DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation
September 18, 1952
CONFIDENTIAL
Subject: Church of Christ in Italy Issue
Participants: The Secretary Mr. Homer M. Byington, Jr. WE Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, Chairman, Italian Emergency Committee Dr. Alvin W. Johnson, Director, International Religious Liberty Assoc. Dr. Frank H. Yost, Seventh-Day Adventist Rev. B. H. Hood, Pastor, Church of Christ, SE Washington Rev. Sam Durrance, Pastor, Church of Christ, Washington Dr. J. Walter Carpenter, Pastor, Metropolitan Baptist Church, D. C.
Copies to: S EUR - (2) WE - Mr. Collins WE - Mr. Wm. Knight H - Mr. Brown P Pl American Embassy, Rome
Dr. Taylor expressed appreciation to the Secretary for receiving this delegation. They had come not in any sense to criticize the Department of State but to help in any way that they could in furnishing ammunition to the Department to ensure a satisfactory solution for the difficulties which had arisen in Italy in regard to the representatives there of the Church of Christ. He presented to the Secretary a resolution which had been drawn up and adopted at a meeting held in the office of the national association of Evangelicals on September 16. He stressed the high esteem in which the United States Government is held in Italy and the importance which representation on the part of the United States Government could have in persuading the Italian Government to withdraw the discriminatory regulations preventing freedom of worship on the part of the missionaries in Italy of the Church of Christ. He said that the basic difficulty lay in the refusal of the Italian Government to nullify the laws of 1928 and 1929 which were adopted by the Mussolini regime following the Concordat with the Vatican State. He said these laws were the cause of all the trouble and were in direct violation of the Italian constitution which provided freedom of worship in Italy.
The Secretary said that he had not been informed regarding the specific legal question involved but that he would like to explain the situation as it now stood. The Department had been informed by the Embassy at Rome that it was in close touch with Dr. Paden and that a full statement by Dr. Paden was being rushed here by pouch. The Embassy had reported in summary that Dr. Paden's statement declared that up to now Dr. Paden had, before opening a new congregation in a
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new city, asked the local chief of police orally whether any permission were necessary and the police had invariably said that notification to them was sufficient. There were two important facts that we did not have. In one case it was understood that, according to Dr. Paden, all of the Churches of Christ in Italy had been closed, whereas we understood from the Italian Government that the only church involved was the one in Rome. Moreover, it was also understood from the Italian Government that the church in Rome had been established without compliance with the established provision of Italian law, including the application for permission to open it. We needed very much to know the actual facts in both of these questions and also whether, if it were true that the necessary permission had not been obtained, Dr. Paden was now making an application and what action the Italian Government proposed to take on that application. When we had received this information, we would then be in a position to communicate further with this group.
Dr. Johnson brought up the question of difficulties being experienced by other church orders in Italy such as the Waldenses and Seven-Day Adventists. It was confirmed to Dr. Johnson that inquiries had been made of the Embassy with regard to the specific churches in which he was interested.
The group again reiterated the importance which they attached to Ambassador Bunker making representations to the Italian Government and it was left that Mr. Byington would inform Dr. Taylor as soon as further information had been received from the American Embassy in Rome. Dr. Taylor, on behalf of the group, expressed great appreciation to the Secretary for his very helpful explanation of the facts as they now stood.
EUR:WE:HMByington, Jr.:cal