Italian freethinkers have welcomed a court ruling that requires public schools to provide alternatives to Catholic classes on religion. The Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR), an IHEU member organization, provided financial and legal support for the case brought by the parents of a child attending a state primary school in Padua.

While her classmates were in their religion class (a course that focuses on teaching the Catholic religion), the child was at first required to remain in the classroom, even if she did not participate. Later she was told to spend the hour with school mates in another class, studying whatever was being taught during that period.

According to the court in Padua, the creation of alternatives to the course on religion is not an option but an obligation and the child in question was being subjected to two forms of discrimination: “the exercise of her right to education and the exercise of her right to religious freedom” were both being interfered with. Finding the school and the Italian Minister of Public Instruction guilty of “illegitimate and discriminatory practices,” the court imposed a fine of 1,500 euros.

“Just after the case involving crucifixes in the classrooms, another important legal victory has been won by UAAR, which threw its support behind this case, contributing both financially and with legal advice,” the general secretary of UAAR, Raffaele Carcano, affirmed. “We are only sorry that, in the pursuit of our goal of transforming this country into a genuinely secular society, it has been necessary yet again to seek redress through the courts.”