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What would have been the seventeenth meeting of interchurch families from the Lyon region, French-speaking Switzerland and northern Italy – three countries linked by the Italian Alps – is replaced 6-9 July 2001 by a planning meeting for the World Gathering of Interchurch Families to be held in Rome in 2003. English and German-speakers will join the French and Italians. This seems a good time to look back over the series of Italian-French-Swiss conferences that began in 1970.
Franco-Italian contacts began in the mid-1960’s when Gianni Marcheselli, an Italian Catholic married to a Waldensian, Myriam, found a leaflet about correspondence courses in ecumenism run by the Centre St Irénée in Lyon. Waldensian communities date back to the thirteenth century; since the sixteenth they have belonged with the family of Reformed Churches. Catholic-Waldensian couples were in a very difficult situation in Italy in the early 1960’s, when Gianni married Myriam. When he contacted the Centre St Irénée he discovered that its director Fr René Beaupère, OP had organised meetings of foyers mixtes since the early 1960’s (Interchurch Families 4,1, January 1996). In 1967 a first Franco-Swiss meeting of foyers mixtes was held near Geneva, and in 1968 the Centre St Irénée published the first number of the quarterly Foyers Mixtes to give a voice to the interchurch families of France and French-speaking Switzerland. The third number (April 1969) contained both a ‘letter from England’ by Ruth and Martin Reardon, and one from Italy by Myriam and Gianni Marcheselli.
In June 1969 a first small meeting of Italian coppie interconfessionali took place in Genoa, organised by the Marchesellis, with a pastor and priest from Genoa present. Don Mario Polastro came from Torre Pellice in Waldensian country, where obviously there were more mixed marriages than in most parts of Italy. The Marchesellis lived in Milan, but Myriam’s family lived at Torre Pellice, and Don Mario was to prove a constant supporter of interchurch families over the next thirty years, for most of which time he was parish priest of Pinerolo. The couples who met at Genoa discussed the possibility of meeting with foyers mixtes from Lyon and Switzerland in Italy the following year. By the time the group met in Milan in November, this tripartite conference was planned for Torre Pellice, and they discussed publishing in Italian a quarterly on the lines of Foyers Mixtes.
Early followers of Peter Waldo had fled from the city of Lyon to escape Catholic persecution in the mountains of north-west Italy. In view of this ancient link, and the commitment of a Catholic-Waldensian couple and Don Mario to help organise a meeting, it was not surprising that the next step for the Centre St Irénée should be a Franco-Italian-Swiss meeting in that area.
Bobbio Pellice 31 July-2 August 1970
It was held in a Salvation Army centre in Bobbio Pellice, using both French
and Italian. Five Italian couples were there, with twice as many from Lyon,
Geneva and the Swiss Canon de Vaux. Fr René Beaupère and Don Mario
Polastro took part in the whole meeting, and there were visits from Waldensian
pastors for part of the time; one gave a meditation on Saturday morning, and
two others celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the afternoon. Fr Beaupère
and Don Mario celebrated mass on Sunday. Couples were present together at both
celebrations, but there was no sharing of communion. The Italian group learned
of the experience of French and Swiss groups over eight years, and felt they
were far behind. The main focus of the gathering was the religious education
of the children. Italians felt that what was already possible in France (shared
or dual catechesis for the children, although a child was still to be given
a clear identity in one community or the other) was simply not yet practicable
in Italy. After the conference, however, the first number of Focolari Misti
appeared, reporting the conference and French initiatives for the religious
education of the children of foyers mixtes.
Agape, 16-18 July 1971
The second conference for interchurch families of Lyon, French-speaking Switzerland
and Italy was held a year later at the ecumenical centre of Agape, at Prali
in the province of Turin. It was dominated by the question of eucharistic sharing.
In the end it was decided not to celebrate a eucharist at all, but to close
with a service of prayer ending with an ‘agape’ for which a cake
was bought from the village shop. A letter was sent by the Italian couples to
the local priest, the bishop, and the president of the evangelical federation
in Italy asking that mixed couples should be able to receive communion together
both at Mass and the Lord’s Supper.
Foresteria valdese, 1-3 September 1972; 6-8 July 1973
The third conference was held at a Waldensian conference centre in Torre Pellice.
The papal motu proprio of 1970, Matrimonia Mixta, was studied; it had removed
the obligation for both partners to make a promise about the Catholic baptism
and education of the children, and the undertaking to be given by the Catholic
partner was not an absolute one. The group also studied a Waldensian document
on marriage produced in 1971; Gianni Marcheselli had recently written a commentary
for the Catholic publication La Famiglia.
The fourth conference returned to eucharistic sharing. They decided that for Sunday worship the group would divide, half going to mass at the Catholic parish church and half to the Protestant service in Torre Pellice. The same message to both congregations, agreed by the whole conference, was read publicly in each case by one of the participants. It was an attempt to explain to the wider communities what interchurch families needed from the churches and what they believed they could contribute to ecumenical progress. This began a lasting tradition of going to worship with the local communities when the Italians, French and Swiss met together.
Bobbio Pellice, 6-10 July 1974
It was decided in 1973 to hold a longer meeting the following year. 1974 was
the eighth centenary of the Waldensian movement, and the conference took the
Sermon on the Mount, so dear to the ‘poor of Lyon’ as its theme.
