The John Paul Papacy, A Mixed Legacy II

Pope John Paul with Religious Leaders at Assisi
Prayer for Peace 

In my last post I wrote about the ambiguous nature of the Papacy of Pope John Paul II.  It was a papacy that hugely successful and hugely disastrous.  I want to explore that dichotomy further in this posting.

One of the most remarkable events of the papacy of John Paul II was his gathering of religious leaders in Assisi on October 26, 1986 to pray for peace.  Over 160 religious leaders including Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama, and Native American John Pretty on Top met together to pray.  Shinto priests, Lutheran bishops, Buddhist monks, rabbis, mullahs, and Mennonites—representatives of over 45 religious groups—Christian denominations and non-Christian religions from around the world—gathered first to pray in their particular groups and then came together in the beautiful Church of the Portiuncula to pray for peace among the human family. 

Thanks to a remarkable group called the Communità di Sant’Egidio (Community of Saint Egidio) based in Rome, this gathering has been commemorated annually by their organizing other such prayer assemblies in various cities around the world.  Many of us who have lived in Rome see the Community of Saint Egidio as the first and most precious fruit of the Second Vatican Council.  Started by a group of then secondary school students in 1968, what was a small faith-sharing group has grown into an international community that was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  I don’t want to go too far down the road of the Saint Egidio Community in this posting—we can look at it another time—but the Community was very helpful to John Paul in his Papal Ministry and in his work as Bishop of Rome.  John Paul depended on them to organize a second Assisi Peace Prayer on January 24, 2002.

Not everyone was happy with the Interfaith Assembly.  Many neo-traditional Catholics saw this as religious syncretism and were appalled that the Pope would meet on equal footing with Protestants much less with non-Christian religious leaders.  They were even more offended that Catholic sanctuaries were permitted to be used for non-Christian worship.  Even Cardinal Ratzinger had his reservations and threatened not to attend the 2002 prayer unless some changes were made to the program.  In the end there were few concrete effects from the Assisi Prayer, at least as far as the papacy is concerned.  The Saint Egidio community has developed the ties to be able to be an unofficial network for cooperation and collaboration among the various religious groups and to serve as a channel of communication, but the ecumenical and inter-faith advances of John Paul’s reign have not only faded but were for the greater part undone in the papacy of his successor.  Pope Benedict did attend a gathering of religious leaders in Assisi on October 27, 2011 but there was suggestion of common prayer.  It will be interesting to see what Pope Francis chooses to do in pursuing an ecumenical and interfaith agenda during his Petrine Ministry.  

The Crisis of Inter-Religious Dialogue

Plaque commemorating the 1986

Assisi Gathering At the Basilica

of the Portiuncula in Assisi    

In my previous posting I mentioned that Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II, was anxious to succeed John Paul as Pope in order to correct certain directions that John Paul had set for the Church in his 27 years as Pope.  We have already looked at the imprecise boundaries that John Paul had fostered regarding the validity of the sacramental systems of some Christian denominations, especially in the protocols involving hierarchs of the Anglican and Lutheran communities.  Again, with my jaundiced eye of an historian I think the battle about “valid” and “invalid” orders is much ado about nothing, or more precisely, that it has to do with the politics of certain historical situations rather than with any objective realities, but then I am no theologian and so perhaps I am missing something in a field in which I am only an amateur.  In this posting, however, I want to look at Ratzinger’s discomfort with John Paul’s dealings with non-Christians and especially with those who do not worship “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  

One of the best known episodes involving John Paul and an alleged trespassing of religious boundaries was that on February 2, 1986 during a visit to Delhi, the Pope was greeted with a traditional Indian rite of greeting and a tilak, a dot of paste, was put on his forehead in welcome.  Detractors claim that the woman administrating the rite was a Hindu “priestess” and that the ceremony invoked various Hindu deities to bless the Pope.  Local Catholic authorities claim that the woman was a Catholic Sister and the rite was purely cultural and not religious.  I frankly don’t know the facts, but certainly if the rite were a Hindu ceremony it would be a potent violation of Catholic doctrine and discipline for any Catholic to participate in non-Christian worship at this level. On the other hand, the tilak has no specific religious significance—it can be given in various forms and designs and it can be a sign of many diverse devotions or discipleship paths—and it also can be merely a cultural tradition.  Whatever the rite and its meaning, however, it caused considerable consternation outside India and especially among evangelicals and Catholic “traditionalists.”

On October 27, 1986 John Paul hosted a Day of Prayer for Peace that was a convocation of 160 religious leaders representing 43 different religious traditions—32 Christian denominations and 11 other religious traditions including Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Shinto, Native Americans, and African ancestral religions.  The celebration was organized by the Community of Saint Egidio, a Roman Catholic fellowship that does remarkable work among the world’s poor and in efforts of peace, and it was held in Assisi.  Organizers arranged for various churches in Assisi to be given over to the diverse religious groups to be used for prayer services in their specific traditions before all came together for a interfaith “celebration” that was not a worship service but which did include prayers for peace in the different religious traditions.  Catholic “traditionalists” were appalled that Catholic worship sites were permitted to be used for non-Christian worship and the various sedevacantist factions claimed that this was one more example of why the person sitting in the Vatican was not actually a “true pope.”  Cardinal Ratzinger knew better, of course, but he was determined that this sort of things should not be repeated as it gave the impression of religious indifferentism—that is that all religions are of equal value and “truth” in their approaches to the Divine.  He initially refused to attend a second gathering organized for Assisi 25 years later; however when plans were made to give the various non-Christian religions gathering rooms in the Sacro Convento for their prayers rather than Catholic worship sites, he relented as was present.  He was present under pressure from Pope John Paul, however, and he was still not pleased with the overall arrangements.  Nevertheless when a third gathering was held in 2011 Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, attended a much modified gathering—a “conference” at which there was no interfaith worship. All in all, it must be said that Benedict has had much lower (some would say more realistic) expectations when it comes to ecumenism and interfaith relations and that the Catholic Church is at the lowest point in its relationship with both other Christian denominations and other world religions since John XXIII’s momentous announcement of changed policies regarding ecumenism and interreligious dialogue on January 25, 1959 when he convoked the Second Vatican Council.   Is this one more step of turning back Vatican II or is it simply a more realistic policy that acknowledges the immense difficulties in healing the breaches within Christianity, much less in building bridges of understanding among the religious traditions in the human family?  In either case, Benedict has made happy neither the progressives who want to move forward on religious dialogue nor the “traditionalists” who want to retreat into the pre-conciliar ghetto and wall up the world outside.  Granted the Holy Father can’t please everyone but this is one more indication of a lackluster papacy. 
Special Greetings to Kevin and Rolf