Protestants: “Protect freedom of worship also for Protestants and believers of all faiths”

Rome (NEV CS / 12), May 3, 2020 – The Bureau of the Commission of Evangelical Churches for the Relations with the State (CCERS), composed by the president, pastor Luca Maria Negro, and two vice presidents, pastors Carmine Napolitano and Davide Romano, sent a letter in recent days to the Interior Minister, Luciana Lamorgese, about the exercise of the right of worship freedom, with particular reference to the needs of evangelical churches and more generally of religious minorities.  “We surely want to fully respect and guarantee all safety, social distancing and pandemic regulations – declared Pastor Negro – .  At the same time, we wanted to ask some questions regarding the worship freedom  enshrined in the Constitution. In particular, as far as evangelical churches are concerned, concrete problems arise for which we need a solution: the possibility to move for the ministers of worship to whom several pastoral communities in Italy are entrusted; the need to allow public cults to be resumed as soon as possible, albeit contingently; consequently the possibility for the community members to reach places of worship, sometimes far from homes, with relative self-certification. We ask for an ad hoc protocol to be stipulated, when circumstances permit, precisely because we do not want our activities to represent a risk to public health in any way. We wanted to reiterate that from our point of view the Church is not a physical place but a community of believers who live in communion with Christ, even when temples are closed; at the same time we trust that fraternal communion can also be brought back to life as soon as possible in the physical encounter with the brothers and sisters. We therefore hope – concluded Pastor Luca Negro – also in the light of what was declared on April 26 by the Prime Minister Conte, that the free exercise of public worship, enshrined in the article 19 of the Constitutional Charter, is fully guaranteed to all believers, in compliance with the specificity of each religious confession, with discernment, prudence and adopting the necessary devices”.

* The Commission of Evangelical Churches for the Relations with the State (CCERS), promoted by the FCEI (Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy), and independent of it, gathers the vast majority of Italian evangelical churches and associations. It promotes the protection of religious freedom in Italy and takes care of the relations of member churches with public institutions. The Commission is chaired by the president of the FCEI, currently the Baptist pastor Luca Maria Negro; two vice-presidents integrate the office, currently pastor Carmine Napolitano, president of the Federation of Pentecostal churches, and pastor Davide Romano, director of the Public Affairs and Religious Freedom Department of the Union of Adventist Churches.