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A book that raises questions

Writer's picture: Elpidio PezzellaElpidio Pezzella

Review of Alessandro Iovino's book, Il racconto di un’amicizia. Dialogo tra papa Francesco e il pastore Giovanni Traettino, Eternity, Milano 2024.



A few months after its release, Alessandro Iovino's latest work “Il racconto di un amicizia” continues to elicit opposing reactions. Enthusiasm and joy on the one hand. Skepticism and distrust on the other. Between those who rejoice at the victory and those who wrinkle their noses, those who pick up the book in their hands try to glean from the words of the two interlocutors involved elements of rapprochement or estrangement to their own religious sensibilities. After all, the subtitle is “Dialogue between Pope Francis and Pastor John Traettino.” Outside church circles this book has been received as a hymn to friendship, a love potion to the hatreds swarming over the face of the earth and which know no end.


I fear that part of the uproar raised in the evangelical world, rather than the book, is related to the author's first visit to the Vatican, under the mentorship of Pastor Traettino himself. The biggest perplexity is how it is possible to combine diametrically opposed positions, such as those of the interviewees. To this I would add doubt about Iovino's ability to succeed in being a needle in the balance and not an interested party.


Anyone, however, who chooses to plunge into the pages of the book, should be clear that we are undeniably dealing with a historic encounter, the one that took place on Nov. 7, 2023 in which the interview was conducted, and that the author should be given credit for having been not only a witness, but a participatory chronicler as well as the architect of the whole thing. I have some hesitation in believing that the two confessions involved felt the urgency for a new dialogue and to talk to each other. What is provoking instead is to reflect on the possibility of confrontation. I too have tried to do so, from an evangelical perspective, my own. I have a Catholic background, like most Italian evangelicals, and I am among those who converted to the evangelical faith when biblical evidence revealed to my eyes distortions of secular practices bordering on paganism.


I am bound with Iovino by a fraternal friendship dating back some 20 years and the fruit of the ministry of my father-in-law, Pastor Remo Cristallo, who entrusted Alessandro, a budding historian of the Pentecostal movement and a promising journalist, with a column on the television station TeleOtre. Born and raised in the bosom of one of Italy's most reluctant Pentecostal church families to any form of dialogue and distrustful of anything that comes from the outside, in recent years Iovino has repeatedly seemed like a “new wine” capable of challenging “old wineskins” of a part of the Italian Pentecostal world. And as he himself declares, “it is not easy to find good reasons to support one's openings, it is not easy to find words to explain the need to move states of immobility that have lasted decades” (page 64). I have been a direct witness, and several times I have had the burden of sharing the same stage to “stir” internal approaches. And when it seemed that the miracle was materializing, the parties involved again became estranged. Let alone bringing together two opposing worlds such as Italian Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism.


Although the title refers to a dialogue between two friends, the book has well-defined shores behind the relationship between the Catholic pope and an evangelical Pentecostal pastor, starting with the biblical verses placed at the opening and moreover in the CEI version. The cover itself elicits explanatory dystonias and lends itself to instrumental allusions, with the author blurred from behind, the pope tending to be central and the pastor defiladed and smiling.


The corpus opens with the transcript of the historical interview, followed by what I believe to be the soul of the book, the second part “Let's Listen.” The third part takes a leap back to the genesis with the full transcript of the pope's and pastor's speeches on the occasion of Francis' July 28, 2014 visit to the Church of Reconciliation in Caserta, followed by journalistic interviews with Traettino. This is followed by the testimonies of some of the exponents who participated in the intervening visits over the years and interview preamble. All celebrated with enchantment the richness of an encounter with Francis, more pastor than pope. This was enhanced by a collage of photos that amplify the message of friendship and dialogue. When Luther came to Rome, history changed forever. I don't think that some of the children of that history went to Rome to bring about similar consequences; on the contrary, they seem to have positively reconsidered without becoming embittered like Paul in Athens.


In the aftermath of Pastor Remo Cristallo's departure (January 2017), a friendship was born with Pastor Traettino through the collaboration of their respective communities in the Casal di Principe area, which was followed by pleasant private occasions in which we got to know each other better. When on July 28, 2014, Pope Bergoglio visited him first at home and then in church, as editor of the Christian information magazine Oltre, I wondered about the significance of that gesture, which is foundational in Iovino's proposal. Between the two, there was a prior friendship, born and consolidated in Argentina, when Traettino was already embedded in an ecumenical journey with the Catholic world. That gesture had the flavor of involvement, of fraternization, almost like the reunion of two worlds. Only a pope with the high charisma of Francis could have gone that far, many thought.


