Religion: Missionaries in Rome

Cline Paden, 33, a minister of the fundamentalist Churches of Christ, looked out of his window in Rome last week to find 40 armed carabinieri at his door. Soon after, as members of his congregation began to arrive for Sunday services at the chapel downstairs, the carabinieri waved them away. Pastor Paden went downstairs to remonstrate. He urged the carabinieri themselves to come inside to hear his preaching. Said their commander: “Why would you let us attend your services? We are all Catholics.” Answered Evangelist Paden: “All the more reason for us to save your souls.” The carabinieri just went on patrolling the entrance.

The blunt words and the police cordon were part of a wrangle that began a fortnight ago with the closing of one Church of Christ in northern Italy, and reached a climax last week when the Italian government closed all 22 of them. In three years of missionary work in Roman Catholic Italy, Church of Christ missionaries have made only 450 converts. Some of their followers, after accepting gifts of food and clothing, have gone back to Catholicism. But until the closing, the outlook for more converts still seemed hopeful.

In Rome, Italian officials denied that the ban on the Churches of Christ was anti-Protestant persecution. Although Protestants have constitutional freedom in Italy, a 1929 ordinance requires them to get a permit from the Ministry of the Interior before opening new churches. Faced with interminable delays when they have requested permits, Church of Christ ministers have gone ahead without them.

Older Protestant churches in Italy, which have complied with the registration laws, have not had any trouble. Said the Rev. Emanuele Shaffi, a Methodist, and chairman of Italy’s Federal Council of Evangelical Churches (membership: 60,000): “We enjoy complete freedom of worship . . . We feel that our friends of the Churches of Christ are not entirely in the right.”

Pastor Paden and his fellow ministers were not giving up; they were holding services wherever possible. Said Paden: “You can close the doors of the church buildings . . . The Church is God and you cannot close Him down … I guess we were more aggressive than the others in the service of God.”