CROSS UNDER CROSSFIRE

Both believers and unbelievers should agree that the unifying symbol of the cross accompanied Western civilisation during all its pathway through history. Since rabbi Yehoshua, better known as Jesus Christ, was reportedly convicted by Roman law and nailed on a wooden cross, his aglow jewish followers sworm across the vast empire in order to spread cross, gospel and torah among the peoples.
Christianity came to compete with many other faiths under Rome's multicultural pantheon, and enjoyed an extraordinary advance among grassroots classes, and also among the middle class. Notwithstanding hostility and persecutions, Christian faith eventually broke through the establishment. Emperor Constantine converted, giving Christianity a legal status by means of the Edict of Milan, 313 AD.

Constantine's biographers state that before a decisive battle the Emperor saw a cross of light in the sky with the greek words "ἐν τούτῳ νίκα", which means "in this sign you will conquer".
Under Emperor Teodosius with the Edict of Thessalonica (380 AD) Christianity was made the State church of the Roman Empire: a jewish bole with many pagan grafts.
It seems that the symbol of the cross began to appear with a certain frequency inside Christian circles only after Constantine became the first Christian Emperor. In earlier times on catacomb walls the faithful rather drew symbols like fishes, doves, anchors. 

The cross sign is also pre-Christian, being found among the Celts, the Germans, the Egyptians, the Hindus and even among the Stone Age men. 

The horizontal axis represents the earth, the vertical axis points to heaven. Human being is both earthly and spiritual, living at the centre of his continuous existential tension.
Christ is both Son of Man and Son of God. 
Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson portrays incisively Christian existence: "The centre is occupied by the individual. The centre is marked by the cross, as X marks the spot. Existance at that cross is suffering and transformation, and that fact, above all, needs to be voluntarily accepted". 
According Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce: "Modern thought and civilisation are Christian, continuation of the impetus given by Jesus and Paul... Like it or not, we are heirs of a revolution which is superior to all others, because it operated inside the centre of human soul, inside the moral conscience".

Nowadays more than 200 million Christians are oppressed and persecuted, but here still hangs a thick blanket of media silence over all that. The so called free world is ready to support victims of war and famine everywhere, but where it should intervene on behalf of threatened Christians, it seems to be suddenly caught by certain lack of enthusiasm. 
According to local church estimates, Islamic Fulani militants have murdered more than 6000 predominantly Christians in Nigeria's Middle Belt during the past two years. The  slaughter goes on and on, but the free world doesn't care. 

In China party officials barge into churches, ravage furnishings, loot the mass offers, burn crosses, bibles and buildings. Christians are compelled to sign documents of faith renounce and of fidelity to China's Communist Party, indeed the only source of truth. Catholic priests are disappearing, bishops are imprisoned, government nominates its own bishops instead, church goes underground... 
The pope in Rome puts a good face on all that. "Don't be afraid of China, it is a great nation with a great wisdom" he said. And many proud freedom-of-thought knights in the West are looking away together with him.

Karl Kraus once wrote: "We eventually have got freedom of thought. Now only thoughts would be required"

On the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the main entrance gates to Europe for migrants, a huge cross was smashed down in October 2018. A fierce migrant Ngo, bearing the appeasing name "Coexistance & Communication", had just filed request with authorities to get the beachside cross taken down, since "that cross is a tool of aspiring crusaders against refugees". 
In March 2019 police arrested 35 Greek citizens because they dared to rebuild that monument. The same Ngo denounced the cross as "offensive and intolerant".

In Ploërmel, Bretagne, the statue of John Paul II was ordered to be removed. Religious effigies in public spaces in France are forbidden by law, hence the cross above the monument was considered "illegal". At the same time a profanation and vandalism wave rolls through many country's churches, in a disquieting climate of growing christianophobia. 
A month before the great Easter bonfire of Notre-Dame (authorities hurried to rule out arson meanwhile burning embers were still on cathedral's floor), Saint Sulpice church in Paris also burned. 
Will the secular French state, so eager to intervene in Ploërmel, be able to adequately protect its Christian monumental heritage?

