EU bishops discuss crucifixes ruling

The controversial European Court of Human Rights ruling banning crucifixes from Italian classrooms was on the agenda of a plenary session of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community that ended yesterday.

Gozo Bishop Mario Grech, who was present, said one of the central themes of the session was article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty laying down that there should be dialogue between the EU and religious communities.

The commission also analysed a controversial sentence given by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, detailing which subjects formed part of the national identity and which therefore the EU had no business interfering with.