189. Have Italians Forgotten They are Italian?

We cannot forget we are Italians and defend our heritage from those who want to destroy it

Last night I watched an interview on TNE – Padova, of the husband of the woman originally from Finland- just think, there is a blue Cross on her flag- who asked, or better, demanded for the removal of the Crucifix, and stated that he now expects the state, Italy, to implement the EU Court ruling and that the Crucifixes be removed from public places.  Right, so where do we start? The bell tower of St. Mark’s in Venice…?  Just think, their “children” are now adults, 19 and 23.  And even if the Crucifix can no longer cause damage and  “psychological disturbance” to their “children”, he still insists in the removal of the Crucifix.  I consider this as a strong form of provocation, mockery, a slap in the face of Italy, of the Italians and to me personally, given that I am pure red-blooded Italian.

Even if many forget and close an eye on such provocations, let alone mockery, I don’t forget I am Italian and therefore I have every right to say that removing the Crucifix from where it has been even long before Italy came into being as a nation, means taking away a large slice of the cultural heritage from  future generations of Italian people, because for us Italians, like the Irish, it is not possible to separate our faith from everyday life and Italian culture- this is just not negotiable for any reason on earth.

You can’t cut people in two: half state – half church

Only yesterday I read in the papers that a town near here, Cordignano, the headmaster of the local school forbade the children to go to the traditional religious celebration in honour of the dead during the war because three of the children were non-Christian.  And the others, the ones who have been baptized who at the end of their existence hope to be taken away in a coffin by a CONSECRATED priest to a HOLY burial ground must they give up such a hope and stay in the classroom, not practise one’s faith, be defrauded of the cultural heritage of their parents, those of their grandparents and those before them?  What levels have we reached to give up our own Italian identity?

The Church is a part of everyday life of every baptized person

The fact that other religions exist, other cultures in our schools does not mean that the Catholic children have to give up the Crucifix, the Mass, a visit from the local priest, if this is the case it is because someone in charge, for political reasons, want it to be so, not because it is not possible to manage a school where the rights of all cannot be respected.  There are thousands of faiths in Great Britain where I have taught for quite a while, even so one does not take away from one side to give in to the other.  Those who do not want to be subject to the British culture or take part in the celebrations of the Church of England, they do not take part, they do other things.  What does it take for a headmaster of any school here in Italy to place a teacher in charge of giving alternative education during the period where the other children are involved in the religious or cultural activities of one’s country or of the host country?  This goes on in other countries, are we here in Italy quite incapable of undertaking such a simple operation?

In no other country, does the Italian culture dominate, therefore the culture of no other country should dominate or diminish the Italian one.  In no other country would anyone go out of their way to take down the symbols of their religion or culture if there is a Christian present, therefore neither should we do it – it is the others from outside that are teaching us the rules, therefore we too should behave according and adopt them.

The faith is part and parcel of the cultural baggage of the Italian nation

However, one must reflect on the fact that there is out there in the world, groups of well organized societies that would see Europe stripped of her Christian roots.  Today it is the Crucifix that has to go, tomorrow the Mass, in a city in France they even had to abolish Christmas- but it serves them right because they did not fight hard enough to keep it and have allowed that foreigners take over- This is what happens when you allow the anti-clerical, the despots, the extreme leftists take control.  If you don’t want this to happen also in Italy, or in any country for that matter, you have to fight with all your might against such malignity.   

   

We were warned that the Anti-Christ would come- it seems he has well and truly come and taken up residence at the EU Court in Strasburg.

That is why the EU Court wastes tax payers’ money, and an awful lot at that, in futile matters, taking away the human rights of Christians instead of doing something worthwhile.  The EU Court needs to concern itself with the human rights of thousand and thousand of Christians in Holland who cry out that drugs and prostitution be taken off their streets – not for a simple whim – but because their children are the first victims whose life is prematurely snuffed out by such.

  

You can’t defraud future generations of the heritage of  their forefathers

188. The Crucifix: an Offence to Man

The European Court in Strasburg has ruled that the Crucifix is an offence to others not Christian- so we, Christians have to get rid of it!

This came about after someone has complained about the presence of a Crucifix in a classroom and the above is the response given.

 This is a church and a school- so what would they have to do in Africa?

This “offensive” symbol is the strength, comfort and hope of our soldiers.

You can’t destroy the heritage of a nation.

