After all the polemic that followed the release of Spike Lee’s film “Miracle at St. Anna” (article here) maybe there is still room for more discussion as a new video has just surfaced on youtube called “Miracolo a Bagni di Lucca” No information of just who is the Brigante – barba – nera who has posted this but with Italy’s blasphemy laws s/he is probably doing the wise thing by keeping a low profile.

Articles 402 through 406 of the Italian criminal code, reflecting the 1920s concordat with the Vatican, prohibit “offence to religion”, including offence to religion during a satirical or other performance, even where the offending performance was objectively aimed at arousing laughter or amusement.

There is uncertainty whether Italian laws against insult to religion – and the application of the legislation – relate only to Roman Catholicism. Prosecutions over the past thirty years – and administrative action such as hacking by Italian police of an anti-Vatican site in 2005 – appear to have been bundled with restrictions on obscenity as offences against public morals. Article 724 of the criminal code covers the minor offence of “words insulting to religion” (bestemmia).

Denmark has a law providing for fines and up to four months in jail for anyone who “publicly offends or insults a religion that is recognised in the country” Prohibition of blasphemy under Section 140 of the Penal Code has not been used since 1938

In Sweden a general crime of blasphemy was abolished in 1949 with abolition of a narrower offence of religious insult in 1970

Norway has a public-order law dating from the 1930s which outlaws blasphemy in principle on pain of up to six months in jail. However, it is never used.

Finland retains a general offence of blasphemy under chapter 17 of its penal code. The last major prosecutions were in 1966

In Britain there is an old, little-used law against blasphemy, and a new law that outlaws incitation to religious hatred. However the former explicitly applies only to the Anglican Church, as Muslim leaders discovered when they tried to use it against the writer Salman Rushdie for his novel “The Satanic Verses”, published in 2000.

Germany has an anti-blasphemy law dating from 1871, but it has been little used in recent decades.

Neither Spain nor Portugal have anti-blasphemy laws, although both have little-used legislation on religious hatred. The crime of blasphemy (reinstated in the 1930s after overthrow of the Republic) was abolished as part of post-Franco reforms in 1988. Portugal’s legislation was changed in the 1990s

France outlawed blasphemy at the time of its revolution in the late 18th century;reinstated under the Restoration and again removed during the late 1830s
It was, however, successfully used in 1994 to ban a musical comedy that ridiculed the Catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception by portraying crucified pigs.

The Netherlands has a law proscribing what is called “scornful blasphemy”, and providing for up three months in jail and a fine of $85.
The last major case brought under the law – in 1968 against a writer who wrote a poem about having sex with God – was thrown out of court.

Austrian law prohibits the ridiculing of a religion, on pain of up to six months in jail.

Poland, an overwhelmingly Catholic country, has a legal provision against publicly offending a person’s religious feelings, with up to two years in prison.