On Monday, June 22, something happened that had never before happened in Christian history: A Catholic pope visited a Waldensian church. Following is an eye witness report from that visit.
"God will never allow human sin to have the last word. God always does something new to open a new way for us to live out our relationships with each other. This is a fact that, whatever our attitude about our shared history, we cannot avoid. On behalf of the Catholic Church, I need to ask you for forgiveness. I need to ask you for forgiveness for the non-Christian, in some cases even inhuman, attitudes and actions that in our shared history Waldensians have suffered at the hands of Catholics. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us!"
Pope Francis didn't pull any punches when, before the hushed crowd in the Waldensian Church of Turin, he asked for forgiveness for the violence and persecution that his church had perpetrated in the past. There was no way to minimize the guilt of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was guilty, said Pope Francis, for not acting in a human way, let alone a Christian way, toward Waldensians.
It was a formal acknowledgment of past sins made even more powerful by the fact that it was said where it was. Once the meeting was officially over, the Moderator of the Waldensian Tavola, Eugenio Bernardini, said that the pope's asking for forgiveness had profoundly touched his fellow Waldensians. "We heard it with joy", he said. "Of course, the past cannot be changed, but there are words that at a certain point need to be said and the pope had the courage and the sensitivity to say exactly the right thing."
It was, in fact, the first time that a pope had visited a Waldensian church. Side by side with the moderator, he entered the doors of the church of Turin, which historically was the first Waldensian church to be built after the Waldensians got the right to worship without fear of arrest as a result of the Edict of Toleration of 1848. After 800 years of years of repression by the Catholic Church, eight centuries which until recently were mainly characterized by theological divisions and differences, the two Christian churches have taken some major steps toward each other on the road to ecumenism.
"Our common identity in Christ" the pope reminded everyone, "has made it possible to grasp the profound ties which already unite us in spite of our differences." It is a unity, the pope said, that is more important than the churches' varying interpretations of gender, ethics and theology and which encourages us to continue toward the vision of men and women joining together to testify to the joy of the Gospel.
It was a vision of the future shared by the moderator who, in his welcoming address to Pope Francis, borrowed an image from Pope Francis' 'apostolic exhortation' titled Evangelii gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel"). Echoing Evangelii gaudium, Moderator Bernardini said that Christian unity can and must be conceived as 'reconciled diversity.' In other churches, we need to look, the moderator said, not for defects or shortcomings - of which there are bound to be some - but for what the Holy Spirit has given birth to in those churches, which could also be a gift for us. "This is ecumenism," said the moderator, "doing away with the churches' sense that they are self-sufficient. Every church needs the other churches to realize God's purpose for their existence."
This report was translated by Duncan Hanson from an article by Federica Tourn in the Italian Protestant newspaper, La Riforma. Another report from the pope's historic meeting of June 22 with the Waldensians will be reprinted here soon. The American Waldensian Society offers these reports for public use. These reports may be reprinted in newsletters and bulletins and web pages.