If I am someone who doesn’t want my child to see the Crucifix in a class, I take my child to a school where there are no Crucifixes- I don’t deprive other children who have inherited their precious faith to be without it.  Anyone with any common sense can see the logic in that- anyone but the European Court which has nothing better to do than mess about with the internal affairs of a country’s fundamental cultural inheritance.  All this at our, my expense, that of the tax payer- and the upkeep of the  European Court is extremely expensive.  Why doesn’t the court of Strasburg occupy itself more profitably by dealing with the drugs, prostitution, and illegal immigrant rackets that overcrowd our jails, since more than a third of prisoners are from outside Italy- instead of taking away the Christian/human Rights of Italians?

No country should be forced to give up one’s culture, history, tradition, heritance by the dictates of another- this is not justice, this is not democracy, this is despotism.

 The whole of Italy is full of such “offensive” reminders that the Son of God died on the Cross

The Court of Strasburg has declared that the image of Christ on the Cross is offensive and cannot be displayed as it causes psychological disturbance to others of not the same belief.  In that case I could also place my complaint to the Court because the image of the President of any state which hangs in public places and schools, including that of the Queen of England, must be removed since it causes psychological disturbance as I am not of that political credence! 

The Cross is placed in the centre of town during Holy Week- It should create psychological disturbance to more than a few.

You can’t go anywhere in Italy without bumping into a Christian symbol: churches, spires, bells, crosses, madonnas, saints, cemeteries.  The Cross of Christ in particular can be seen mingling among the aerials and satellite receivers- The whole of Italy is full of such “offensive” reminders that the Son of God died on the Cross, not for His sake or for one particular sector of mankind only. 

We take the Cross around the streets even if it is not Good Friday, we like to be “psychologically disturbed” by it!

Hence if such a sight causes psychological disturbances to some, then why did those people come to Italy where it is renown such is the tradition?  And why do they stay?  Why demand that the people of a particular country give up their heritage when they could well practise whatever other beliefs they have in their own country without breaking the balls of others? 

 

The next thing, Strasburg will be abolishing Christmas Nativity scenes because they too are offensive to some. And this is not a joke- it has already happened in one city in France! Human Rights? There aren’t any for Christians, back to the Dark Ages and Martyrdom it seems.

Look up high in the sky- in Italy you will find the Cross mingling with the aerials and satellite receivers

187. NYERERE: A Leader to be Proud of

An elderly person with one of the Italian Volunteers 

Our Missionary Priest

People do not consider themselves as poor, only those who have no family are poor

TANZANIA on the East coast between Kenya and Mozambique, is of all African States, the most fortunate; not because it does not share the same hardships as drought, lack of food and water but because it has not had to endure the worst of all plagues that afflict Africa, namely, civil war.

 People always give a gift to visitors- this elderly person is giving the Volunteer an implement to dig the earth that he has made himself. In Tazania the men too work, not like in other parts where the women work so men can engage in warfare

It is not by chance or coincidence that this is so, but because one man, one great man willed it so.  The man was the great African leader and the first Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.  He became Tanzania’s first President in 1964 and voluntarily resigning from that office in 1985 at the relatively young age of 63: thus showing that such is the system of democracy and that he was not one to hold on to power at all costs, even at the expense of the lives of their own people which is common practise among most African leaders nowadays.

Water is precious but this is how you are welcomed, by washing your hands

This is the well dug with the funds raised by our parishes

People try to live as near as possible to a water source 

President Nyerere achieved the unity of his people by installing a way of life that was congenial to Africans, that of the ujamaa, or as we call it, the extended family- similar to what they had known as tribes, and would become a kind of village life based on social equals.  However, unlike tribes, being each one separate from the other, therefore causing friction, Nyerere  made it so that people could  integrate in this social setting and become a unity, by imposing a national language, Swahili.  

This is a school and church: The Stations of the Cross are painted on the wall above

The Top Class

School: The blackboard is a bark of wood, exercise books: the sand on the ground

However, coming to the West is to Africans coming to a dream world where all is obtained by magic.  Little are they aware that just as insects cannot survive on a sterile floor of a palace, an immigrant has to find somewhere to live and that costs money- money that he does not have.  He has to eat, clothe himself, travel,  and that costs money, and he can only get money by working.  But as work is scarce and in Italy, almost non-existent, thus, since he cannot insert himself legally in the capitalists rat race world, he ends up selling drugs, knocking old ladies over the head to steal their pensions, setting up prostitution markets... and so on... on to the way of perdition.

