What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

From a reader:

Dear Father Z:

My thirteen year old daughter asked me how to use a word in a sentence.  She was seeking to complete an assignment she had been given in her 8th grade English class at a Massachusetts public school.  The following are the words for the week:

cauterized
surreptitious
ineffable
congregate
mediocre
pith

As luck would have it, she asked me to use "ineffable" in a sentence.

Use them all in a sentence!

In honor of B. Trautman.

Sadly I must walk past my favorite Chinese spot in NYC … without stopping.

Tonight, 6 November, at 6:30 pm, at Guardian Angels Church (193 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street) there will be sung a Solemn Requiem Mass.

The sacred ministers will be Fr. Gerald Murray, Pastor of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, as deacon and Mr. Brian Graebe, seminarian for the New York Archdiocese, as subdeacon. Your humble correspondent is celebrant for the Mass.

I am told there is to be very good sacred music for the Mass. 

On CNS I read this great line:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops dismissed the House Democrats’ plan to try to isolate funding for abortion in the health care bill as a “money-laundering system” that would do nothing to stop federal funding of abortion, an issue that could potentially derail health care reform.

 

Pro-Abortion Catholic Speaker Pelosi’s bill is like money laundering for tax-payer funded elective abortion.

Here is some interesting news from Catholic News Service:

No Deal: Pro-Life Democrat Still Vowing to Kill Health Care Bill
Thursday, November 05, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus.
(CNSNews.com)  – Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday he has not reached an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, [the pro-abortion Catholic Nancy Pelosi] and therefore he and dozens of pro-life Democrats are still poised to kill the House health care bill.

Stupak has organized a group of about 40 Democrats who are committed to killing the health care bill if [pro-abortion Catholic] Pelosi (D.-Calif.) does not allow them a straight up-or-down vote on an amendment that would prohibit federal dollars from paying for any part of any health insurance plan that covers abortions.

Stupak and his approximately 40 allies plan to vote against the special "rule" that would govern the terms of the House floor debate on the health care bill. If this rule does not win a majority vote, the House cannot proceed to consideration of the bill itself.

Stupak has said he believes he has enough votes to defeat the rule if [pro-abortion Catholic] Speaker Pelosi does not relent.  The vote on the rule is likey to occur late Friday afternoon or Friday evening.

“I will continue to oppose, and will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose, bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until there is satisfactory language to prevent public funding for abortion,” Stupak told CNSNews.com in a statement on Thursday.

A senior aide in Stupak’s office told CNSNews.com, “Right now, the group of those pro-life Dems are holding together pretty well. The coalition is standing strong behind Congressman Stupak.” The group is committed to killing the bill if the Stupak amendment is not allowed a vote, the aide said.

[...]
 

Read the rest there.

In the meantime, also on CNS we read:

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said he supports an amendment to the health care bill that would prohibit federal funds from paying for abortions through the bill, but he also said he is not drawing any "lines in the sand” on the issue.

 

It is good to know who is who.

My friend John Allen, the nearly ubiquitous fair-minded columnist of the sadly ultra-liberal National Catholic Reporter has good analysis in his regular Friday piece.   Let’s have a look with my emphases and comments.

 

Benedict’s ongoing battle against secularism
by John L Allen Jr on Nov. 06, 2009


Much has been made lately [by liberals] of Pope Benedict XVI’s apparent lenience for "cafeteria Catholicism" on the right. Two developments have fed the perception: talks between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, the "Lefebvrites," who broke with Rome in protest of liberalizing currents after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65); and new structures to allow Anglicans to become Catholic while preserving their heritage, with the most likely takers being conservative Anglicans opposed to homosexuality and women’s ordination.  [These are both nightmare scenarios for liberals.]

Though it’s not clear how many Lefebvrites or Anglicans will walk through the doors Rome has tried to open, the effect on both fronts will be to inject new pockets of traditionalist believers into the Catholic circulatory system.

What’s the underlying logic for such moves? While it may at first blush seem unrelated, [Allen makes a good connection here…] a controversial decision on Tuesday by the European Court of Human Rights, which held that displaying crucifixes in Italian public school classrooms violates freedom of conscience, can help provide some context.

