of the Mafia up to the spectacular killing of judges Falcone and Borsellino , from the end of the First Republic to the Berlusconi era . He claims he still does not understand much , though … He has met five popes and travelled with them , getting to know most of them rather well . Talking about his book ( now in paperback ), The Promise of Francis : The Man , the Pope and the Challenge of Change ( Gallery Books ), he explained that the modernisers in the Roman Catholic Church didn ’ t succeed in electing Francis after the long ‘ reign ’ of John Paul II , thus giving Benedict XVI a difficult mandate . Pope Ratzinger knew all the secrets and was involved in many controversial issues , including the covering up of uncomfortable truths . He was a fragile compromise between the conservative theology of the South and the money of the Liberal North . Now Francis might decide to disavow his own rule of introducing a retirement age of 80 for cardinals in order to build a large enough majority of Cardinals chosen by himself in the Curia that they will be able to deliver another reformer in his own image . He has been said to have more enemies inside his Church than outside , but this is not new for such a big institution , only partly modernised and divided into so many factions and vested interests . Still , David is not keen on feeding conspiracy theories , with which Italy is absolutely saturated : for instance , he does not believe that Pope John Paul I , who died suddenly a few weeks after his election in 1978 , was poisoned . He thinks it was the unfortunate ‘ Roman Summer holidays ’ when everything , but everything , shuts , hospitals and doctors included . Pope Luciani went to bed reading the financial reports and was found dead the next morning . A heart attack following a shocking read ?
It was good to see so many friends including some very young ones !
From Newark to Torre Pellice
David Willey at Wesley ’ s Chapel , London .
In October 2015 I received an email from a certain Peter Winter , who wanted some advice about how to donate a set of prints belonging to his late mother , the granddaughter of pastor Barthelemy Gardiol , originally from Luserna S . Giovanni . He thought the church of Torre Pellice would be the right place to relocate them , but after several messages and telephone calls the Archivist , Gabriella Ballesio , suggested that the right place would be the Archive in the Centro Culturale Valdese . In April 2016 we took the opportunity of a confer-
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