By Jon BrownChristian Post Reporter Saturday, December 23, 2023

A bill introduced in the Italian Senate this week by members of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's political party would punish teachers in the country who ban Nativity scenes to avoid offending non-Christians.

Members of Italy's Brothers party proposed a draft law Wednesday that would subject school principals to fines or other disciplinary measures if they remove Nativity scenes regardless of whether parents or students request it, according to The Times of London.

The bill, which was presented by Italian senator Lavinia Mennuni, stipulates that banning Nativity displays in Italian schools “discriminates” against Catholics and represents “an attack against the deepest values ​​and traditions of our people”.

Mennuni said that for years, she witnessed “embarrassing and unacceptable decisions by some schools to ban Nativity scenes, or to turn Christmas into an unlikely winter festival to avoid offending practitioners of other religions.”

She asserted that the law “is absolutely essential to protect and to protect [Italy’s] cultural roots, which is exemplified by the Nativity scene”, according to The Guardian.

The bill slams attempts to rebrand Christmas as a non-sectarian winter festival, which it described as “without any historical and cultural commemorative context pertaining to our nation and which, lacking any ethical content, is destined to assume a purely hedonistic-consumerist connotation.”

The proposed law was met with pushback from some people who accused Meloni and the Brothers of Italy party of weaponizing religion for political purposes.

“As punctual as a Swiss watch, during Christmas the right-wing proposals to protect Italian Christian traditions return,” said Riccardo Magi, who serves as secretary of the progressive Più Europa party.

Meloni, an outspoken Catholic, was elected in 2022 on a platform of defending Italy's traditional culture and national identity amid a centralized European government and an increase in illegal immigration.

Invoking the Holy Family to support his point, Magi claimed that the proposed law is loaded with “hypocrisy, bordering on blasphemy”, and framed it in the context of Meloni's allegedly anti-immigrant policies.

“[This is] the same right wing, led by Giorgia Meloni, for which today, the Holy Family fleeing persecution will probably end up in a detention center, perhaps in Albania, waiting to find out from some judge in Italy, whether or not they are worth setting up. foot on Italian territory,” Magi said.

Last month, Meloni's government reached an agreement with Albania to build two centers by next spring to house up to 3,000 of the many asylum seekers trying to come to Italy while they await their processing.

Veronica Migani, who works as a principal at a school in Bergamo, implied that the bill was unnecessary and that she had not encountered any controversy over Nativity Scenes, despite having an ethnically diverse student body.

“We've never had any problems — in our school we have a Christmas tree, crucifixes and no one has ever had a problem,” she claimed. “We also respect Ramadan.”

Antonello Giannelli, who is a member of Italy's head teachers' association, also criticized the bill, saying “Anything related to a country's culture and its religion cannot be imposed by law.”