In effect, Benedict’s outreach to Lefebvrites and dissident Anglicans forms part of a trend I’ve described as "evangelical Catholicism." One cornerstone is to reassert markers of Catholic distinctiveness  [good phrase] – such as Mass in Latin, and traditional moral teaching – as a means of ensuring that the church is not assimilated to secularism. At the policy-setting level of the church today, this defense of Catholic identity is job number one.  [Mr. Allen is right.  Pope Benedict has some goal for this pontificate.  If we are going to fight the dictatorship of relativism, we need a strong Catholic identity.  If we are going to evangelize, we need a strong Catholic identity.  If we are going to engage in true ecumenism, we need a strong Catholic identity.  Liturgy is the key component in his "Marshall Plan" for the Church.  Remember what the Marshall Plan was supposed to promote.  The parallel for the Church is clear.]

Historically, "evangelical Catholicism" is a creative impulse rather than something purely defensive, with roots in the papacy of Leo XIII in the late 19th century and his effort to bring a renewed Catholic tradition to bear on social and political life. [so that we, as Catholics, have an influence in the public square.] Nevertheless, fear that secularism may erode the faith from within is also a powerful current propelling evangelical Catholicism forward.

To over-simplify a bit, Benedict XVI is opening the door to the Lefebvrites and to traditionalist Anglicans in part because whatever else they may be, they are among the Christians least prone to end up, in the memorable phrase of Jacques Maritain, "kneeling before the world," meaning sold out to secularism.  [Not to mention the fact that they are Christians who are separated from clear unity with the Church.  Pope Benedict stresses the importance of his role as Pope as being one of promoting unity.  It is not just that they a Christians who tend to agree with him.  They are separated.  He is trying to reintegrate them.]

At this stage, some critics may be tempted to ask if the cure is perhaps worse than the disease—in other words, if secularism is really so bad.

Benedict XVI himself has talked about a "healthy secularism," which involves the separation of church and state and recognition of the essentially lay character of politics. Evangelical Catholics such as the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris actually see this kind of secularism as a precondition for authentic faith, because it forces Christianity to be a personal choice, rather than something imbibed from religiously homogenous cultures where faith and practice are buttressed by the state.

"We’re really at the dawn of Christianity," Lustiger used to say of the transition to a secular world.

Yet that’s not the perception of secularism that tends to drive the ecclesiastical train these days, especially in Europe. At senior levels of the church, there’s a growing conviction that a tipping point has been reached—that Western secularization is crossing the line from neutrality to outright hostility, toward religion in general and Catholicism in particular. Cardinal Renato Martino, the former President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, put things this way: "It looks like a new Inquisition. It is a lay Inquisition, but it is so nasty. You can freely insult and attack Catholics, and nobody will say anything."

All of which brings us back to the stunner this week from the European Court of Human Rights.

The court, based in Strasbourg, issued its ruling in response to a petition from an Italian woman [Finish woman] named Soile Lautsi, who lives near Padua and who claimed that having crucifixes in the public school classrooms attended by her two children violates the church/state separation provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court agreed, awarding Lautsi 5,000 euros (roughly $7,400) in damages.

The court did not order Italian schools to remove the crucifixes, in part because under European law it had no authority to do so. Lautsi had tried and failed to press the issue in Italian courts, which rejected her claim on the basis that crucifixes are symbols of Italy’s national identity.

The Vatican was predictably dismayed. Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, issued a statement greeting the ruling with "astonishment and sorrow." Lombardi decried the effort to "cast out of the educational world a fundamental sign of the importance of religious values in Italian history and culture."

It’s tough not to regard the ruling as a way for European judges to grind an axe, since whatever else it may mean, it certainly does not augur the end of crucifixes in Italian classrooms. Italian authorities have said they will appeal, [What’s wrong with that statement….] and politicians of the left, right and center tripped over one another denouncing the ruling. Polls have consistently showed overwhelming public support for leaving the crucifixes in place.

"No one, and certainly not an ideological European court, will succeed in erasing our identity," said Italian Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition.

Perhaps the lone indisputable result of Tuesday’s ruling, therefore, is that it will cement impressions among many religious believers, and particularly among Catholics, that Europe’s secular elites are determined to drive religion out of public life—that the "nasty lay inquisition" to which Martino referred continues apace.

