Contenuti per la categoria: Laicità e pluralismo

SOMMARIO: 1. La vicenda - 2. Gli argomenti pro e contro l’elezione di un sacerdote a Rettore di una università pubblica - 3. Le incompatibilità dei ministri di culto - 4. La possibile incidenza dei principi riguardanti la c.d. “laïcité d’apparence” - 5. L’intervento dei giudici amministrativi - 6. Conclusioni: l’irrilevanza dell’ordinazione non accompagnata dall’esercizio di funzioni ministeriali.

The election of a Catholic priest as Rector of the University of Strasbourg: “Much ado about nothing”?

ABSTRACT: This study examines the question of compatibility between the principle of neutrality of public services in force in French law and the election of a minister of the Catholic religion as Rector of a public university. The Author rules out the existence of any form of incapacity. However, since the duty of discretion of the public official (“devoir de réserve”) operates even outside the exercise of his functions, it may limit the freedom to exercise pastoral ministry in specific cases, as well as the performance of the most typical tasks that are inherent in the status of minister of worship, due to the inevitable repercussions on the image of the university.

SUMARIO: 1. Introducción - 2. Libertad religiosa y celebración de las festividades religiosas - 3. La neutralidad ideológico-religiosa de los centros educativos públicos - 4. Celebración de festividades religiosas en la escuela de titularidad pública - 4.1. Celebración de festividades que presentan un significado religioso y una tradición cultural - 4.2. La respuesta de los Tribunales de Justicia en materia de celebraciones religiosas - 4.3. Algunas claves para la solución de estos conflictos - 5. Celebración de las festividades religiosas en el horario escolar - 5.1. Marco jurídico de las festividades en el ámbito escolar - 5.2.  Discriminación de los grupos religiosos minoritarios - 6. Consideraciones finales: la acomodación razonable de las creencias religiosas.

Neutrality, diversity and celebration of religious festivities in public schools

Abstract: This paper analyzes some legal conflicts derived from the celebration of religious festivities in ​​the public school. On the one hand, the celebration of certain festivals that, while showing a cultural tradition, at the same time, present a religious meaning, mainly of Christian inspiration. On the other, when permission is requested to celebrate and commemorate such festivities during school hours. Beyond the concrete problem, it is important to start from the position of inclusive neutrality that public authorities must adopt to manage the religious diversity that manifests itself in this specific area and which, in turn, is the best way to guarantee the right of parents to choose the education they wish for their children.

SOMMARIO: 1. Considerazioni introduttive sul fondamentalismo odierno: alcune differenze rispetto ai movimenti omologhi dei decenni precedenti - 2. L’influenza del fondamentalismo sulla demografia religiosa e sul contenzioso giurisdizionale negli Stati Uniti d’America - 3. Il fondamentalismo americano protestante e le omologhe istanze etiche e giuridiche di gruppi religiosi contemporanei - 4. La Chiesa di Gesù Cristo dei Santi degli Ultimi Giorni: le origini di una protesta contro la teologia ottocentesca - 5. L’escatologia teocratica dei Testimoni di Geova e le conseguenze ordinamentali - 6. Possibili conclusioni: il ruolo del fondamentalismo cristiano nella conformazione attuale delle istituzioni statunitensi.

The origins of the Christian fundamentalism: comparative approaches and research perspectives

ABSTRACT: The aim of this essay is to demonstrate the Christian roots of the public discourse concerning fundamentalism, its disciplines, groups and legal consequences. This issue implies to go back to the first Christian fundamentalist experiences born and raised during last two centuries in America (with a peculiar focus on the United States). By reconsidering a wide historical period and a not simple variety of local religious communities, it will be possible to underline a substantial and concurrent beginning for similar movements in the progressive development of Jehovah’s Witnesses, new wave Lutheran and Baptist Churches, Church of Latter Day Saints: some of the same faiths and cults still effecting the American recent ecclesiastical controversies.

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa metodologica - 2. Cenni storici sulle comunità musulmane francesi - 3. La re-invenzione di una tradizione? - 4. Mangiare halal a scuola: l’affaire di Chalon-sur-Saône - 5. Conclusioni.

