That's not the points we've touched. We're not even trying to defend the attacks they made on the work (or the christian mentality/heritage, for that matter. It was polemic, populist and rather biased and even plain stupid in quite a few places).

I don't even agree the work should be removed from all schools in Italy. I'm not even sure it should be at all - I don't know how it's taught, to whom, and to what extent the work is covered and from what angle, and I don't even know for sure if the school system there is a laic one or still a confessional one. I know if Dante was French the DC wouldn't be on the curriculum as a compulsory read in French classes, but I don't know the Italian context and if this has to be seen in a larger context, for instance if groups in Italy are rabidly fighting the fact the system is not laic there (perhaps it is, though I suspect it's not - the Vatican still has a lot on influence over Italian civil life, and everywhere full laic systems were to be introduced in predominantly catholic nations, the Catholic Church has fought against it).

I merely said I understand why many would feel incomfortable with some parts of this text being taught in public schools, attended by people from many religions, not just Christians anymore - and I'm surrounded by people who consider themselves Christians who no longer wish their children to be taught notions such as non-believers being condemned to Hell, and who certainly don't want their children to be exposed to this sort of material in language/literature classes. Around here, this would also conflict with the goals of the school programs encouraging religious tolerance, and promoting an understanding of the ethics and basics of all religions (without getting into matters such as the validity of those systems) as a key feature of the general culture it wishes the children to gain.

Try putting yourself in the shoes of muslim or jewish Italian parents whose children are forced to study a work where the author condemns your faith as false and puts you into Hell. What about homosexual parents? From a laic perspective, this isn't material suitable as a compulsory read. It's way too Christian, rife with religious opinions and beliefs (some would say prejudices) for that, and it happens to be a Christian work with some explicit condemnation of other religions, sexual orientation etc. which is far less acceptable than merely being a Christian work dealing with religious themes/motifs. In a laic system, it's not the place of compulsory language classes to present the religious perspective of one religion at the detriment of others, certainly not when it also conflicts with social values the state (in a democracy) wishes to the educational system to promote. These are issues it's up to the parents and churches to teach their believers, not for a laic public system paid for by citizens from every religions, races, sexual orientations and designed for children regardless of their private beliefs to attend. It's the sort of work much better suited for literature/history of italian literature classes. If a Muslim or an homosexual or a feminist wishes to study medieval literature, they're bound to expect clashes with their values.

Of course, it's been forever since I've read this work, but as far as I remember, there's no shortage of excerpts to choose from to teach about its literary form or history or for its language, without having to delve more than superficially or at least in a non judgemental way on the christian framework of the work, and laicity doesn't mean either negating your historical/cultural heritage - which for most of us means centuries of christian culture. I wouldn't expect a typical high school level class to go much more in depth in the work than that anyway.

And since you brought up Flaubert and Shakespeare... not all school systems still pick The Merchant of Venice among his plays that are compulsory reads, and don't go look for a masterpiece like La Tentation de Saint Antoine as a compulsory read in France either.




According to our charter of rights and freedoms, that's not something that would be acceptable for a public school to teach...

Churches can condemn homosexuality (or rather homosexual sexual acts) on moral grounds as they wish, they're free to do so as long as they don't break any laws doing so (such as firing one of their employees because they discovered he was homosexual). But it's not the place of public schools to promote such POV, not when a majority in a democratic society decided the school system should be exclusively laic and refuses to see homosexuality anymore as something condemnable, and believes it's to the benefit of society to teach kids that homophobia is wrong. Priests are welcome to teach the opposite on sundays, though around here it's not an issue a lot of them are terribly comfortable with (I'm speaking of the catholic ones, Muslims and several Jews are even more condemning than Christians). It's quite another thing higher up in the hierarchy.



Tolerance is the bare minimum. Merely tolerating homosexuality isn't enough anymore to many societies, for instance.




The attack was rabid, populist and missed the point on so many specifics.

Condemning a medieval text produced in a christian society is absurd anyway. It is exactly like Christians condemning the Illiad as pagan.

It's especially stupid because there's in fact no need at all to attack the Divine Comedy to question it's suitability as a compulsory read in a laic education context, even less when it concerns rather specific passages of the text that it's debatable should be included in a course, not the whole text.