However, the pope himself, as soon as he ascended to the papal throne, had declared battle with the evangelical “sects” that had conquered entire countries in South America. The Jesuit Bergoglio had been called to “renew” the Pietrine throne and to come to terms with a worldwide crisis in numbers of believers and vocations, and thus in influence: a secularized Europe, where the faith is lived to a very private degree; Africa divided between Islam and a Christianity, mostly Pentecostal, the only one known and experienced; the eastern front of Islamic domination and Asia all yet to be conquered. Already with Ratzinger's visits to the historic evangelical churches, possible “Christian” alliances were being worked out, such as “let us respect each other,” or “let us not make war,” which meant nothing more than, “Don't evangelize Catholics.” How to deny that the first recipients of any evangelistic action are precisely Catholics, those in our country who are in some way linked to the Church of Rome, at least with paedobaptism and funerals?


Even on the Pentecostal front, Bergoglio's very “evangelical” talk had aroused the sympathies of many: the not condemning anyone and embracing everyone, offering the illusion of a change in style, but not in content. The position of almost all evangelicals in Italy in general remained one of distance from Roman Catholicism, albeit without aversion. For many others, the pope (whoever he is and whatever he does) remained regardless synonymous with and/or embodying the antichrist. And the choice to go and apologize for the barbarities practiced against Pentecostals by the Catholic Church in a community not fully representative of the entire Pentecostal world did not please. The disappointment was related not only to the choice of the community, but also to the manner, fearing that behind the visit and the apology was the hidden intent to place a seal of belonging, through the recognition of his person and his role as “pontiff.”


Iovino's book helps to enter the folds of this story, also through the integration of an interview he conducted with the pastor (conducted on Dec. 20, 2014) and which provides other perspective, urging the reader to go beyond those identity positions, erected over the years as insurmountable walls before Catholic influence and domination.


Let us come to some of the contents of this historic double interview, which engages thirty-two of the more than one hundred and ninety pages. It is an amplified chat. The interview questions do not follow a preordained nexus, at least that is my impression. In some passages one can perceive cuts made before the “seen, print” as reported in the author's opening note and motivated “for reasons of length and clarity.” The repartee that the reader anticipates is thus missed. Likewise, the not-always alternating duet deprives the reader of gasps, as it never becomes a confrontation with attack and defense. After all, the goal was clear in the title “The Tale of a Friendship.” And a friendship cannot take on the tones of a dispute, even if that is what more than a few readers yearn for in taking the book in their hands, because even friends tell each other off “hard” sometimes.


If anyone expects a theological dispute in the wake of Luther in Heidelberg or Leipzig they will be disappointed. After all, the meeting took place in the rooms of Casa Santa Marta, that is, in the papal residence, and not in neutral territory. The two have known each other for decades, dialoguing and confronting each other with full respect, as so many evangelical pastors do on their turf with the neighborhood priest or the food bank priest. And this I think should not shock anyone. These are personal relationships, and there are fronts on which one can be united and serenely in agreement.


Here is Bergoglio immediately declaring that “a friend is happy to see the other grow, and for that reason many times he offers him precedence,” and then that “where there is war, there is enmity.” Traettino, on the other hand, posits the overcoming of the “anti-Catholic paradigm” a priori, while admitting a number of issues that are “necessary and important” but can become obstacles to the essential. While the book recounts a circumscribed event, it can be misunderstood in the sense that it can give rise to an easy conclusion: if the pope and a pastor are friends and in dialogue, so can Catholic and evangelical believers all. And the reader, if evangelical, wonders, if in the name of esteem and respect, one must stop “evangelizing” Catholics, just as was assumed in the Caserta visit.


Regarding the role of Christ's vicar, Bergoglio declares that “Christ is the Lord, and the Lord does not replace Himself, no one can do that” (page 43), but then adds that the role of vicar must "represent a sign of unity" (even for evangelicals?) and then goes on to declare the dogmatic infallibility of the Council of Ephesus in 431 regarding Mary mother of God (!?), transferring it to the people who had claimed such a declaration. In fact, he then remains very evasive when trying to tiptoe around Mariolatry.


In speaking of the Bible, Pastor John places it as the sole foundation, “the only Word of God,” and points out in this regard “our major diversity,” bouncing back what was sanctioned by the Second Vatican Council, which placed it instead alongside “the source” of tradition. Finally, a jolt (page 45). Then, when the talk was beginning to tickle and get interesting, the interview comes to a breathless end, without the final tear. Yet there had been no veto of questions, as Iovino declares (page 47). The final prayer, well documented photographically, appears as the signing of a pact of non-belligerence.


In the second part, Iovino retraces the interview, leading the reflection like someone sewing a patch on a torn dress, through “the duty of memory and also the duty of oblivion,” which is followed by Pico Iyer's quote “memory is the fidelity a heart can give to its memories” (page 60). It is not long before he makes an appeal to see others through the theology of the polyhedron suggested by Pope Francis and which particularly struck him despite the fact that he is unaccustomed to geometry and mathematics: “those who consider themselves perfect in the Church do not see others. And each sense of perfection is at bottom a danger, since it is close to pride” (page 63).


