In August I told readers a little about the Reformation Study Centre which we hope will be established in the not-too-distant future in Italy. This month I would like to put some flesh and blood on the bare bones which were handed out in that last article.
It was on Wednesday the 10th of March that I arrived at Spotorno, where the first meetings of the Committee ‘Fede Viva’ (Living Faith) were scheduled for the following day. I made my way along to Franco Maggiotto’s flat and found it full to overflowing with visitors. Of the Italians present, some were there for the committee meetings: some were not. Also present was the Rev. H. Hegger, along with another Dutch minister who is a member of the Rev. Hegger’s Missionary Board. One kent face was a member of Franco’s congregation — Mario. I remembered him and his wife Ida from my visit of the previous September. After a little while it transpired that I was in fact to stay in Mario’s home, and after a time of talking we came away, bundled into the little Fiat six hundred and set off for Mario’s home. Borgio Verezzi is not far along the coast, and for this we could be thankful as the accommodation in the little car was somewhat cramped. Not that Mario, my case and I were all. There was also Luigi and his case.
The story of Luigi is rather an interesting one, and as he and I spent several hours together in Borgio Verezzi I had a chance to hear about it. It goes somewhat as follows.
‘When I was in seminary, training as a priest, perhaps I gave the appearance of a person seeking the truth more than of someone looking for a place in an institution. Even at that stage I felt watched, even persecuted. The authorities must have suspected that I had discovered their lie, but I had not then discovered their lie.
‘I was persecuted as a priest, but not till 1966 did I have this experience. One of the passages read at the mass was from 2 Thessalonians, where Paul describes the mystery of iniquity. I had read it many times, but as I read it that time I was suddenly illuminated to see that this was their real basic reason for their persecuting me, because they were anti-Christ. I did not leave suddenly, but by 1971 I had completely cut off relations with the Church. I knew the name of a Waldensian pastor in the north and I went to find him. When I arrived I looked through the telephone directory and found his name and address, and went to see him. I stayed with him for a little while, and then he gave me the address of another Waldensian pastor at Geneva. When I went to see him I found that he was an Italian whom I had known previously in the Roman Catholic Church. How wonderful God’s guidance is! This pastor then telephoned to Rev. Hegger in Holland and he said that I could go and stay with him, and so I did.
‘When Paul says that the mystery of iniquity doth already work, I think he meant that that process had already begun by which men were changing the gospel from being God-centred to something centred on man. The R.C. Church sets tradition on an equal footing with Scripture. But all churches are in constant danger of falling into the same mistake. God has revealed His will objectively in the Scriptures, and the church must continually go back to the Bible to restudy it. There is always the danger of drawing back from the simple revelation of God’s will and building up something around ourselves which is not in the Bible.’
Luigi was not a member of the Committee about to be set up, and I do not remember where he went the next day. As far as I was concerned, I had to get to Franco’s flat, and Mario kindly ran me there in the morning.
Franco opened the discussion, and explained the aims of the meeting. He and his friends did not wish to set up a sect. They were only wishing to practice Christianity as directed in the Bible. Their aim in setting up this committee was to seek by all possible means to present the pure gospel to their people, a thing which had never yet been done. For other countries, as Holland and Scotland, the Reformation took place in history. For Italy, it is yet to come.
After a little preliminary talk we got down to discussing a draft document in which the constitution of the proposed committee was outlined.
These discussions were lively, and the whole exercise was a short-cut to an acquaintance with the personalities and views of the Committee members. One change in the draft document may serve to illustrate their approach. As originally sketched, Aim I of the Committee was, ‘To make known the pure gospel as it was rediscovered at the Reformation and by the reformers’. If you compare this with what was printed in the July magazine you will see that it was eventually changed to, ‘To make known the pure gospel as set out in Article 2’ (The Westminster Confession of Faith). Dr Ottimo, a medical doctor from Sicily, argued vehemently for this change. He said that Franco and others had read the works of the reformers and that it was all right for them to define the pure gospel as that which was ‘rediscovered at the Reformation and by the reformers’. But he could not do that; he had not read these books. And in any case he did not like holding up mere men to others, as if they were the standard. For himself, he believed in the rule ‘Christ alone, grace alone, Scripture alone’, but not because the reformers said so. Others thought the reference to the reformers should be retained, but in the end it went.
In further discussions, this Dr Ottimo showed himself to be a lively character and a radical thinker. Whenever there was a chance he would champion the Bible against all other books. He was not keen on publishing commentaries. He thought the Bible explained itself. Before leaving Dr Ottimo, perhaps I should say that he leads a small group, I think on the west side of Sicily. He has wealth, and knows how to use it. For example, he arranges the running of summer camps where children can come for a holiday, and he makes sure that they get Bible instruction at the same time.
