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The Best Breach Imaginable: 152 Years After the Beach of Porta Pia
September 20th marks the anniversary of an important breach: that of Porta Pia in the Aurelian Wall of Rome, Italy. It was opened by riflemen in 1870 in order to enter the city. Until then the walls had been protected by the Roman Catholic Church, which at that time was also a recognized state. It did not, however, accept the new Italian nation or religious pluralism. The breach of Porta Pia ended the temporal power of the papacy and was the beginning of the first tentative steps toward religious freedom in the city.
That little breach should be celebrated not so much with nostalgia for the glories of national revival, but as an important moment in the advancement of the evangelical witness in Italy. In fact, a less-told, but certainly more relevant story finds its place in this famous event. Entering the walls of Rome after the army broke through were colporteurs accompanied by dogs pulling carts full of Bibles in the Italian language. The Bible, which had been on the Roman Catholic index of prohibited books, was now accessible to the population for the first time after centuries of censorship, burning, and persecution.
152 years after that event, and coinciding with its anniversary, a new breach was opened in Rome. On Sunday, September 18th, the evangelical church Breccia di Roma Prati celebrated its first public worship in the shadow of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. A new evangelical church taking its first steps in a neighborhood adjacent to the Vatican is the best way to remember that 19th-century breach and to revive the real breach that Rome needs: that of the gospel.
The name of the church, like that of its sister churches Breccia di Roma, and Breccia di Roma San Paolo, recalls that very first breach a century and a half ago. Not out of a desire to fight a religious war, but because the city still needs the gospel to be proclaimed against the “rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). The new breach in the neighborhood of Prati desires to be an opening for the good news of the Gospel in a neighborhood characterized by its prestige and wealth. It desires to be a prophetic voice among the many voices proclaiming other gospels from the renowned RAI radio and television studios that are located in the neighborhood. It desires to be a royal voice to administer and proclaim God's righteous justice when the many judicial courts present in Prati fail and become corrupt. It desires to be a priestly voice where priestly mediation has for centuries been associated with the institution of the Catholic Church so that it is the Word of God that breaks through into people's hearts to profoundly transform the reality of the city.
Breccia di Roma Prati kicked-off its public activities with an agape of the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Churches in Italy on April 25th, which witnessed a time of celebration, testimony and a prayer walk through significant areas and landmarks of the neighborhood. A breach of the gospel within the thick walls of a decadent culture is a sign of God's grace. It is a demonstration of the possibility of breaking through with the gospel where prevailing narratives are distorted by sin. It represents the possibility of seeing the Kingdom of God advance where different experiences of humanity are broken and regressive.
Breaching Rome with the gospel does not require powerful cannons or refined strategies. What is needed is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and His resurrection that has already broken through the dark blanket of sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit. A new witness to the gospel can arise where only a century ago the reading of Scripture was forbidden to the majority of the population and where a religious power claimed to be the only access to God. As living breaches of the gospel, the call to advance in difficult territory can be experienced with faith and hope and with the certainty that victory is already assured in Christ and will one day have its full fulfillment.
There is no better way to remember the breach of Porta Pia than with the breach opened by the gospel. The breach of 1870 was quickly closed. The breach of the gospel, however, though it will encounter various difficulties along the way, cannot be stopped and cannot be closed. What God the Father began in Christ Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, He will bring to completion, even in the shadow of the dome St. Peter’s Basilica.
The original article is in Italian and can be viewed here:
https://www.locicommunes.it/articoli/la-migliore-breccia-possibile