Raffaele Carcano

he Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (UAAR) is the only Italian association dedicated to the rights of the non-religious and the promotion of a secular worldview. Created in 1986, it seeks to defend the rights of non-believers and push the Italian state toward more secular practices.

Though the Lateran Treaty governing ties between Italy and the Roman Catholic Church was amended in 1984 to eliminate Catholicism as the country's "sole" religion, teaching the faith in public schools continues, as does the honoring of Catholic holidays.

Raffaele Carcano,

"While Italy is secular, it offers privileges to a specific religious faiths," says Raffaele Carcano, who heads the UAAR. "There's also an uneven media approach: TV, radio, and printed emphasize the pope's every word, while the opinions of atheists and agnostics are given no space ... or heavily stigmatized by culture."

The UAAR stages ongoing events such as Debaptism Day (for baptized Catholics who wish to legally separate themselves from the Catholic Church) and Darwin Day (a celebration of science and reason).

The UAAR pushed for the removal of crucifixes from public classrooms, a position eventually backed by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In November 2009, the court ruled that the presence of the crucifix in state-run schools violated the religious and educational freedom of children.

As Italians make their non-believing views public in increasing numbers, traditionalist backlash grows. After the Strasbourg verdict, major politicians including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and rightist Ignazio La Russa assailed the growing separation between church and state.

Pope Benedict XVI regularly admonishes non-believers, suggesting faithlessness represents "loss of dignity" and labeling atheists as "alienated from themselves." British Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in a defamatory video since removed from YouTube, went so far as to assert "atheists are not fully human."

Expressing dissent isn't always easy in Italy.

Early in 2009, the UAAR decided on ad campaign calling for several Genoa city buses to carry a poster that read, "La cattiva notizia è che Dio non esiste. Quella buona è che non ne hai bisogno." ("The bad news is that there is no God. The good news is that you don't need one."). The campaign was similar to one successfully promoted by secularist groups in Britain and Spain. But Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the Archbishop of Genoa and president of the Italian Catholic Episcopal Council, warned that the wording risked "wounding religious sensibilities." Soon after, the ad agency that had agreed to run the campaign rescinded its approval.

The UAAR changed the slogan to read "La buona notizia è che anche Zeus non esiste. Quella cattiva, è che solo di Zeus puoi dirlo" ("The good news is that Zeus doesn't exist. The bad news is that you can only say this about Zeus."), but the second version was also rejected because it contained a sign-off that read: "UAAR, free not to believe in God."

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.

The UAAR finally returned to the original "there is no God" theme as a part of full-page ad campaign that ran in national newspapers in May. Within weeks, a Catholic group plastered parts of Rome with a poster reading "God exists, and even atheists know it."

"Consider that [in Italy] contempt of religion is a criminal offense, but the opposite is not," says Carcano. "The same company that prints the billboards with the phrase 'God exists' won't publish them with the phrase 'God doesn't exist.'"

Carcano, co-author with Adele Orioli of Uscire dal Gregge ("Leaving the Flock"), published in 2008 by Luca Sossella Editore, spoke to Marc Di Martino. The UAAR is online in Italian.

Why should crucifixes be taken down from the walls of Italian public schools? What harm do they do?

They don't harm anyone but they have no place in classrooms. Similarly, the symbols of political parties have no place. Public buildings are for everyone. They shouldn't be branded with the symbols of one part of the population. The walls of public classrooms should have maps, historical charts, study materials.

How does a crucifix help students learn? If religion, as the Vatican says, is an integral part of Italian culture, it reveals itself anyway through the students' creative outlets.

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