Leonardo De Chirico is in an ongoing argument with the Italian government in regards to the “intrinsic characteristics” of spiritual buildings.
The evangelical pastor insists that Breccia di Roma (Breach of Rome), which is situated in a straightforward storefront a couple of kilometer from the Colosseum, is a church. Christians meet there commonly to hope, praise God, and take heed to the preaching of the Word. The national tax authority has noted, though, that the multifunctional space, which also houses a theological library and a missions training center, doesn’t have the vaulted ceilings, stained glass, raised altar, candles, or saint statues commonly related to churches within the majority-Catholic country and subsequently doesn’t qualify for religious tax exemptions.
“The arguments are silly and poor,” De Chirico told CT. “The pictures they showed were of impressive buildings, but we showed that Muslim prayer rooms are easy and a few Catholic churches meet in shops. Synagogues appear to be our space. They are all tax-exempt. We aren’t asking for privilege. We aren’t asking for something that others don’t have.”
This conflict has been occurring since 2016. A lower court sided with the Reformed Baptist church, however the tax authority filed an appeal. The case is now going to Italy’s Supreme Court.
But tax-exempt status just isn’t essentially the most serious disagreement De Chirico has with Italians about what a church is. In 2014, he wrote a pamphlet critiquing the papacy. In 2021, the Reformed pastor and theology chair of the Italian Evangelical Alliance wrote a book arguing that the “theological framework of Roman Catholicism just isn’t faithful to the biblical gospel.”
So it frustrated him, to say the least, when Thomas Schirrmacher, the pinnacle of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), joined an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, in September. It appeared to him that the secretary general of the worldwide evangelical association was embracing the spiritual leadership of Pope Francis and endorsing a vision of unity not grounded within the gospel.
“When you pray with someone in public, you might be saying that the differences between our theologies are mere footnotes,” De Chirico said. “Dialogue is welcome, but there are core differences we cannot forget or ignore.”
In October, the Italian Evangelical Alliance publicly criticized Schirrmacher, saying the evangelical leader had “crossed a line.” The Spanish Evangelical Alliance issued an identical statement the next month.
“It just isn’t easy to defend that we, evangelicals, don’t bow our heads before the pope when the secretary general of the WEA does,” the Spanish evangelical statement said. “We consider it vital that we publicly express our resounding rejection of his participation in that event and the way in which through which he acted.”
For most of evangelicals’ history, the connection with Catholics in Europe has been defined by rejection, distinction, antagonism, and harassment. Go back far enough, and that history involves martyrs, heresy trials, and public executions.
The first Evangelical Alliance, actually, was organized within the 1800s to face against state establishment of faith and Catholic suppression of conversions. The group mounted its first public campaign in 1851—to free two Protestants imprisoned in Italy. A pair was found guilty of impiety after clashing with authorities in Florence over the intrinsic characteristics of Christian faith.
In recent many years, nonetheless, that relationship has substantively modified. Concerns about communism through the Cold War and secularism and spiritual pluralization within the twenty first century—together with the reforms of Vatican II—have led many European evangelicals to see the Roman Catholic Church as a friend and ally.
Italy, Spain, and other majority-Catholic countries not have state establishments of faith. The Catholic Church often still enjoys legal privileges, though. And it sets the norms for what officials recognize as religious, making life difficult for the evangelical minority.
WEA leadership acknowledges that evangelical-Catholic relations is usually a highly sensitive issue. But the organization has also insisted that ongoing intrafaith dialogue and collaboration on issues like religious freedom haven’t “modified, betrayed, or compromised the WEA’s theological principles.”
In majority-Catholic countries, nonetheless, many European evangelicals still find themselves needing to differentiate points of difference—partly because they’ll still struggle for basic recognition. Sometimes that appears like a conflict with an official who has a really specific idea of what a church looks like. Other times, the struggle is against broad cultural assumptions about what even counts as “religion.”
In places like Ireland, “evangelicals aren’t even in the image,” said Bob Wilson, a church planter in Dublin supported by Communitas International. “In the past, when everyone went to church, everyone went to the Roman Catholic Church. Now, when no person goes to church, no person goes to any church.”
Ireland has been officially secular since a 1972 amendment to its structure passed with overwhelming support.
But the Roman Catholic Church’s influence over the culture is kind of pronounced. Social expectations and norms—from what a family looks prefer to what a minister looks like—are set by the Catholic church.
That could make life difficult for evangelicals, especially church planters, pastors, and missionaries. Wilson sometimes struggles to persuade people he is basically a minister.
A number of years ago, he recalls, he ended up in a pub in Dublin trying to clarify what it meant to be a church planter. He remembers really hoping he could create a protected space within the pub to discuss Jesus.
It didn’t go as he’d hoped.
Politely, a person tilted a pint of beer in Wilson’s direction and said, “You know, the common person in Ireland would think you might be out of your f—ing mind.”
Not everyone has responded like that, though. Wilson has been encouraged to see some disaffected Catholics find their option to the church and discover a distinct option to place confidence in Christ. But it’s slow going.
“It’s all about constructing relationships,” Wilson said, “and that’s just something you will have to do one person at a time.”
Felipe Lobo Arranz, an evangelical Lutheran pastor, said it’s similar in Spain. According to demographic data, the country is two-thirds Catholic. But the fact is that a lot of them are lapsed. They don’t take their Catholicism seriously, he said, though it still informs their strong opinions about what Christianity should appear to be.
Arranz finds ways to make use of that, though. He often finds himself appealing to the ideals of disaffected and disillusioned Spaniards in his evangelistic work within the coastal city of Alicante.
“This is a rustic that knows when something is sweet and true,” he said. “The Spanish admire the common-or-garden: individuals who do good and relate to others as true friends.”
As a missionary, Arranz spends most of his time talking with others over “good food and good drink.” He forms relationships, gets involved in people’s lives, and sees people slowly confide in discussions in regards to the gospel.
“After an extended time, you might be welcomed into the Spanish sancta sanctorum to speak in regards to the divine,” he said, “nevertheless it’s vital to heat the furnace of true friendship for a very long time to get there.”
That’s the way it goes in Italy, too. Though De Chirico has found himself embattled within the courts and thinks it’s essential to publicly critique Catholic theology, that’s not his principal work as an evangelical pastor.
He preaches to and cares for his congregation of about 60 as he has since 2009—and as he did for 12 years before that within the northern city of Ferrara. He connects with local people—priests, professors on the nearby Catholic seminaries, international students, and folks who live in Rome.
The church also serves as a training center for pastors and church planters and as a type of hub for evangelicals across the country.
“There’s no physical threat, no fierce opposition within the sense of shutting down churches or anything,” De Chirico said. “It’s just making our lives difficult.”
And while ministry is harder than it must be, evangelicals in majority-Catholic countries just need to be faithful to their calling, he said.
“In a minority context like Italy it’s at all times step-by-step, or piano, piano, as we are saying.”
Ken Chitwood is a scholar of worldwide religion who lives and works in Germany.
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