In that cultural milieu, one in which Catholic identity is perceived to be under assault—and, given Tuesday’s decision, it’s hard to fault church leaders for drawing that conclusion—it’s no surprise that defense of Catholic identity has become an idée fixe. [Do I hear an "Amen!"?] That includes efforts to welcome groups into the church who are ferociously committed to important markers of identity, such as traditional forms of liturgy and devotion and traditional moral teachings. [Not to mention the fact that they are separated and Christ prayed that we be one.]

One may, of course, dispute the wisdom of Benedict’s open-door policy for the Lefebvrites or disgruntled Anglicans. Yet to pretend that such moves are inexplicable apart from the personal predilections of a conservative pope is to ignore the social reality of contemporary Europe.  [And those people are also Christians who should be in unity with the Church.]

It’s not paranoia, in other words, if they really are out to get you.

* * *

I was in Spain this week, speaking at an international symposium organized by the Capuchins on the subject of "What Does Europe Believe In?" with the subtitle, "The Capuchins between Secularization and the Return of Religious Life."

[...]

 

You can read the rest of Mr. Allen’s article at that place over there.

Yes, there is no question that having the followers of the SSPX and traditional Anglicans will be helpful in bolstering a strong traditional Catholic identity.  But let us not simply reduce this to a pragmatic decision.   Opening the door to these groups is the right thing to do. 

And Pope Benedict is the Pope of Christian Unity.

In The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Nienstedt has something to say about the upcoming changes to the translations of the Roman Missal. 

My emphases and comments.

Changes in the language of the liturgy

By Archbishop John C. Nienstedt   
Thursday, 05 November 2009

One of the principal goals of the Second Vatican Council was to initiate a reform of the Sacred Liturgy.

The goal of this reform was not a matter of simply revising texts.  Even less was it a matter of abandoning the treasured traditions of the past. Rather, at its heart, the liturgical reform of the council was a divinely inspired desire [So long as we are talking about the actual work of the Council and not necessary with what we actually got,...] to foster within us, the People of God, a renewed love of the liturgy, the source and summit of our Catholic way of life.

Praying the liturgy

The goal of “active and conscious participation of the faithful” in the liturgy, so central to authentic liturgical reform, is not so much a matter of merely doing more things, but rather of actively internalizing and, in short, praying the liturgy.  [Again, it is so refreshing for a bishop to emphasize the interior dimension of "active participation".]

Tremendous successes have been made in realizing this crucial goal, while much work remains. The church continues to invite all of her members to make her own liturgical life the source and summit of their lives, as she prays with Christ, in Christ, and through Christ in this service of love that is the liturgy.

In a matter of a few short years to come, the English-speaking church will receive a historic text that marks a special moment in the continuing implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. This text is a new English Roman Missal, more commonly known as the Sacramentary. [It won’t be called the Sacramentary any more, as a matter of fact.  Now the title of the book will also be accurately translated: Roman Missal.]

A bit of history

This large, red-covered book is most often only seen from afar by most Catholics. Consequently, the idea of a new one being issued by the church can seem like a matter hardly worth any fuss.

But the fact is that every Sunday and, indeed, every time we attend Mass, we are impacted by this essential red book.

It is the book from which the prayers of the Mass of the Roman Rite are found, and it is from this book that the priest recites the church’s approved texts of prayer and blessing. While no specific date has yet been given for an official release, it is reasonable to assume that by Advent of 2011, we will be using this new translation for our eucharistic worship.

Some will ask, “Why a new translation?” In attempting to answer that question, I think it is helpful to remember that when the Second Vatican Council began over five decades ago, the Mass was celebrated everywhere in the Latin language.  [And that Latin is still the official language of the Latin Church’s worship.]

Shortly thereafter, the bishops of the council recommended [permitted as useful when appropriate] that portions of the Sacred Liturgy be celebrated in vernacular languages to help foster that conscious and active participation of the faithful that was at the heart of the council’s liturgical reforms.

That led in 1964 to the formation of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, commonly referred to as ICEL. The first full English translation of the Mass was published in 1974 and a revised edition was promulgated in 1975.

