From the September-December 2010 Issue
OUR AMAZING GOD'S SENSE OF HUMOUR
Stefano and Jenny Mariotti
Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision (Psalm 2:1-4)._
In recent days Italy has been shaken by “religious pride”. It all began when, towards the end of 2009, the European Court supported the appeal of an Italian lady, a member of the Atheist and Agnostic Union (even in “Catholic Italy” we do have such things…), who asked the school attended by her children to remove the crucifix. The “educational role of the crucifix” in schools, tribunals and public offices is a royal decree still in force from the early 1920s when Italy was still a kingdom. The EU sentenced the Italian government to pay compensation to the lady’s family and to remove the crucifix from all schools, since its presence would violate parents’ rights to educate their children after their own convictions and the religious freedom of the pupils themselves.
The Vatican instantly condemned Strasbourg’s blindness and, ironically, its limiting of Italians’ religious freedom to have crucifixes wherever they like (obviously for the Vatican every Italian is Catholic). The Italian Minister for Education, immediately appealed against this sentence on behalf of the Berlusconi government. Suddenly everyone was proud of being Christian (meaning Catholic) and supportive of having crucifixes in classrooms to educate children in the morality of the “Church”…
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
In Italy RE is taught only by Catholic teachers who have been approved by local bishops. In high schools it is an optional module and, due to a law brought into being as a result of a request by a group of associations including the Italian Evangelical Alliance, the marks students gained in this module did not count towards their final overall mark. As a result many students opted not to do RE and to have an hour “free” instead. In May, however, the Minister for Education proudly announced that the theoretically secular government had won an appeal, this time against the Italian Court itself. They had been able to overturn this law and as a result, although RE will remain optional, if a student opts to do it they will get an extra mark at the end of the year. This means that a lot more students will now take RE because they will be rewarded for their desire to know about the Christian (still meaning Catholic) traditions underlying Italian culture…
OPPORTUNITY FOR THE GOSPEL
However, despite this picture, Italy too has been impacted by the pluralist mindset of these days, and, theoretically, public schools should teach the broad values of religions. So, for the first time this year, in connection with Youth for Christ, we were able to enter two of the main high schools in Bologna to give lessons on the 5 Solas of the Reformation. In a high school in San Lazzaro, we met an RE teacher who was enthusiastic about the way we interacted with students, challenging their convictions and encouraging them to read the Word of God for themselves. Some of them commented that no one had ever presented Christ and his work on the cross in such a way before. So we were able to submit to Paolo, an RE teacher, a project for running Christianity Explored classes (just this year IFES has published Christianity Explored in Italian). He liked the book and the idea! So please do pray that this project will come to fruition, and for Stefano who, next year, will teach once a month in a class of twenty 16-17 year-olds!
As you can see, in these months we have appreciated once again our amazing God’s sense of humour! Before the pluralistic mindset it would have been practically impossible for an Evangelical to enter a school in Italy, and before the last change in the assessment system, not many students were taking RE modules. So you can see that not only does our God laugh at all the attempts of the rulers of this world to undermine His Word with the pluralistic effort to lessen the Christian message and the endeavour of the Catholic Church to promote religious formalism, but actually He turns their efforts against themselves, using them to make new ways for His Word to reach into this world! So we can really agree with the Psalmist that “Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2:12).