Religious sophism

Living a life of an informed citizen, one becomes critical. Especially, when the surrounding consists of political mischief and debates which hold little valid arguments. Therefore one of my favourite publications is the Slovak magazine ".týžden" - probably derived its content including its layout from the American periodical Newsweek. Enjoying every week critical and though-inspiring comments, I eagerly follow the RSS feeds.

Not that I find time to read all of them; admittedly, I accumulate more than approximately one thousand feeds in a few hours, so I have to be selective. One headline I initially left aside; a reaction on the European court ruling, that public schools should dispose of their crucifixes. A matter, which one would tend to ignore in the early 21st century one would say. Yet I decided to have a closer look, as religious debates are still - more or less - one of my interests. 

The author Jaroslav Daniška, comments on this very Italian matter. Is there a connection to Slovakia? The fact that Berlusconi began to feel the hot breath in his neck since the court decided to lift his imunity was an issue completely ignored in the Slovak media (would it be too uncomfortable, probably even resulting in a precedent for the present cleptocratic coalition?), this has become important feature. Why?

Let's be fair; to a degree it can be understood, that a measure, which has repercussions to some centuries-old Catholic practices, is attracting some attention abroad as well. But, in all objectiveness, the verdict stipulates (as far as I am aware) that religious symbols - i.e. the crucifixes - are to be banned and this pertains to public schools - and public schools only.

What the author started in his (video) blog, is a correct identification of the aforementioned fact. But them he slips into a dangerous argumentation: He labels this prohibition being equally to the ban of religion from public life as during the totalitarian (communist) era. His pleading is somewhat pathetique as the reasoning and comparison is way off appropriate.

First of all; perhaps Rome may be both capital of Italy and the centre of Roman Catholicism, there is no valid argument to proclaim, that Italy is per sé a country which deserves Catholic symbols everywhere. Whether you like it or not, even in Italy, there are enough people who are of perhaps Jewish, protestant, islamic, Sikh or for the sake of it, atheist background. Must every parent, from a different denomination be forced to be confronted with Roman Catholic symbols, just because he or she happens to live in bella Italia??? Come off sir! We are past way beyond the Inquisition era, and we have a freedom of religion. In case you stick to your religious symbols and rites, I wish you all the freedom to do so, and therefore you can enroll in Catholic schools, of which you will be able to find more than enough around there. 

Somehow I get allergy rashes by this type of unjustified religious whining. To avoid misunderstanding, I am very open to other thoughts, and in my eyes, everybody has all the right and space to practice his or her believes - provided I have also my space. Peace to them all. But, labelling the said (in my view a fair and tolerant) court ruling as being an attack to Italian Roman Catholicism, religion in general and comparing it to communism from the past is a very ludicrous and poor debating level. It's no more than pure sophism. Maybe Slovaks are perhaps still overly happy with their freedom of religion, which they regained only since 1989 and thus sensitive to anything related to Catholicism. Don't make it however into a pathetic crusade and indirectly offending other religious minorities. This is unworthy of your magazine, and somewhat a disappointment in your quality. Or is it a confirmation, that you are far from ready to be an open society after all? Let's hope not. I consider it still a faux pas - at least a slip of the tongue - giving a wrong signal, and hopefully it will not be repeated again. 

MS