Another member of the committee who is not an office bearer is Alberto Dressino. He is an attractive young man, a doctor of Geology. He more than once expressed the view that the group should address itself to working out the Biblical teaching in various practical problems facing the nation. He felt that there was a danger of becoming locked up in theological concepts. The intelligent sort of comments that Alberto would make impressed me with the fact that, though Franco does not yet have many with him, their quality is very high.
Another gifted young man is Emiglio Bolla, appointed treasurer of the Committee. I understood him to be head of the cash department of a very big firm, so he is apparently suited to handling the financial aspect of things.
When Emiglio got started on his experience I am afraid I lost the track at times. He spoke very fast, but so far as I could gather the first two couples to associate with Franco about five years ago were Mario and Ida, along with Alberto Dressino’s parents. Alberto’s father (Achile) spoke to Pier-Luigi when he came to do some job about the house. (This Pier-Luigi was referred to in an account of my visit last Sept./Oct.). Then Achile came in contact with Emiglio. Emiglio was then President of Catholic Action for that area, and he knew that Achile was a protestant. When Achile spoke, Emiglio had some sense that what he said was the truth, but he did not want to receive it. Achile continued to seek after him, and he came to see clearly with his mind that he was speaking the truth. Then Emiglio’s wife fell ill, and he had time to think when she was in hospital, and he at home alone. He read the Bible, then he began to attend meetings along with Pier-Luigi.
In every committee it is good to have members of differing personalities. The extremities of one may be cancelled out by those of another. The President of Fede Viva is certainly a different type of man from the Secretary. Dr Mesas was in the Argentine, and also in France before coming to Italy. He is the pastor of a small congregation in Milan.
During discussions about the work of Fede Viva, Dr Mesas wondered how the committee was going to relate to other bodies professedly Protestant. If people came to meetings, was the doctrine of election to be preached to them right at the start? He spoke of referring to Franco in conversation with some people, and finding that the name produced a violent reaction: ‘That missionary who thinks himself elect’. Another point which Dr Mesas made was, the danger of becoming rigid and unhuman in doctrine. They could become devoted to orthodoxy as an end in itself, and this would involve self-righteousness. Also, to be in such a state of mind would involve practical uselessness. If people came to them for help and they launched into a theological battle as to which came first, regeneration or conversion, then the people who came for help would just go away.
Another remark of Dr Mesas’ which I remember was, ‘To leave the matter of salvation on the basis of your choice is to leave it completely unsettled. Because to feel like accepting Christ today while the preacher is saying, ‘Come forward, come forward’, is one thing. But what of the choice of every day? What will happen tomorrow? But if God intervenes today, He will intervene tomorrow and every day’.
So readers are now acquainted with the Secretary, the Treasurer and the President of ‘Fede Viva’. They have also met Dr Ottimo, Alberto Dressino and Pier-Luigi. The last member of the Committee to whom I would like to introduce them is Piero Lorefice. Like Franco, Piero works for the European Missionary Fellowship, and like Dr Ottimo, he lives in Sicily. He has three groups between which he has to divide his time. I heard Piero’s experience because, like Luigi, he stayed in the house of Mario and Ida, so there was an opportunity to talk.
‘I was training as a monk in a monastery near Rome. One day, when I was working in the garden, I found a Gospel of John lying on the ground. I began to read it, and at once I found something in it which was different from anything I had been taught. I went to the head of the monastery to discuss it with him, but he took the Gospel from me. In fact he burnt it because it did not have the stamp of the Pope’s approval.
‘However I did not forget about the Gospel, and I began to wish that I could have a whole Bible. Then one day, when travelling in the train I found myself sitting opposite a man who was reading a Bible. He was an evangelist and he spoke to me. He asked me questions which I could not answer, though I had been studying in a monastery for three years. I did not know then who he was, and I do not know to this day. But that encounter with him made me want a Bible more than ever before. I began to search for one, and eventually I found one through a friend of mine. He said that there was an old copy of the Bible in his home. His father had gone to the States at the beginning of the century and when he had come home he had brought this Bible with him. It lay in some dark corner of the house; his family did not read it, and if I wanted it I could have it. I took it willingly, and read it. In that way I found peace in the gospel without discussing it with anyone’.
‘Did you understand the gospel then in the same way as you understand it now?’
‘No: it was a gradual growth. I studied at a Bible College which was Arminian, and even while there I had doubts. I had been saved from salvation by works: but it seemed to me that if salvation were by a faith which we produce within ourselves, it too was a salvation by works, and I could not see the difference. The first time that I came to see the truth clearly was when I met Franco at our Mission Conference in Switzerland in 1971. It was a revelation for me’.
That is the story of some of the men whom I met in Italy. Next month I hope to tell about some of the women. In the meantime readers are reminded that the Synod unanimously approved proposals for supporting this missionary work, specifically the project to provide a Centre where ex-priests and others will be able to come to study the Reformed Faith.
J.T.