The leader of the Italian Jewish community has called for public displays of crucifixes to be outlawed.

In a statement released last week, Amos Luzzatto, Chair of the Italian Union of Jewish Communities (UCEI) spoke out against the symbols as irreflective of all members of society.

"We do respect the Christian people,” Luzzato said. “But a symbol of divine presence in a public school should be recognisable by the citizens of all faiths and it should address them all in an equal manner.
“Now, since every school hosts citizens with different beliefs or no belief at all, we should rather avoid displaying any symbol".

Silence broken

The new declaration broke the August quiet of Italian politics and followed Pope Benedict XVI’s homily on Assumption of the Virgin Day, August 15.

From his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, a village on a hill close to Rome, the Pope said that it is important to continuously display the divine presence "through the cross symbol in privates homes as well as in public buildings".

Since the revision of the 1929 Lateran Pacts of between Italy and the Holy See in 1984, the issue of displaying the crucifix in public buildings such as schools, hospitals and law-courts has been controversial and the subject of much debate.

In 2000, the Court of Cassation ruled as illegitimate the presence of the crucifix in polling stations. And, in its court order four year later, the Italian Constitutional Court, recognised that "The mandatory display of the Crucifix in classrooms would violate the state’s duty of equidistance with respect to different faiths and would contradict the need for a neutral public space".

However, the Court has somehow delegated the local authorities to decide whether to display the cross or not.

Rabbi reacts

Rome’s Chief Rabbi Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, reacted with detachment to the situation.

He declared to the press: "I think there’s absolutely no new official position of the Church on the issue" he declared. 

"It is important that the Pope underlined the religious aspect of the symbol. Benedict XVI is a Pope who talks very openly. In the previous polemics some were defending the idea that the crucifix is a cultural symbol (of the Western world); it is clearly not the case and we must take note of this clarification," Di Segni added.