ROME, March 9, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The head of the Vatican's department on Justice and Peace on Thursday, March 9, backed allowing Muslim pupils in Italy to study Islam in state schools, urging reciprocal measures from Muslim countries.

"If in a school there are 100 children of the Islamic religion, I don't see why they can't be taught their religion," Cardinal Renato Martino told a conference in Rome, reported Reuters.

An Italian Muslim umbrella group recently asked the Education Ministry to arrange for Muslim students to be taught their religion for an hour a week in public schools.

Catholic pupils who do not attend Church schools have such an arrangement.

There are an estimated 1.5 million Muslims in Italy, a country of about 58 million people but there is no reliable estimate of the number of Muslim children in state schools.

The Vatican's views on issues such as religious education can have great influence on Italian political decisions, according to Reuters.

Reciprocal

Cardinal Martino said that if Italy made it easier for Muslim children to study religion it would be easier for Christians living in some Muslim countries to ask for reciprocity.

Some conservative Catholics disagreed.

Leading Catholic writer Vittorio Messori told a national newspaper the proposal was "absurd", branding it as "just a dangerous and confused mix of political correctness."

Religious tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims are rare in Italy although there have been some calls by Muslims and lay groups to remove crosses from public schools, hospitals and courtrooms.

Laws passed under Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the 1920s decreed schools and courts must display the cross.

Italy dropped Catholicism as state religion in 1984 but laws about crosses in some public places are still technically in force, although rarely enforced.

Muslims in Italy, most from north Africa, generally keep a very low profile, according to Reuters.

There have been no significant protests in Italy over the publication of Danish cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

But their presence is important because of their proximity to the Vatican, the world headquarters of Roman Catholicism.

Pope Benedict has condemned the cartoons and last month appointed Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a top expert in Islamic affairs, to be his envoy to Egypt and the 22-nation Arab League.

Former Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern League party caused a storm last month after he appeared appearance on television wearing a T-shirt featuring the cartoons.

He was forced to resign after eleven people died in Benghazi, Libya, when crowds protesting against the cartoons tried to storm the Italian consulate.

Islam is the least represented of the monotheistic faiths in Rome’s corridors of power.

Unlike Judaism, Buddhism and some Protestant denominations, Islam is not officially recognized by the state.

Add to that only some 50,000 Muslims have the right to vote and there are no national politicians who are known to be Muslims.