A second edition of this work appeared in 1985 and that is the translation we use today. All of these translations of the Missal were [more or less] translations of the Latin original, which remains the official text of the Roman Rite.

Because the work of translation was so new, it was always presumed that there would necessarily be a learning curve and that the first translations, over time, would need to be amended.

In addition, it is important to remember that at the time of the first translation, the translators and editors were following a 1969 instruction on the translation of liturgical texts, “Comme le prévoit,” which suggested a methodology which has now become known as “dynamic equivalence.” This theory emphasized the translation of concepts over the more “literal” translation of words.

However, in 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments promulgated, with the permission and approval of the Holy Father, an important document on the translation of liturgical texts, “Liturgiam authenticam.” This instruction stated in part:

“The translation of the liturgical text of the Roman Liturgy is not so much a work of creative innovation as it is of rendering the liturgical text faithfully and accurately into the vernacular language.

While it is permissible to arrange the wording, the syntax, and the style in such a way as to prepare a flowing vernacular text suitable to the rhythm of popular prayer, the original text, insofar as possible, must be translated intricately [sic… "integrally"] and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses. Any adaptations to the characteristics of the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discrete” (No. 20).

Comparing the texts

The differences between the old translation and the new translation can be seen most clearly by placing the texts next to each other.  [A great idea!    o{]:¬)   One I have been doing for 9 years in The Wanderer and on the internet.  When you place the texts side by side you really get a sense of what was being done in that translation from the ‘70s and what we have been missing all these years.]

Below are two prayers, or “collects,” taken from the texts of the first Sunday of Lent:

Current translation:

“Father, through our observance of Lent, help us to understand the meaning of Your Son’s death and resurrection, and teach us to reflect it in our lives.”

Proposed new translation:

“Grant us, Almighty God, through our yearly exercises in the Holy Season of Lent, to grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ and to pursue their effects by a worthy way of life.”

[Here is the slavishly literal WDTPRS version originally in The Wanderer in 2001:

LATIN (1970 Missale Romanum):
Concede nobis, omnipotens Deus,
ut, per annua quadragesimalis exercitia sacramenti,
et ad intellegendum Christi proficiamus arcanum,
et effectus eius digna conversatione sectemur.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty God, grant us
that, by means of the annual exercises of the forty-day mystery,
we may both make progress in understanding the mystery of Christ
and by worthy conduct of life imitate its consequences.

And now the Archbishop’s article continues…]

Here we can at least begin to see some of the differences between “dynamic equivalence” and the more literal method of translation that “Liturgiam authenticam” calls for.

The expression, “our observance of Lent,” does basically mean the same thing as “our yearly exercise.”  However, while it is more crisp and direct, much of the richness of the original Latin text is lost.

The same would be true of “riches hidden in Christ.” It, of course, does refer to Christ’s death and resurrection, as indicated in the first text, but again, a certain poetic expression has been eliminated from this first text.

There will also be changes in the responses of the congregation, for which some catechetical work needs to be done.

For example, “Et cum spiritu tuo” in 1985 was loosely translated, “And also with you.” But in point of fact, when the priest greets us with “The Lord be with you,” he is doing so in virtue of his sacramental identity as an “alter Christus in capitis”; the priest celebrant is making present Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, head of the Mystical Body.

So our response is not merely, “And with you, too, Fr. John . . . thanks for being here,” but rather, “And with you, too, Fr. John, in recognition of the wonderful sacred grace of Holy Orders bestowed on you by the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands.”

Just the addition of that one word, “spirit,” which, in fact, is in the original Latin text, adds great meaning to our liturgical celebration.

Invitation to study

I do not presume that these changes will be easy for either priests or congregation. Certainly they will require great adaptation on my part as well.

Yet, if these adaptations lead us, as they are intended, to a greater sense of wonderment, a greater sense of the beauty and splendor of our worship, and a greater step closer to real contemplative prayer, then whatever effort is required will be well worth the sacrifice.  [As I wrote the other day: "If a priest, deacon, or lay catechist could spend two minutes to explain what the word "ineffable" means that would be two minutes well spent on the people of God."  This will be of great importance in the coming months: explanations.]

I invite the reader to study the formational materials on the new English Roman Missal available at the USCCB Web site: http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal.

