Franco Frattini, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, keeps piping up about the “right” to display the crucifix in Italian public schools. He’s bristling over the Strasbourg Court’s hearings; soon they will have to make a decision over whether or not the crucifix can be legally affixed to the wall in public classrooms in Italy.

There are almost no politicians in Italy willing to stand up to the Church on this one (surprise, surprise). Left or right, it makes amost no difference. In fact, it was the State that appealed to Strasbourg after the court had decided that crucifixes were unlawful. The State doing the bidding of the Church. All in the name of brainwashing its own children from the time they are old enough to get an education.

Italians have broadly failed – and their representatives most miserably of all – to understand the principles of secularism. They want that label on their constitution, but are frightened to follow it up in practice. The pope gets angry and stamps his foot and frowns. And they, in parliament, are his subjects.