Switzerland: A petition for the Cross to remain in schools

A petition of 24,500 signatures was handed on November 4, 2016, to the Federal Chancery so that Christian symbols may be maintained in public places. At the origin of this petition begun in May 2016 is a Swiss Christian association, Der Neue Rütlibund, who wished to respond to “various attempts to banish the Cross from the public sphere.”

The petition requested that “Christian symbols might be maintained or installed without restriction in the public sphere, buildings, schools, and places.” The text also states that if “the State must be religiously neutral,” “the public sphere is not the State: it can and it must be the mirror of our history, impregnated with Christianity, with our identity, our culture, our traditions, our values.”

As La Tribune de Geneve admitted on November 4, 2016, “the place of the crucifix in the public sphere is a recurrent theme in recent years” in Switzerland.

The association Neue Rütlibund has currently around 400 supporters. Its president, Pirmin Müller, is a representative of the UDC (the conservative party) in the Parliament of the canton of Lucerne.

(Sources: kipa-apic – Tribune de Genève – DICI no. 346, 09/12/16)

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