Italy drafts law to ‘safeguard’ school nativity scenes
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Italy’s ruling far-right party has identified a new battleground in its war to protect the country’s “cultural roots”: the school nativity scene.
A draft law proposed by the Brothers of Italy party (FdI) seeks to clamp down on schools that hold general celebrations in the holiday season thereby acknowledging the growing diversity of Italy’s classrooms.
“For some years now we have witnessed unacceptable and embarrassing decisions by some schools that ban nativity scenes or modify the deep essence of Christmas by transforming it into improbable winter festivities so as not to offend believers of other religions,” said Lavinia Mennuni, an FdI senator and primary signatory of the proposed bill.
According to the party, which is led by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the move “is absolutely essential to safeguard and protect [Italy’s] cultural roots, which are exemplified by the nativity scene”. If passed the new legislation would mean headteachers who continued to remove nativity scenes would face disciplinary measures.
The proposal was immediately attacked by opposition parties, who described it as yet another attempt by Meloni’s party to exploit religion for political purposes.
Meloni’s rise to power has been marked by frequent references to religion and Christian identity, telling supporters on the campaign trail in 2019: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian. No one will take that away from me.”
This not the first time that her party has proposed a law aimed at safeguarding the Catholic religion. Last summer, FdI prepared a draft law intended to ban Muslim prayer spaces outside of mosques, and aimed to prohibit the use of garages and industrial warehouses as mosques.
The proposed nativity scene bill bemoans the “absolutely unacceptable” decision of some schools to rebrand Christmas as a winter festival. This has, it claims, led to “a festival devoid of any historical and cultural commemorative context pertaining to our nation and which, lacking any ethical content, is destined to assume a purely hedonistic-consumeristic connotation”.
In these last days there has been controversy in Italy regarding public nativity scenes incorporating either two St Josephs or two Marys as parents of Jesus Christ.