Baptism is made when olderConfirmation celebrations

Never mind if the church bell is the metal part of a car wheel

This the Africans must instil in their minds before leaving their country, where, by using the aid given to develop their land, there is a greater chance to feed and get fed and an infinitely much greater chance to love and be loved.  As Nyerene said:

Games

 “a nation which refuses to learn from foreign cultures is nothing but a nation of idiots and lunatics…[but] to learn from other cultures does not mean we should abandon our own.”

Games

Toys are home made

Therefore, by far better and noble thing to do is remain and develop one’s country; not having to surrender self-esteem, pride, honour, and honesty to moral squalor and the eventual prison cell in the West... A reminder, just in case this appears an exaggeration: one third of prisoners in Italy are mainly from Africa.   Don't let this happen to your son.

A baby being weighed at a Clinic

Market once a month for those things that cannot be got in the village

European Volunteers at the market

and the local football team

The Wonders of Africa

Remain FREE- in Africa

Satan does not want the Kingdom to Come

Zimbabwe opens the door to foreign agression

Zimbabwe adding insult to injury

186. 27th International Children Books Illustration

The 27^th International Children Books Illustration Exhibition opened its doors last Saturday at  Sarmede gathering the usual crowd of fans and supporters from various parts of the country.  In my blog last year, see link below, I introduced the people involved in this exhibition, all local people from this village, however I did not introduce the town’s alderman for cultural activities- which I will remedy by posting photo below.

Majer Levis: Alderman (cultural activities)

The Exhibition is held in the Town Hall of the village which has permanent mural illustrations done by the artists at different stages in the formation of this event. 

Such illustrations are also protracted unto the walls around the village.  Sarmede has claim to the title of “The Fairy Tale Village”.

This year’s guest artist EMILIO URBERUAGA from Madrid signs children books he has illustrated. 

This little lady has found someone to talk to

All illustrations are the originals that have been published to illustrate children’s books, some translated in various languages.  We keep a stock of them in our bookstore and are sold during the period of the exhibition which closes on 5 December. 

Alongside the Exhibition we have theatre productions attended by children from a wide spectrum of schools around the area and beyond, which entertain and enlighten children of all ages.  

There are also craft laboratories scattered around the village where children can make objects in keeping with each year’s theme and alternate with the theatre show, thus making it a day’s school outing to remember. 

 The last Sunday of November and the first one of December, the village closes all its entrances and becomes a “Fairy Tale Village” visited by thousands of children and adults alike... Even if it is raining.

Some of this year’s illustrations

This year’s fairy tale village theme is divided into three aspects: Tales & Fables, Environment & Nature, News & Current Affairs. 

114. 26° International Children Books Illustration

Dogs and Cats

E-zine: edition 1&2

185. Raina, The Most Beautiful Queen in the World

Newspapers and television here in Italy are full of pictures of what a great number of Italians deem the most beautiful Queen of the world, Raina of Jordan, who with her husband are in Italy for a state visit. 

Queen Raina is beautiful not just in appearance, even if that is quite striking, but it is her smile that is most captivating, her charm, her gentleness, her elegance which all reveal a tempered and noble spirit which she demonstrates by the continual struggle she has in gaining rights for women and children, not only in her country, but wherever in the world those rights are trodden upon. 

Her charm, her beauty, her elegance would only hide an empty shell if it were not for these remarkable qualities that puts her above the rest of those of her equal, by that I refer to those who are born to a privileged position.  However Raina does not need a crown, a throne, a position to make her noble she is in person so.  Her, thoughts, deeds and manner make her so.  Indeed Raina shines of her own light, but then she has the fortune to have a husband who lets her shine.

When I consider the plight of women in the Islamic world, I shudder.  There are women in that world who in the name of religion are never allowed to show their face even, let alone shine, because their men are brutes and those men, the powerful ones that rule that world make such rules that do not allow their women to shine.  Those laws are such that blots humanity with shame because those laws made wilfully by those men, are brutal and indecent.

In such a world, if a man wants to rid himself of a woman all he has to do is take a short cut, abuse of her, discredit her, invent an accusation of adultery or any form of pretext and at best the woman will be whipped, lashes on a bare torso, and made to live as an outcast in a hovel.  Otherwise she is executed or stoned to death- take your pick.

