Protestants in Italy

Having last week settled his difficulties with the Italian Government (see p. 24), His Holiness Pope Pius XI turned his thoughts to an old problem: Protestant proselytizing in Italy, where there are 42 Methodist Episcopal Churches, 5,000 communicants and 2,000 Sunday School pupils. Partially supported by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Church in the U. S., these churches are guided by Italian ministers but looked after by the U. S. The Italian Government permits registered Italian Methodist ministers, as well as Roman Catholic priests, to perform marriages, funeral services and other sacraments. In Rome the Methodist Church runs a school for Italian boys: the Collegio Internazionale Monte Mario. There are a girls' school in Rome, an orphanage in Naples, a vocational school in Venice.

Principal other Protestant groups in Italy are the British Wesleyan Methodists, the U. S. Southern Baptists, and the ancient, native Waldensian Church. But none of these has so recently irritated the Vatican as has the Methodist Episcopal Church. Two incidents especially caused His Holiness to plan last week a new campaign (but to make public no details).

At Tagliacozzo, not far from Rome, Italians returned from the U. S. are building a Methodist Church. They put a King James Bible in its cornerstone, sent a salutatory telegram to Benito Mussolini.

At Anticoli Corrado, near Subiaco, U. S. pastors distributed Bibles to the populace. The parish priest got his flock to give them up, made of them a big bonfire.

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