Spanish cardinal criticizes ‘Christophobic’ ruling removing crucifixes from schools

Madrid, Spain, Nov 24, 2008 / 20:11 pm

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, the Archbishop of Toledo, on Sunday decried a Spanish judge’s ruling that removed crucifixes from classroom walls. He called it a doomed, “Christophobic” attempt to “impose a new culture” which forgets and denies both God and man.

In the northern city of Valladolid, Judge Alejandro Valentin ordered the Macias Picavea School to remove religious symbols from classrooms and public spaces, arguing that the presence of these symbols in areas where minors are educated can promote the idea that the state is closer to Catholicism than other religions, the Edmonton Journal reports.

His decision came in response to a 2005 request by a parent and a local secular association which argued for the decision on the grounds that the Spanish constitution guarantees "freedom of religion" and ensures the "secular and neutral" character of the state.

Cardinal Cañizares responded to the decision, saying “it is an attempt to impose a new culture, a project of humanity that implies an anthropological and radical vision which changes the vision that constitutes our identity,” an identity Spaniards have received “from our predecessors.”

“Forgetting God is like forgetting and denying man himself, even if we hardly admit it,” the cardinal said, according to SIR. This leads to a “pathological situation” which permits abortion, euthanasia, experimentation on embryos and their exploitation for economic purposes.

He said such phenomena and the decision are not “isolated episodes” but reveal “a Christophobia which is nothing else but hatred for oneself.”

“We are suffering from a real pathology caused by the weakening, or even the destruction, of family which, along with the Church, is seen as an obstacle to be removed in order to impose the new project of man and society which has no future because, at the end, it is a project that destroys him,” Cardinal Cañizares remarked.