Rome, (NEV / Riforma), February 2, 2019 – In December we gave an account of the Waldensian church of Pisa support to the hypothesis of building a mosque. In recent days, an anonymous letter expressed threats to a Democratic Party (PD) branch, to the Catholic diocese and to the Waldensian church itself. The Council of the Waldensian Church of Pisa responded as follows:
“When we took a position in favour of worship freedom for everyone, and therefore also for the construction of the mosque in Pisa, we knew that not everyone would have appreciated our opinion. We did not expect, however, and for this we are worried, that someone thought to respond with an anonymous letter threatening to blow up the Pd branch of Pisanova-Cisanello, the diocesan pastoral council and our church because of the positions expressed in favour of worship freedom.
We express our solidarity to the Democratic Party and to the Diocesan pastoral council that have been threatened with us – and return their solidarity. We also want to thank the ACLI Association, the Agesci Association, the Network of the secondary school students, the Union of university students, the Mayor, the Association ‘A city in the Community’, the Association ‘Sinistra per’, and the many citizens who expressed their solidarity. Naturally, this episode does not change our commitment in favour of worship freedom, for Muslims as for anyone else, which, in addition to being an essential principle for our way of living the Christian faith, is guaranteed by the Constitution of our Country.
We do not live and will not live in fear, despite the threats, not because we feel strong or powerful, but because we trust the God of peace and dialogue. As Psalm 27 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”.
We are available to discuss the matter with anyone who doesn’t feel in agreement with us, has the courage of his convictions and is willing to civilly confront. On the contrary, we will denounce to the authorities those who, being short of arguments, passed to threats.
The Council of the Waldensian Evangelical Church of Pisa – 27 January 2019
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