Dear Editor,
The newspaper El Pais started a campaign in Spain to open an outdated discussion: Do you support chapels at public universities? Many people answered - an overwhelming 88 per cent said "yes" and 12 per cent said "no".
There are university choirs, theatres, cinema and audio-visual classrooms. In many universities one can find bars, kiosks, travel agencies and banking offices. These are some of the services that public universities offer to their students. Some universities have chapels, which recently had to face controversies with embarrassing incidents in places of great tradition. The argument that publicly owned property must be non-religious is used to try to ban the chapels.
When an airport or a public university has a chapel, those places do not become "religious" - much less confessional. I believe the most secularist newspaper in Spain failed with its survey.
Public spaces belong to everybody and not just to the state, even if they are state property. Therefore, their users will provide a specific climate, where everyone can exercise their rights. As these spaces are essentially plural, neutrality cannot imply a neutralising asepsis imposed on their users. The state acts as impartial guarantor, seeking to satisfy the legitimate citizens' requests in proportion to the demand. Thus, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the dislike caused by the presence of a crucifix in a classroom is a subjective perception of the complainant, and is enough to talk of a violation of his freedom of ideology and his beliefs. The presence of a chapel does not force anyone to take a creed or religious practice.
If a government decides to ban the chapels at public universities, or refuses to assign sites to build temples, etc, no one could doubt that such decisions would be secularist , but they certainly would not be neutral decisions, and therefore no one could argue that they are requirements of the non-denominationalism of the state.
Clemente Ferrer
Madrid, Spain
clementeferrer3@gmail.com
Spain supports chapels at universities
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The newspaper El Pais started a campaign in Spain to open an outdated discussion: Do you support chapels at public universities? Many people answered - an overwhelming 88 per cent said "yes" and 12 per cent said "no".
There are university choirs, theatres, cinema and audio-visual classrooms. In many universities one can find bars, kiosks, travel agencies and banking offices. These are some of the services that public universities offer to their students. Some universities have chapels, which recently had to face controversies with embarrassing incidents in places of great tradition. The argument that publicly owned property must be non-religious is used to try to ban the chapels.
When an airport or a public university has a chapel, those places do not become "religious" - much less confessional. I believe the most secularist newspaper in Spain failed with its survey.
Public spaces belong to everybody and not just to the state, even if they are state property. Therefore, their users will provide a specific climate, where everyone can exercise their rights. As these spaces are essentially plural, neutrality cannot imply a neutralising asepsis imposed on their users. The state acts as impartial guarantor, seeking to satisfy the legitimate citizens' requests in proportion to the demand. Thus, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the dislike caused by the presence of a crucifix in a classroom is a subjective perception of the complainant, and is enough to talk of a violation of his freedom of ideology and his beliefs. The presence of a chapel does not force anyone to take a creed or religious practice.
If a government decides to ban the chapels at public universities, or refuses to assign sites to build temples, etc, no one could doubt that such decisions would be secularist , but they certainly would not be neutral decisions, and therefore no one could argue that they are requirements of the non-denominationalism of the state.
Clemente Ferrer
Madrid, Spain
clementeferrer3@gmail.com
Spain supports chapels at universities
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