The tortured Christ unsettles children

Crucifixes do not belong in classrooms because the image of a man being tortured is unsettling for children, writes the daily The Malta Independent: "Crucifixes ... are a hangover from pre-literate society when people needed such aids to devotion because they couldn't read and couldn't imagine anything which wasn't interpreted for them visually. They are, essentially, a portrayal of torture and murder and as such have no place in rooms where children are exposed to them. Most children are incapable of understanding abstract concepts and the idea of a symbol, and will see a crucifix with startling clarity for what it is: a bleeding and cruelly beaten man nailed to a piece of wood. It makes no difference to them that he is Christ. He is still a man, in the shape of a man."

» full article (external link, English)
More from the press review on the subject » Public Culture, » Religion, » Italy, » Malta