ITALY

I first came to Italy with Marinetta Cannito Hjort, co-facilitating with her as she was doing her project for her Masters in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University. Marinetta is an Italian Baptist, currently living and working in the U.S., though she now is training in other countries as well. The Italian Baptists are very strong in their witness for peace and justice. The CT training looked a congregational conflict, but also explored conflicts related to the influx of immigrants and the organized crime violence in Naples, where I’ve twice conducted trainings.

The Italian Baptist Union hosted the Global Baptist Peace Conference held outside Rome on February 9-16, 2009. I was part of the planning committee for the conference, serving as registrar for those outside of Italy. We had almost 300 participants from 59 countries. Besides Baptists there were Christians of many types (Catholics, Pentecostals, Anglican, Reformed) as well as one Muslim. I led one of the intensive day-long seminars and did a workshop on interfaith relationships. We held a public peace vigil in downtown Rome.

Italian Baptist Union
http://www.ucebi.it/en/struct.php

For BBC’s country background information:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1065345.stm