In preparation the January Foyers Mixtes had an article on Peter Waldo by a
Catholic priest and one on the Waldensian Church by the Dean of the Waldensian
faculty of theology in Rome. Couples at Bobbio Pellice struggled with the question
of how to live the Sermon on the Mount in their own situation. They visited
the museum of Waldensian history at Torre Pellice, the historic sites in the
mountains where Waldensians had fled persecution and trained their preachers,
and the ecumenical centre of Agape. On Sunday the whole group joined in the
Waldensian service at Torre Pellice, and read their message, directed particularly
to that one community in their eighth centenary year. On Tuesday they met with
the Catholic community of Torre Pellice, joined by the local Catholic bishop.
Luserna San Giovanni, 5-7 September 1975; 2-4 July 1976
The sixth conference was held near Torre Pellice at the house of a Catholic
community of religious sisters, on the subject of ecumenical catechesis; the
Italians were amazed by what had been achieved in France. The same venue was
chosen for the seventh conference, on the theme of ‘canonical and pastoral
practice from the motu proprio Matrimonia Mixta to today’.
Pilgrimage 2-10 July 1977
The eighth meeting took the form of a week’s pilgrimage in Tuscany and
Umbria, with visits to Perugia, Spello, Assisi, with time for reflection on
‘Francis of Assisi and us’, tourist attractions and an exchange
of information and views. Francis and Waldo had much in common; they were alive
at the same time, and both laid great stress on evangelical poverty and sent
out mendicant preachers. Whereas Franciscans were accepted by the Catholic Church,
however, Waldensians were excommunicated.
Foresteria valdese, 13-15 May 1978, 14-16 July 1980
The following year the theme was ‘Bible, Spirit and Prayer’. Couples
talked about how they were able to read the Bible together, how they found they
could pray together as couples and as families. There were suggestions of another
week’s pilgrimage, this time in the mountains of northern Italy ‘in
the footsteps of Peter Waldo’. This took place with only a small number
of participants in July 1980, but those who went were delighted. A short stay
at the Foresteria valdese allowed local participation. Pastors and priests came
to meet the pilgrims, as did the Bishop of Pinerolo, and this was counted as
the tenth Italian-Franco-Swiss meeting.
After a five-year gap, the pattern of a weekend conference held at the Foresteria valdese in Torre Pellice every two or three years was followed. In the meantime Italy was not forgotten in Lyon. Another suggestion for a pilgrimage came to nothing, but in 1983 the review Foyers Mixtes (no.61) devoted over half its space to interchurch families and ecumenism in Italy, with articles by Myriam and Gianni Marcheselli, Don Mario Polastre and others. Then two years later the tripartite meetings were resumed, with the eleventh meeting held 13-14 July 1985. The theme chosen was ‘ecumenical catechesis’, a subject on which so much work had been done in France.
Two years later the twelfth conference was held 17-19 July 1987, with the theme ‘ecumenical celebrations of baptism and their consequences’. Swiss and French participants described two shared celebrations of baptism which had taken place, one in Geneva and one in Valence. Fr Beaupère recalled the existence of a text published by the Catholic-Protestant Working Group in France in 1975: ‘Note on the ecumenical celebration of baptism’. Interchurch couples from the Pinerolo region told how they had sent a request about baptism to the church authorities, Catholic and Waldensian. On the Waldensian side, the regional synod had welcomed it, and referred it to the national synod. On the Catholic side, the expression ‘double belonging’ had not been acceptable. They were advised to speak rather of a ‘double recognition’ and a commitment by both communities to nurture the child in the Christian faith in such a way that s/he would be able to make a definitive choice. There was a strong feeling that ecumenical catechesis should follow on from a shared celebration of baptism. When the group divided for Sunday worship, a good many of the Catholics went to the Waldensian service, while a good many Protestants went to mass.
A different kind of meeting took place in Torre Pellice in May 1989. The Waldensian district and the Catholic diocese arranged an official meeting on the subject of interchurch families, and interchurch couples were invited to share their experience (Don Mario’s report in Foyers Mixtes 1990, no.88). It was several years before the tripartite conferences resumed.
The thirteenth meeting held 17-19 July 1992 returned to consider religious education of the children and interconfessional catechesis. An ‘open evening’ on Saturday gave an overview of the ecumenical situation from interchurch couples’ point of view in France, Switzerland and Italy.
Three years later the fourteenth conference held 7-10 July 1995 studied the ‘Appel à nos églises’ on the ecclesiological significance of interchurch families that had been put to the church authorities in France by Fr René Beaupère and Pastor Jacques Maury (see Interchurch Families, 4,1, January 1996, p.10). The overall theme was ‘Interconfessional couples and local churches: what is the reality?’ For the first time a representative from England was present at an Italian-Franco-Swiss conference.
The fifteenth and sixteenth conferences followed at two-year intervals, meeting at the Foresteria valdese 11-14 July 1997 with the theme ‘Confirmation and First Communion’ and 9-12 July 1999 on ‘the domestic church’ (see Interchurch Families 1998, 6,1 and 2000, 8,1). On both occasions there were representatives from England, and there was a new departure in taking the ‘message’ of the conference to Catholic and Waldensian communities in neighbouring villages, rather than remaining in Torre Pellice as in previous years.
(For this overview thanks to Gianni Marcheselli, Don Mario Polastre, and to Fr René Beaupère for reports in Foyers Mixtes.)
9.2.9-10
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