This site is being constantly updated, and has within it many wonderful features meant to educate us all on the new translation.  In the implementation of these historically important changes, there can be no substitute for good catechesis.  [Ditto that.]

God bless you! 

WDTPRS kudos to Archbishop Nienstedt.

There is great interest among the faithful in dignified prayer for the dead.

A reader sends this:

Fr. Dwight Longenecker and Fr. Jay Scott Newman sat in choir as Msgr. Steven Brovey, V.F, pastor of Prince of Peace parish, and head of liturgy for the diocese of Charleston, offered the Traditional Latin Mass on Monday, Nov. 2, the Feast of All Souls, at Prince of Peace in Taylors, SC.

The combined choirs of St. Mary’s (Greenville, SC) and Prince of Peace sang a Faure Requiem.

More than 800 attended from around the Upstate of South Carolina.

Planting seeds…

 

Brick by brick.

This rather gives the lie to the banal "celebrations of people’s lives" perpetrated in the place of real funerals or requiem Masses.

This is pretty good.   Biretta tip to usually funny CMR who got it from iOwnTheWorld:

 

 

 

 

I received an e-mail from Fr. Rutler about a video produced about the CCHD - Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

I am puzzled.

I was under the impression that the CHD had been cleaned up a little.

Sincerely, what gives?   I would benefit from some well-informed comments.  I bet a lot of the priests and bishops who read would as well.

So… let’s keep the spewing out of the conversation.   Make this substantive.

Apparently the USCCB is going to urge a collection.

Spew and I delete you.

I’ll be here a good deal of the day, refreshing the mind and soul.

A glimpse at a Van Gogh.

A Terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora. c. 530 BC. of the “Euphiltos Painter”

I am pleased to have been able at least to get a look at USS New York. It will be commissioned on Saturday.

The bow is made in part with steel from the World Trade Center.

His Hermeneuticalness has a good short post:

UK Traditional Anglican Communion says "yes please"

The South African Catholic blog Signum has an article reporting that TAC in UK accepts "Ordinariate"

At the 2009 Assembly of the Traditional Anglican Communion UK, the following resolution was passed:

That this Assembly, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain, offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution.

The Assembly also suggests Bishop Robert Mercer as a possible candidate for Ordinary.

I hear a lot of skeptical comments about the Holy Father’s offer of Personal Ordinariates, with the conventional wisdom being that it will not really attract many people. So it is good to hear news of twenty or so parish communities that will be interested. The TAC asked for the provision in the first place so it is to be expected that they would be first off the mark; but I think that there may well be plenty more to follow in due course.

 

REMEMBER: Keep referring to Pope Benedict as "The Pope of Christian Unity".

Catholic and non-Catholic liberals alike can’t stand this response of Rome to the request they received.

So keep your talking points and facts straight.

• What the Holy See has done is a response to Anglicans who made the request.
• This is about true ecumenism.  Liberals only want ecumenical dialogue with people on their own side.
• Of course moves like this present new questions for us as Catholics!  But we can be stretched without giving up anything of what it means to be truly Catholic.

The US Bishops asked Catholics to act.  Will you?

Condition Red

From CNA:

Holy See says beatification of John Paul II not imminent

Vatican City, Nov 4, 2009 / 04:49 pm (CNA).- The Holy See’s press office has denied a report published by the Italian daily La Repubblica, which made claims that John Paul II will be beatified in 2010 and that Rome and Krakow are locked in a dispute over which city will host the ceremony.

Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office said Pope John Paul II “will surely be beatified,” but the process must be completed, including the decree certifying a miracle.

Lombardi also denied the reported tension between Rome and Krakow, Poland.  “The Pope is the Pope and he belongs to the universal Church,” he said.

Z-Cam & Radio Sabina, or "Fr Z TV" is on the air most of the time!

Watch the feeder and very often windows of the chapel and also my office.

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

There is Z-Chat in a chatroom from time to time.  I send out Tweets about when it is open via Twitter.  (Latin pipata, or "tweets" from pipio "to twitter, chirp")


Open as a pop up.

"tuppence a bag…"

Well… far more than tuppence, actually…. HELP!



REGISTER to be able to post comments.

