The left seems to love all this "diversity" and cultural exchange" horse squeeze, but it's funny how it always seems to be a one-way street. The American left would probably be delighted to have a bunch of rural kids come into the city for tours of museums and maybe a drag-queen story hour or six. But suggest bringing big city kids out to catch some catfish or learn to throw hay bales, wrangle calves or shoot a .22? No way.

This is also, it seems, the case in Italy, a predominantly Catholic (for now) country, where the latest fuss comes as a bunch of kids from a Catholic school were taken on a school outing to a mosque, where the happy, friendly imam taught them how to pray in the Islamic fashion.

A group of Catholic preschoolers kneeling in a mosque during a school trip has sparked a political uproar in Italy, with critics decrying the episode as a case of religious indoctrination and cultural surrender—reigniting fierce debate over the limits of integration in the country’s schools.

The children, aged between three and six, from the Santa Maria delle Vittorie school, were taken to the Emanuet Islamic Cultural Center, where they participated in an activity led by Imam Avnija Nurceski. According to Italian media reports, during the visit, after the imam explained how Muslims pray, and the children reenacted the gesture of kneeling towards Mecca, imitating the Islamic prayer posture. Images of the scene, widely shared on social media, have caused deep unease.

Deep unease? I should say. I'm not Catholic, but if one of my kids had been taken to a mosque for this show, I would have been raising Ned. Why? Well, a couple of reasons.

Teaching religion is the job of parents, not schools. If your kids are in a public school here in the States, that school should leave religious instruction and indeed moral instruction of any kind in the hands of parents, where it belongs. If parents choose to instead send their kids to a religious school, like the Catholic school in the story, then that is a choice they have made in accordance with their rights as parents to decide on their children's religious upbringing. They shouldn't have to expect to have those expectations undermined by horse squeeze like this.

Also, this whole imbroglio raises the question: Was this actually a cultural exchange? I'd bet a substantial sum it was not. It's for sure and for certain that the children of this Italian town's Muslim community won't be happily sent off to attend a Catholic Mass, in the interests of amity and understanding.

When the exchange is only one way, it's not an exchange. It's indoctrination.

The school’s director, Stefania Bazzo, defended the visit, stating that it was a “spontaneous” gesture by the children to show that they had understood the explanation. “We wanted to show them the place where some of their Muslim classmates pray so that everyone feels at home,” Bazzo explained, emphasizing that almost a quarter of students at the school are of Muslim origin.

And nobody asked if the Muslim kids would be coming to the Catholic school?

See Also: Donald Trump Sets Internet on Fire As He Posts AI Picture of Himself As Pope

President Trump Welcomes Italy's PM Meloni to the White House - and Has Some Remarks About China

At least Italy isn't completely gone yet, certainly not while Giorgia Meloni is in charge. The Italian Ministry of Education and Merit is looking into the matter, and we can hope that whoever came up with this idea will get what my grandmother would have called a "dern good talking-to," and that we won't see any repeat of this nonsense.

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