Halal alimentation and the challenges against french laïcité: the request of alternative menu in the school canteens

ABSTRACT: The article will concern the debate about the balance between secularism and religious-driven prerogatives through a narrow focus on the diffusion of halal food in France. In particular, I will shed light on the increasing request of shari'a-compliant food by Muslims in some social spaces, for instance in the school canteens. My research will unfold its arguments in two sections. In the first one, I will address the recent development of halal market in France and try to frame the reasons of such burgeoning activities - revival of Islam or neoliberal marketing strategy? In the second part, I will consider the sentence of Dijon Administrative Tribunal, which in 2017 abolished the decision of the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saône of suppressing halal menu in the school canteens. The verdict might be read as an opinion favourable to Muslim’s prerogatives. Nonetheless, the rationale of the judgement does lie indeed in the defence of the “best interest of the child”, whereas the basic principles of French laicité were not put into discussion.

SOMMARIO: 1. Breve premessa - 2. L’ininterrotto dialogo tra il Governo e le comunità islamiche italiane - 3. Il “Patto di condivisione” della Città di Torino e il “Patto nazionale per un Islam italiano” - 4. L’Italia e le misure di contrasto al terrorismo - 5. Conclusione.

The relationship with Italian Islam: from the proposals of ‘Intesa’ to the ‘Patto nazionale

ABSTRACT: According to statistics, Muslims living in Italy are currently just over 1.6 million. However, despite this significant presence of Muslims on the national territory, the vast world of Islamic associations has not yet managed to sign an Intesa, an agreement that religious minorities can establish to regulate their relations with the Italian state. The reasons why Islam does not have an agreement are mainly two: the absence of an authoritative subject, representative of Italian Islam, able to act as an interlocutor with state institutions and the incompatibility between Islamic cultural values and those of a secular state. Nevertheless, covering all the stages of dialogue between the Italian government and the Islamic associations from the nineties until the conclusion of the Patto nazionale (2017), this work aims to show that the condition of legal vacuum depends on unfounded prejudices towards Islamic culture and on the lack of political will to come to terms with Islam.

SUMARIO: 1. Planteamiento de la cuestión - 2. El catolicismo-nacionalista de ciertos símbolos evocadores de lo religioso - 3. ¿Los símbolos religioso-franquistas pueden permanecer en ámbitos públicos? - 3.1. Supuesto en que el símbolo religioso no ha de tenerse por vestigio franquista - 3.2. Supuesto en que el símbolo ha de tenerse por vestigio franquista - 4. Consideraciones conclusivas.

ABSTRACT: The present article argues if, under the interpretation and application of the so-called Historical Memory Law, Franco’s regimen would have set the basis to divest itself as part of the Catholicism that characterized it, in terms of having some symbols that originally would have been considered religious and now they cease to be so, historically and inevitably, at least in a retrospective point of view. In other terms, for the current time to impose a type of victim, although final of Franco’s regimen in the manner of, as a paradox, for some religious symbols to cease to be, without any other possibility for its political use as far as ‘semel francoist semper francoist’ can no longer recover that religious value. This matter, whether it refers, principally to the “Cruces de los Caídos” it can also be argued for it to attain the crucifix and the Virgin Mary located in public places by order of the dictatorial regimen.

SOMMARIO: 1. Le possibili implicazioni religiose di una “stretta di mano” - 2. Il caso sottoposto all’esame dei giudici svedesi - 3. La pronunzia del 15 agosto 2018, n. 51, del Tribunale del lavoro svedese e la questione della ricorrenza di una “pratica religiosa” meritevole di tutela - 4. (segue) La verifica dei presupposti di una “discriminazione indiretta” - 5. L’esperienza d’Oltreoceano - 6. Identità religiosa e (dis)uguaglianza di genere - 7. La diversa incidenza, nella fattispecie esaminata, del divieto di discriminazione per motivi religiosi e del principio della parità di genere - 8. Conclusioni: la libertà religiosa della lavoratrice e i margini lasciati alle scelte di politica aziendale della società.