First, I will say "Go Phillies" and get it out of the way. Nice view on the way in.

UPDATE: Out for a walk with a friend, we stopped at Holy Innocents. The Blessed Sacrament was exposed and we were there for Benediction.

UPDATE: Nice to stretch the legs. A short visit to St Patrick’s.

UPDATE: Time for some supper. Shanghai juicy dumplings!

UPDATE: In New York watching the game with a serious Yankees fan.

UPDATE: Painful… but there is still a lot of baseball yet to be played.

UPDATE: Just before the latest painful moment.

6 RBIs

UPDATE: That’ better…

UPDATE: I am required by my host to post the following sad image…. sigh…

Italians are not happy.

Pope Benedict for years has ben writing and speaking about the loss of identity of Europe.

But this is what happens when people lie down too long, allowing what is precious to be tarnished by malice and neglect.

Italians outraged as European court rules against crucifixes

By Nick Squires Nick Squires   – Tue Nov 3, 4:00 am ET

Rome – Italians reacted with outrage on Tuesday after a European court ruled that displaying crucifixes in the country’s schools violated the principle of secular education.

Italy’s education minister condemned the judgment by the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the Christian cross was a symbol of the country’s Roman Catholic religion and cultural identity.

Mariastella Gelmini, a member of the conservative government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, argued that "no one, and certainly not an ideological European court, will succeed in erasing our identity," said

Other ministers said they were appalled by the ruling, calling it "absurd," "shameful" and "offensive."

Generations of Italian children have grown up studying in classrooms in which a wooden or metal crucifix looms above the blackboard. But Italy has been transformed in the past two decades from a country that exported migrants to one that has accepted around 4.5 million economic refugees and asylum seekers from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The influx of foreigners has led to deep-seated tensions, particularly with Roma gypsies from former Eastern bloc countries and Muslim immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.

Schools in Spain, France, and Britain have also debated whether crucifixes should be allowed in public schools. The landmark ruling could prompt a Europewide review of the use of religious symbols in state-run schools.

Europe losing its identity?

The decision was handed down by a panel of seven judges at the court in Strasbourg. They said that the display of crucifixes, which is common but not mandatory in Italian schools, violated the principle of secular education and might be intimidating for children from other faiths.

"The presence of the crucifix could be … disturbing for pupils who practiced other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities," the court said. "The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities… restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions," it added.

Crucifixes were an undeniable symbol of Catholicism, the court ruled, and as such were at odds with the principle of "educational pluralism."

‘Moral damages’

The court upheld a complaint filed by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish woman who lives in Italy and has Italian citizenship, [She could go back to Finland?] who complained that her children had to attend a state school in a town near Venice which had crucifixes in every classroom.

The court awarded her €5,000 ($7,400 dollars) in "moral damages," which will have to be paid by the Italian government unless it is successful in an appeal. The judges stopped short of ordering authorities to remove crucifixes from all state-run schools, and the long-term implications of the ruling were unclear.

The judgment sparked anger in predominantly Catholic Italy, with ministers and the Catholic Church saying the crucifix was an integral part of Italy’s national identity.

Foreign minister Franco Frattini, speaking during a visit to Morocco, said it was an attack on Italy’s Christian identity and that the government would appeal the decision.

"At a time when we’re trying to bring religions closer together, this is a blow to Christianity," he said.

The agriculture minister Luca Zaia, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, a key ally in Mr Berlusconi’s bloc, called the judgment "shameful." Mario Baccini, a senator in Mr. Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, said the court had "gone adrift in paganism."

The newly-elected head of the main opposition Democratic Party, Pierluigi Bersani, commented that the ruling lacked common sense. "I think a longstanding tradition like the crucifix can’t be offensive to anyone," he said.

Italian bishops protest

The powerful Italian Bishops Conference said in a statement that the ruling was based on a "biased and ideological view." The Vatican said it wanted to study the exact wording of the ruling before issuing a response.

Mrs. Lautsi first brought the case eight years ago when her two children went to a state school in the spa town of Abano Terme near Venice. She asked for them to be taken down but education authorities refused. She then spent several years fighting the decision through the Italian courts.

A court in the Veneto region where she lives rejected her arguments, prompting her to take the case to Strasbourg.