A few pages earlier, he speaks of today's greatest challenge, which is “to achieve greater unity in diversity in order to confront secularization and the growing de-Christianization of Europe.” Are we still in the realm of mutual respect, or instead is Pope Francis (who remains the apex of a huge pyramid) aiming at the goal of halting evangelization efforts among Catholics? Or is this merely a proposal at the realization of a united front against more pressing issues? At this table the cards are perpetually in the hands of those who reside in Rome, not because it is caput mundi evidently.


In the footsteps of Luther, we read further on that “reaching out to each other, listening to each other and speaking to each other, simply means practicing peace, that same peace whose fulfillment each of us announces we want.” If I had to choose one period to sum up the book, it might be this one. In days that are terribly dramatic because of the ongoing wars and the rumblings of war that rise daily, this talk is honey. We all desire peace, and the gospel itself in the beatitudes reserves the appellation “sons of God” for those who work for peace. If repeatedly we read of a pope urging the abandonment of ancient prejudices against Luther and evangelicals, why should evangelicals not do the same?


Journalistic work, through the telling of this friendship, tends to bring into dialogue two realities that although part of the same Christian family remain as opposite and abutting as the sides of a coin, and consequently in perpetual contradiction. I had the impression that these two sides, although united and carrying the same imprinted value, have different feedback in the marketplace: the Catholic one is more expendable and has a favorable exchange rate compared to the evangelical one that finds an outlet with difficulty.


I think Iovino wants among other things to try to unhinge those “decades-long states of immobility” and already mentioned. I am sure that these statements, in his denominational sphere, will have made many eyes crinkle and provoked facial paralysis in others. All the more so because these words seem to be followed by a commendation of Francis' pontificate placed from the outset in the wake of the poor and needy. Even the quote from Psalm 72 lends itself to an ambiguous reading when applied to the pope (page 70). I apologize if I missed the target of the paragraph “the power of baptism” (pages 68-69), where the Holy Spirit is only mentioned, while remaining the sole vicar of Christ.


Perhaps the book pays duty to the risk foretold by the author (page 51) of being tried to contain measure and humility so as not to trespass beyond the interview, in itself already a remarkable event, being the first of its kind and mostly granted to a journalist of avowed evangelical faith. The previous and historically documented evangelical aversion to the papacy and things Vatican, for obvious and understandable reasons that historian Iovino is well aware of, I am afraid has so far limited the dissemination of the work in the circles where it belongs. The reference to the Buffarini Guidi circular and Bergoglio's testimony in those of Caserta, cannot be enough to sweep away shadows and stains of the past in a turn of the page. I therefore believe it will appeal most to Catholics, friend and foe alike, whether they are or wish to repute themselves.


Beyond the honorable contributions in the opening, in my opinion, the book lacks the author's introduction, preparatory to reading and useful to the reader so that he does not move with prejudice and end up disoriented. In fact, he is immediately catapulted into friendship, presented as “the energy” that made the documented moment possible. The friends stay together. A clearer description of the intent could have been provided by the Editor, who limited himself in the opening note to speaking of a “turning point,” “a crack in the wall of division between Catholics and evangelicals,” hoping for a breaking of barriers. Which ones?


I was not fully convinced by the choice to devote a large part of the writing to the speeches of the pope's visit to Caserta in 2014, which become an obligatory reading element and appear to be an attempt to reread the recent past. The main interview itself is structured on the same themes, and is lacking in the kind of stoccatas that Iovino, whom I know, has in his repertoire. I realize the stature of the main interlocutor, not only religious. Humbly he himself acknowledged to the pope that he is not a theologian (p. 42). I don't know whether by choice or otherwise, perhaps the realization that something truly historic was materializing, whichever way you want to read the event, Alexander seemed to me buttoned up to play the role of mediator, far too blunt in bouncing the word, to the point that certain speeches remain suspended in midair. Still, I applaud the fact that he succeeded.


In conclusion, I take up the Socratic saying “I know that I do not know” as a prerequisite for any confrontation. Socrates was interested in the search for a truth that his interlocutor had to arrive at on his own, through dialogue precisely. I believe in dialogue. The term comes from dia meaning “in the midst of” and logos meaning “thought/reason.” So where there is dialogue, reason is not the monopoly of any faction. If someone is convinced a priori that he or she is in possession of some absolute truth, he or she will not be in a position to dialogue. As Socrates wanted to make people think, so this book stimulates the reader to ask questions, as happened to me. That is all, so it does not appeal to many. Critical sense and questioning remain gems for the few. Trying is believing, indeed reading.



Alessandro Iovino, Il racconto di un’amicizia. Dialogo tra papa Francesco e il pastore Giovanni Traettino, Eternity, Milano 2024, pp. 182.


Available on Amazon at the link https://amzn.to/3YcQihZ


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To respond to the aspiration and desire of so many honest believers to smuggle the talents received, I have pledged to train faithful men and women for "a service that serves", following the invitation of Jesus (Mt 20: 26-27). The proposed material aims to offer opportunities for training and personal growth not to be feared by others, but a sharing to grow together, far from controversy, accusations and any form of judgment aimed at fueling unnecessary disagreements and disputes. I'm trying!

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