Laurie Spurr, Torre Pellice, Italy, July 9 (ENI) - A proposed religious law in Italy requiring pastors to register with the country's interior minister would be a throwback to the fascist regime of the 1920s, members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Warc) were told on Tuesday.

Under legislation said to pertain to "religious freedom" presented by the government of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi earlier this year, only spiritual leaders registered with the Italian government would have legal status, the Rev Salvatore Ricciardi, pastor of the Waldensian Church of Bergamo, told executive members of the world church body.

"What competence does he [the interior minister] have to approve a 'spiritual guide'?" said Ricciardi in a discussion on the challenges facing the contemporary Waldensian church during a meeting in Torre Pellice of the Warc executive committee, which ends on July 15. "We as Protestants don't have 'spiritual guides', we have ministers."

The religious freedom legislation was not the only law worrying the Italian Protestant churches, said Ricciardi.

The church leader, at one point putting his hands over his face, said he felt "anguish" and "shame" about Berlusconi's recent insulting behaviour in the European Parliament, and expressed amazement that the prime minister would be able to continue as the European Union president for a six-month term.

Berlusconi last week said a German member of the European Parliament who had criticised him should take a film role as a Nazi concentration camp guard, triggering tension between the two countries and widespread condemnation of the insult. The situation was exacerbated by another public jibe against Germans made by an Italian government minister which led German chancellor Gerhard Schröder to announce on Wednesday he was cancelling his planned holiday in Italy.

Ricciardi described the two years since Berlusconi took office as "a time of deep changes". "Laws have been approved to stop all legal prosecution of Mr Berlusconi and his friends," Ricciardi told the Reformed church leaders.

Ricciardi was referring to a new law protecting the prime minister from prosecution during his term of office on charges of paying off judges for favourable decisions in cases where Berlusconi had a financial interest.

Ricciardi said his denomination - with only 30,000 members in Roman Catholic-dominated Italy - was not the only minority church that could be adversely affected by the law, he said, pointing to Pentecostal churches, which do not even have paid pastors.

For the Italian Waldensian community, the proposed law might seem a return to the 12th-century roots of their movement, when its founder, Peter Valdes, and his followers - all itinerant preachers - were declared heretics and excommunicated for preaching unofficially.

Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Italian constitution of 1948. But for decades, the Roman Catholic church, as the state religion, received preferential treatment allowing it alone to receive state financial support from tax revenues - regardless of people's church affiliation.

In 1984, the Waldensians (united by then with the Methodist church in Italy) signed an agreement with the government by which taxpayers could designate a donation from their tax bill for the church and its programmes.

Ricciardi said that independent agreements that the state had been poised to sign with other faiths had been stopped after this year's "religious freedom" law was proposed.

"Now we go back to the laws of 1929," the church leader said, referring to a time when "fascist laws ruled the life and activities of the Protestant churches of Italy". [585 words]

ENI-03-0339
© Ecumenical News International
Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and provided ENI is acknowledged as the source