Pope calls for 2011 Assisi meeting
Pope Benedict called today for an interfaith meeting to be held in Assisi this October to mark the 25th anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace that Pope John Paul II held there on Oct. 26, 1986. Speaking hours after a shattering terrorist attack that killed 21 people in a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, the pope said he would focus on discussing with other religious leaders how religion can promote world peace.
For those who recall that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had objected to the 1986 Assisi event and insisted that it not become the model for future inter-religious dialogue, this may be a surprise. But the pope has been coming around to the “spirit of Assisi” - an expression that annoys some conservatives – in recent years and even embraced the term when he visited Assisi in 2007. ( “The `spirit of Assisi,’ which has continued to spread throughout the world since that event, counters the spirit of violence and the abuse of religion as a pretext for violence.”)
In today’s World Day of Peace message, Benedict extolled the 1986 gathering: “On that occasion the leaders of the great world religions testified to the fact that religion is a factor of union and peace, and not of division and conflict. The memory of that experience gives reason to hope for a future in which all believers will see themselves, and will actually be, agents of justice and peace.”
Take a look at Austen Ivereigh at America blog today and his take on the Poe’s peace message.
The new “social Catholicism” he talks about has both a positive side but also, as some comments there (including Bill M.) credibility issues in regard to “agressive secularism.”
Moving forward, how beleivable the effort comes across will impact a broader view of BXVI both inside and outside the Church.
It is fine to be pleased by the new posture of Ratzinger and the fact that he annoys inflexible conservatives. At the same time we cannot let go unnoticed a church which decide to change its attitude at will while demanding that its members tag along. There has to be an accounting for one’s papal or episcopal actions. Governing by fiat does not hack it anymore. Otherwise we have no idea of what the “freedom of the children of God” means. We are learning to examine not rubber stamp the words of Augustine and the saints. The same applies to the bishop and pope.
I can understand the “hopefullness” embedded in Paul’s and Austen Ivereigh’s comments regarding this apparent shift. I can also agree with the skepticism of Bill M and others here and at America Magazine.
I tend toward the proof will be in the pudding school. “Positive secularity” has for decades out paced the leadership of the Catholic Church when it comes to dignity of the person, human rights and freedom to govern including the People of God with the Church.
Intolerant Secularism rises in proportion to religious fundamentalism. I do not see the Pope having the courage to take on the violence perpetuated in the Church’s name by so called fanatical right to life Catholics in their attacks all all things “gay”.
None-the-less Benedict has sent a positive and perhaps powerful message that he recognizes we are drifting towards a precipice we may regret and so in that I can at least express some Hope.
Readers might be interested in Jurgen Habermas and Cardinal Ratzinger’s exchange of views in a public lecture shortly before the latter was elected pontiff, recorded in THE DIALECTICS OF SECULARIZATION (Ignatius Press.).
And how about this old posture of Ratzinger!
“The servility of the sycophants, of those who shy from and shun every collision, who prize above all their calm complacency, is not true obedience. What the Church needs today as always are not adulators to extol the status quo, but men whose humility and obedience are not less than their passion for the truth;..men who love the church more than the ease and the unruffled course of their personal destiny.” –Joseph Ratzinger (1962)
From John Allen’s book on Ratzinger.
As they say “Quod scripsit manet” or what is written remains.
For those of you who don’t read Der Spiegel:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,737493,00.html#ref=nlint