The Vatican on Tuesday stepped into the debate about Muslim women wearing veils, with a top cardinal saying immigrants must follow the laws of their host countries, including any bans on such face-covering. Countries "must require that guests who arrive from a different culture must respect the traditions, the symbols, the culture, the religion of the countries they go to," said Renato Martino, the Italian prelate who heads the Vatican's office on issues concerning migrants, itinerant workers and refugees.Martino, responding to a question about veils from a reporter, said respect for local laws would include any bans on such coverings. "This seems to me to be elementary. It is quite right that (local) authorities insist on this," he told a news conference to present Pope Benedict XVI's annual message on migrant issues. Vatican Radio reiterated the stance, saying "the question of the veil for Islamic women" should be "considered in the context of respect for the laws of the countries which welcome" them.
The assertion by Martino, a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations, comes two weeks before Pope Benedict XVI begins his first visit as pontiff to a Muslim nation, Turkey. That officially secular nation has long been wrestling over whether Muslim women there should wear Islamic head scarves in such places as universities and public offices.
Flanking the cardinal, another Vatican official who deals with immigration issues, Monsignor Agostino Marchetto, referred to Italy's law requiring people to keep their face visible in public. That law dates to Italy's crackdown on domestic terrorism decades ago.