Bavaria seems to have taken an other route.  Since June 2018 all public buildings and offices must show the crucifix at their walls, as Minister President Markus Söder stated:
"The cross is the basic symbol of our Christian identity, Bavarian and Western". 
That the local Left unleashed a storm of criticism was expected. Unexpected and bizarre was the opposition of Germany's foremost church leaders, Reinhardt Marx and Heinrich Bedford-Strohm. The first is Cardinal of Munich and President of country's Episcopal Conference, the second is Secretary General of the Evangelical Church. 
The arguments they brought forward demonstrate once again the current subjection of Church's establishment to progressive ideologies such as relativism and multiculturalism. 
Both prelates stated that a government has no right to "exploit" for political purpose the sacred symbol of the cross, and they lamented the lack of public debate on the subject, including Jews, Muslims and Atheists. 

During a sunny day of mid October 2016 the same Bedford-Strohm and Marx climbed  together Tempel Mount in old Jerusalem. Unesco's shameful vote of denial of Jewish (and also Christian) link to the place happened in Paris just few days earlier. According United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Tempel Mount should be nominated only by its Arabic name, Haram al-Sharif. The Imam of the Al Aqsa mosque happily welcomed the two prelates, because they decided to dismiss the crosses usually worn, in sign of subduing. When questioned about their disturbing behavior, they instead pretended to have shown "respect" to their Islamic host. It all happened on the very place where Jesus preached, prayed and chased away the merchants from the Jewish Second Temple.

A totally different kind of respect was instead performed by a Saudi Salafist cleric, when he called on football's governing body Fifa to prohibit players from making the sign of the cross in celebration on the field.
Out of respect, and because of money, Spanish football club Real Madrid removed Christian cross from its logo as part of a clothing deal in Middle East countries. Rival Barcelona removed from its badge the cross of Sant Jordi, in order not to "offend" its  Muslim supporters.

Before pope Francis returned home from his visit of Bolivia, President Evo Morales gave him a crucifix in shape of a hammer and sickle. The pontiff accepted that Communistic eyesore, reminiscent of millions of victims, and carried it with him to the Vatican, as if he won a gold medal.
On Holy Friday at Rome's Colosseum, Bergoglio organized and led the traditional Stations of the Cross. Needless to say that most of his meditations concerned migrants portrayed as victims of abuse and of rich's egoism. According to the pope, also Jesus was nothing more than a migrant, and so Christians should recognise in every migrant Lord Jesus, and welcome him. 

In Pieve di Cento, Italy, the Leftist city council gave a demonstration about how far ideological delirium can lead. They ordered to prepare tarps meant to cover crosses at local cemetery, so that members of other religions shouldn't get annoyed. 
The supermarket trademark Lidl operated on the packages of certain Greek cheese and yogurt, by eliminating crosses from the roofs of the Aegean churches represented on it. 
The Lidl store in Camporosso, Liguria, presented last year a big poster photograph of Dolceacqua, a picturesque village inside the Nervia valley. On it, among other details, one could observe the local church of Sant Antonio completely deprived of its crosses. Only after heavy and continuous protests of Dolceacqua's inhabitants, the direction of Lidl eventually decided to replace the poster. The new one still represents the same village, but the picture was taken from a very particular angle. Indeed the crosses on the roof of the Sant Antonio church somehow disappeared again, since they now seem to be just tiny sticks pointing the sky. 

From classrooms of an elementary school in Fiumicino, near Rome, crucifix was taken away because non-Christian pupils shouldn't feel embarrassed. But that decision caused howls of protests among parents. 
Lega senator William De Vecchis commented: "In order to meet expectations of few, feelings of many are hurt. I don't agree. Crucifix is an important symbol accompanying the education of our children. It embodies our values, it is part and parcel of our history and traditions. Due to a distorting ideology, Italian values, traditions and feelings are sacrificed on the appeasement altar. This is not the right way to practise hospitality and cultural exchange".

Author and journalist Giulio Meotti wrote:

"Religion in the West is no longer a private matter. The values of Western civilisation are now being undermined in schools, universities, the media and cultural spheres. One thing is sure: Without the courage to insist on safeguarding our values, and passing our inheritance on to our children, we Europeans will simply disappear -- as many groups have before. With us, however, will disappear the most enlightened civilization the world has ever known".