The Sign

Cline R. Paden of Lubbock, Texas went to Italy eight years ago to establish a beachhead for his Church of Christ. He found the way of the missionary hard. First there was the matter of the license, required for any enterprise in Italy, from a church to a cigar stand. Paden could not have a license because he had entered Italy as a tourist, and his application for a permanent residence permit would have to wait. Tourist Paden lost patience and put up a sign on his building in the Via Achille Papa, in the shadow of the Vatican. The sign, in letters ten inches high, read CHIESA DI CHRISTI (Church of Christ).

Promptly, the police arrested Cline Paden for unlicensed activity. But sentence was delayed. Paden put up the sign again. The police tore it down. He sued the police. The judge exonerated the police, saying that they had acted in good faith, whether or not Paden's sign was legal. Paden interpreted this as meaning that the sign was legal after all. In another similar case Italy's highest court formally upheld the principle of religious toleration. Last week Paden put the sign up again.

Up roared the police, down came the sign. Paden started tacking it up again. Back came the police, down came the sign. Paden's brother Gerald had locked himself in a car to take pictures of the incident, but the police broke into the car and took him off to jail. They also arrested Signora Disma Pollipoli, wife of an Italian Church of Christ preacher. At week's end, Missionary Paden nailed his sign outside an upstairs window and locked the front door. Said he: "The police came, and they put up their ladders, but they couldn't reach the sign. They beat on the door, but we did not open it ... So they left, and this is proof of our legal right and of God's protection."

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