” “”A secularist attitude” in many Western countries, while "in the lands that are back from decades of social-communist totalitarianism the idea of the independence between religion and state had a hard time being accepted”. This sums up the situation of religious freedom in Europe as shown by the Acs 2006 report that was presented in Rome this morning. In the section about the Old Continent, the report points out “the inability of many EU member states to overcome the stale opposition between religion and civil life" as well as the shy steps made in Eastern Europe in the “denationalisation of the Churches”, in particular in Georgia and Russia. In Russia, the registration of the Transfiguration in Novosibirsk has brought the Catholic dioceses to four, and the country seems to have overcome the problem of visas to foreign priests. The survey then says that "the wounds of the civil war in former Yugoslavia have not healed up yet, as hostilities remains between the different religious communities”. A cause for concern is the situation in Moldova, the only European country, alongside France, that has banned the teaching of religion in public schools. Fully respected is the right to religious freedom in Armenia, while Turkey still does not recognise the legal status of the Christian churches and minorities are discriminated against and sometimes suffer violence, such as the recent murder of father Andrea Santoro. ” “