And then that parliamentary, I wrote about in my last blog, asks us to teach those kind of values in our Italian schools?  God Forbid!  They have already tried to ban the Crucifix from our classrooms.  They will massacre Our Lady next.

Related Articles:

184. Islamic Religion in Italian Schools

 

184. Islamic Religion in Italian Schools?

Our schools have given a kick in the rear to religion.

You can’t deny Christianity to children in schools.

The following images come from Schools where I taught in Great Britain.

What on earth made the right wing MP come up with proposing the teaching of Islamic religion in Italian schools so as to better further integration between people?  Have we really gone right out of our heads?

If thanks to the left wing, by whose hands the majority of the public education system is manoeuvred, has given a kick in the rear to teaching of the catholic faith in our schools up to the point that our kids have no idea who Jesus Christ is, let alone what the Sermon of the Mount is, even less what it means, how can the right wing parliamentary propose that schools should also occupy themselves in teaching a religion which has nothing to do with our natural Christian roots? 

The catholic school of St Alphonsus London where the day began with a prayer.

Some powers that be of the education system have made it so that religion is reduced to an insignificant subject, of little worth, without marks or merit, without obligation to attend, after having stripped teachers of religion the right to allocate a mark thus placing them in an inferior position to other teachers in the same institution.  I ask myself, is this the right to knowledge, by taking it away? I ask myself, is this equality and right to education, by being denied it?

The crucifix or a sacred image is exposed in every catholic classroom in Great Britain. St Andrew’s school, Linwood, Scotland.

The results of all this being that Italian children have been robbed of a basis in religion that in other countries like Great Britain, where I have taught, considers the teaching of religion as one of the main duties of a school be it of Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, or whatever domination, private or state.  Religion is taught as a fundamental and principal subject of the National Curriculum.  But here in Italy, even if there is a school curriculum, who knows of its existence? So one can imagine what state these schools are in.

Hillary Street State School, Walsall, although not a catholic school, there is a place for religion.

Before thinking of teaching other cultures, the Italian school has the duty first to respect the religious origins of this country, which we have inherited from our ancestors.  And then, do we not need to even give a slight glance at the blood spilt by our martyrs so that we could be given this inheritance?

Religion is a fundamental subject in English schools.  I was the drama coordinator with which I integrated  the teaching of religion at this school: St Edmund’s Manchester.

To have the freedom to practise one’s faith is a sacred right of all, but everyone in their own abode.  When the Islamic world starts to teach the catholic faith in their schools, for the better integration of peoples, then we can talk about it.  But until then, there’s a saying here in Italy- get the horse moving as the procession is clotting. (Referring to religious processions which jammed)

Me with the headmistress of St Andrew’s, Linwood, Scotland at the end of term pic-nic

123. NOTES from the TILT-AWHIRL by N.D. Wilson Book Review

When one picks up such a title as I did in selecting to review this book, among many others, I had no idea what to expect, except that being a Thomas Nelson imprint it had to have some kind of value somewhere.  However, there was a clue, I found it in the sub-title “Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World.”

No, it is not something that preaches at you- remember the words “Wide-Eyed Wonder” were part of the sub-title and even though you get the Greek Mythology explained to you in 21^st century language, it is not pedantic.  But that’s not all that is explained to you, you are taken back to your origins and not only but that of the world, the universe and even further back to where there was nothingness, like “a few billion solar systems ago” and “even though I am tiny, I am placed on a stage so vast.” Sheer poetry that stills the voracious ache one has in being torn away from the only Light that brings warmth and reassurance to our inattentive soul.

N.D. Wilson does something I revel in, he uses concepts that soar above our humanity and clothes them with everyday language- Next to the “infinite” you will find he keeps “a shovel for when the haiku falls, a bag of salt to fend off the whispering storms.”  This magical blending of our “insignificant” life of daily living, with the Mysterious, that which we cannot grasp within our hands, becomes a natural spontaneous amalgamation of which we are almost unaware.  

Even though the book ends with Autumn, it has no beginning because it has no end, yet there is that impalpable  life, both past, present and future as in an uninterrupted circular thread that binds the book into a whole entity. Pick it up anywhere, read it at any point, you will remain refreshed, perplexed and charmed by its probing, clarification and wide-eye wonder poetry... you will find life ends where it began and I'm not just 
talking about the book. 
Barnes & Noble - get a copy  

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