claim.

Now, the Strasbourg-based European court has asked the Italian government to compensate the woman with €5,000 ($7,300).
Judge Nicola Lettieri, who defends Italy in Strasbourg, assured that the Italian government will appeal the decision.

As reported for The New American,”A law dating back to 1920 that requires a crucifix to be hung in every classroom upset Soile Lautsi, the Italian mother who filed the suit. Even though Italy reached an agreement with the Vatican in 1984 to stop considering Catholicism as the state religion, the crucifix law was never repealed. Lautsi could not accept the presence of a crucifix in every room because she wants her children to receive an absolutely secular education.”

Although many Americans (and apparently some Finns) may find this concept hard to grasp, it is usually understood that when one moves to a new place, it means accepting — or at least tolerating — the culture that was in place before you got there. In point of fact, Lautsi is a Finnish woman married to an Italian; thus her lawsuit is against a nation in which she is a legal resident, but not a citizen. The idea that the presence of a few crucifixes was somehow going to turn her children into Christian seems absurd — and it sure hasn’t worked for Italians, a mere 15 percent of whom attend Mass weekly.

This is the character of the Internationalists’ war on Christendom. There is no expression of the faith so small that it will escape their gaze — and censure. Christians will be tolerated as long as they confine themselves to their sanctuaries and don’t make trouble for the new power at work in Europe.

The idolatry of power at the heart of the European Union allows no place within the formation of its new culture for those who worship the Holy Trinity. But to the extent that one could ever speak of a unified Europe in past ages, it was as a vibrant part of Christendom. Her history was inextricably bound up with the life and struggles and reforms of the Church. Now, the EU wants to pretend that Europe will simply begin today—an amalgam of peoples without history, culture or civilization; a tabula rasa for the architects of a new humanity to shape according to their own whims.

This is why they fear the cross of Christ: It is a touchstone to all that has been before. It confesses a faith which shaped the life of the continent across the generations. For all the turmoils and flaws which attended the centuries of Christian civilization in Europe, it enriched the lives of the people and offered them the hope of eternal life — citizenship in earthly kingdoms, but above all an enduring citizenship in a kingdom which is not of this world. The petty aims and schemes of a spiritually impoverished European Union cannot compete with that, and the EU elites know it. And their rage is as tragic, and futile, as that of Emperor Diocletian, who raged against the Church to no avail.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church.  Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

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RP said:

	... Sovereignty is a precious thing. Once surrendered it is exceeding difficult to regain. People don't know what they have until it is irretrievably lost. Even their own (Italian) courts have been rendered impotent. May this serve as a warning to the United States concerning the UN, NAU, NAFTA, FTAA, and other entangling alliances and treaties. It is already beginning to happen here.
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November 05, 2009
Votes: +5

Kenneth Creech said:

	... We the people have surrendered our sovereignty to "our federal government" and now they claim the "right " to direct our lives any way they see fit. It appears almost too late to redeem ourselves but redeem we must. Do not fail to speak with your neighbors about this tyranny each and every day.
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 05, 2009
Votes: +5

DDW said:

	The pagan secular "Powers" should fear the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the sign of their certain judgment, destruction and eternal doom.
	report abuse vote down vote up

November 05, 2009
Votes: +2

Lorenzorro said:

Way to go . Way to go. This is the most useless way to acknowledge ourselves and our collective ego I've ever seen. Not really but I didn't want you all to think I was insulting you. Wait I think that is just what I'm doing. Wow, what am I suppose to do? I can't stop responding to the collective ignorance of the collective body. Do you really KNOW what you're all responding too? Do you understand that it is over? Your government will respond to you with extreme prejudice and it very well may cost you your life. Remember, and you heard it here first, so MARK MY WORDS, that under the anti hate speech act you will be held to account for your words from here on out and it won't be pretty.

report abuse vote down vote up

November 08, 2009
Votes: +0