“Defending and Legally Establishing the Good News”

Report from Ancona, Italy

AS ELSEWHERE on earth, Jehovah’s witnesses continue to expand in the eastern part of Central Italy, along the Adriatic seacoast, in a section known as Abruzzo. In fact, the witnesses of Jehovah have become better known in this area than any other non-Catholic organization and their popularity among persons of good will is steadily increasing to the extent of alarming the priests. The efforts of the priests to stir up the common people to violence against Jehovah’s witnesses have failed; merely warning their parishioners not to accept literature has had no effect; and the excommunication scare does not work anymore. So now they try to get the police to stop our work on the grounds that a license is needed to preach from door to door.

This is what was tried at Ancona, a seaport city of about 100,000 inhabitants where a group of Jehovah’s witnesses from Abruzzo went to work as full-time ministers. There, as in many other places in Italy, they soon found persons of good will and were able to start a small study group. Their quiet, peaceful Christian activity, however, did not go unnoticed, and on March 2, 1951, two of the ministers were stopped by the police and taken to police headquarters. Here they were questioned as to their work and all the literature they had with them was confiscated.

This action violated the law that requires that a written court order be issued before personal property can be confiscated. However, the Italian police have been trained under the old fascist school and they operate as though fascism still controlled Italy. In fact, the “Public Security Laws” which were framed during the fascist regime have not yet been substituted with new laws in harmony with Italy’s new Constitution. Although judges have instructed that the laws should be applied in harmony with the spirit of the new Constitution, the police continue to apply old fascist laws and openly declare that the new Constitution means nothing to them. A few days later the police raided the home of these ministers in Ancona, seizing all the Bible literature they could find, 200 bound books and upward of 2,000 booklets; all of which was done without any court order. The charge was: distributing literature without a permit.

The Watchtower Society instructed the local ministers to proceed with their preaching activities, using only the Bible if necessary. No fine was paid and the unlawful seizure was contested. Wherever they found interested persons orders were taken for Bible literature.

When the day for the trial finally came Jehovah’s witnesses were represented by a well-known lawyer, glad to defend them because of the principles involved. The trial was held on January 11, 1952, and the praetor, who officiates as judge in such trials, handed down a decision in favor of the ministers of Jehovah. Among other things he said: “The fact is firmly established that the only reason for the activity of the accused [is] to teach their religion. . . . Such religious propaganda is, in our positive arrangement, fully permissible and explicitly authorized by the Constitution. . . . the uncertainty and irregularity of the offerings show that if the accused received contributions, such did not, however, constitute the purpose and aim of their activity. . . . From the complaints for arrest the evidence is clear that none of the accused were found leaving, selling and distributing in any form whatsoever the books, booklets and magazines in ‘public places either open or exposed to the public.’ [Which the Constitution does prohibit.] Due to the above-said condition, this fine does not apply . . . the accused are innocent of the violation of which they are charged because the facts do not indicate a violation. . . . the restitution to the accused of the books and booklets confiscated from them is hereby ordered.”

This was indeed a great legal victory for Jehovah’s witnesses and it not only gives them the legal right to preach the good news unhampered in Ancona, but adds weight to their legal position elsewhere in Italy. These court victories (four important decisions, including one by the Supreme Court) are building up a strong wall of defense against freedom-haters and religious bigots.—Phil. 1:7, NW.

Catholic Clerics Differ on Church Gambling

On August 18, 1951, the Milwaukee Journal announced that Cardinal Stritch had banned gambling in the Catholic churches of Chicago. This came as bad news to many Milwaukee citizens who have been known to trek to Chicago as many as 4,000 at a time on peak Sundays for the pastime. This has been necessary since 1943 when the law finally cracked down on gambling in Milwaukee churches. Games of chance had been illegal in Milwaukee since 1939, but continued in the churches after that partly because the district attorney refused to enforce the law on religious enterprises; and as the Journal noted, “partly because the Catholic church here refused to recognize the law.” After 1943 a new district attorney changed all that and sent Milwaukee bingo lovers to Chicago.

A thread of hope was left open for the bingo enthusiasts through the Chicago Sun-Times, which revealed, the Journal said, that the cardinal’s “confidential communication is reported to say that special permission hereafter must be obtained from the chancery office before games of chance can be played”. This seemingly leaves the way open for wide exceptions to the cardinal’s rule. Perhaps he is not thoroughly convinced of the evil of church bingo. The Journal recalls that “Cardinal Stritch, who was then archbishop of Milwaukee, said in August, 1943, that games of chance in churches were not immoral when conducted according to church regulations, the primary purpose being recreation and the unexpended surplus going to charitable or religious causes”.

In contrast, it is of interest to note the words of another Catholic prelate, Msgr. Paul Emile Leger, archbishop of Montreal. Lo! what a contrast, when in February, 1951, he said on the same subject: “People who assemble in church basements, very often at the time the evening prayer should be recited, do not go there to praise God. On the other hand, these games of chance destroy the real spirit of charity because the money is given in the hope of being able to gain more and not for a supernatural reason and to help the poor and needy. It is humiliating to hear some of the comments on these practices, and still more humiliating to hear of the methods in use in some of these organizations.”