Dealing with the contentious points of the integration (about “forbidden” greetings and principle of non-discrimination)

ABSTRACT: Some Islamic believers adhere to a rule of behavior coming from a particular reading of the traditions concerning the life of Muhammad, so they do not shake hands with people of the other sex outside their own restricted family circle. The present paper analyzes the potential impact of such a choice, if it is carried out in the work context and it infringes specific internal company rules, which require employees to not discriminate against customers on the basis of sex. The Author, in accordance with a recent decision of the Swedish Labor Court, affirms that the limitation of the freedom of the worker can be considered a case of indirect discrimination for religious reasons. However, demanding that the woman abstains from shaking hands with persons of her own sex, as suggested by the Court, is not required by the principle of gender equality, and is not coherent with the very personal nature of the act, according to the Author.

SUMMARY: 1. Introduction - 2. The Vertical and Horizontal Influences - 3. Atheism, laïcité and Church - 4. Atheism, laïcité and Islam - 5. Today’s Popular Sources of Atheism - 6. Conclusion.

ABSTRACT: With this article, the Author outlines the legal issues involving the atheism in France, analysing them in the light of the principle of laïcité. France has a long history of criticism of religion. Many philosophes of the Enlightenment, for example, have provided the classical writings in this field. In this sense, they were able to aliment two major streams of thought of the magmatic French atheism: one is based on the horizontal influences arising from the effect of increasing worldwide travel with the discovery that people do not necessary share the same views and beliefs about the nature of human being; the other is centred on vertical arguments bubbling up from the past in a very form of scepticism and realism. With its multi-faceted and articulated view, the French atheism has also been promoted by a number of movements devoted to arguing the case for non-belief and for its political expression in laïcité. In this manner, the Author tries to demonstrate that, since the Great Revolution and during the long history of the French constitutional system, laïcité de combat and atheism has been influencing each other in a constantly shifting process of mutual adaptation.

Summary: 1. Introduction - 2. Constitutional project of ecclesiastical politics and cultural resistance to a correct interpretation of the fundamental provisions of freedom - 3. Secularity of the legal system, religious pluralism and human freedoms.

ABSTRACT: The problems that derive from the growing multicultural and multi-religious characterization of our society raise a number of questions regarding the difficulties encountered in identifying rules of coexistence that could be genuinely respectful of the ideal and spiritual dimension of the human person. In particular, it is in question the ability of the system of bilateral agreements between the State and the religious organizations to really enhance the individual religiosity, which is constitutionally protected in its instrumentality for the promotion and growth of the human being. Several doubts also concern the discretionary and political selection, exercised by public authorities, of religious organizations deserving an access to bilateral regulation of relationships. In a more and more plural and heterogeneous social reality, the exclusion from the special legislation of the newly established spiritual groups in the country does not seem to be respectful of a neutral and correct interpretation of the constitutional dictate.

SUMMARY: 1. Introduction - 2. The meaning of State neutrality: some conceptual clarifications - 3. State’s neutrality vis-à-vis religious organizations: neutrality as absence of interference - 4. State’s neutrality vis-à-vis public education: neutrality as objectivity - 5. State neutrality vis-à-vis religious symbols in the public sphere: neutrality as exclusion of religion - 6. ‘Reversed’ patters of neutrality: the disruptive effect of Lautsi v. Italy - 7. Concluding remarks: decoding the patterns of State neutrality in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.

ABSTRACT: This contribution discusses the notion of State neutrality in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. State neutrality has become increasingly relevant in the rulings of the ECtHR concerning religious freedom, with the Court explicitly resorting to the idea that States should act as neutral and impartial organizers of religious life within their community. Yet, the conception of State neutrality developed by the Court is inconsistent and often gives rise to criticism. By exploring the Court’s main jurisprudence in the context of religious disputes, religious education in public education, and the display of religious symbols in public spaces, this contribution seeks to disentangle the different understandings of neutrality employed by the Court and to critically engage with them.