Parents Object to a Teacher’s Prejudice

An elementary-school teacher in Cassano Murge, Italy, sent stickers home with some of his pupils. These stickers, which were intended to be put on the front door, bore the notice: “We are Catholics. Jehovah’s Witnesses are asked not to knock on this door.”

Some of the parents of the pupils, although not Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves, objected strongly to the teacher’s actions. According to the news journal Muoviti Muoviti, the parents charged that ‘giving children this kind of message contributes to their rejecting anyone who does not think as they do or to their excluding someone because he is religiously “different.”’ One parent who wrote to the journal called the sticker “the seed of a weed, the daughter of ignorance and stupidity.”

As this report demonstrates, many fair-minded people recognize the dangers of sowing seeds of prejudice. They also have respect for the Christian ministry performed by Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Italy and the whole world. Why not ask the Witnesses for ‘a reason for the hope in them’? They will be eager to discuss it with you, doing so with “deep respect.”​—1 Peter 3:15.