Who are the Waldensians? They were a Christian group that broke away from the mainstream in the Middle Ages, led by Waldo, a contemporary of St. Francis (from whom the present Pope got his name.) When the Reformation came about, the "heretical" Waldensians joined them. They clustered in northwestern Italy, in the Piemonte region. They were immortalized in a sublime sonnet by the English poet John Milton, which bears rereading. It is called "On the late massacre in Piedmont" -
- Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
- Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
- Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
- When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
- Forget not: in thy book record their groans
- Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
- Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
- Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
- The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
- To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
- O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
- The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
- A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
- Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
- Milton was justifiably outraged. Pope Francis has now become the first Pope in history to enter a Waldensian church, where he was greeted with the words: "Welcome, brother Francis." Read about it here (in Italian.)
