The Seed of Assisi

In the city of St Francis, John Paul II created a climate of sincere friendship, especially with the Islamic representatives. Without yielding anything to syncretism and relativism, a gesture of authentic Catholic ecumenism. And the fruits will be seen

By LUCIO BRUNELLI

That religions may never again be used to foment hatred among peoples, to justify wars, to legitimate terrorist attacks: this is the “Pact of Assisi,” symbolically signed by the Pope, the leaders of the major Christian denominations, and the representatives of eleven religions, last January 24th in the city of St Francis. This means no multilateral negotiation on the contents of the faith. No religious syncretism as abhorred by the Catholic circles that are more papist than the Pope, but a prayer for peace, dramatically immersed in history and justified by those “darkening clouds” that overshadow mankind’s path at the beginning of the third millennium.

It was November 18th when John Paul II announced during the Angelus his intention to invite, in a spirit of friendship, the representatives of all religions to Assisi and to declare a day of fasting for December 14th. Two different initiatives with identical aims: to get away from the perverse logic which risked transforming the war on terrorism proclaimed by the United States into a clash of civilizations–almost a “holy war” of the Christian West against the Islamic world. And then, to try to influence, by means of a sincere and friendly dialogue, the official Islamic doctrine, which did condemn the terrorist massacres of September 11th, but nonetheless recognized the status of “martyrs of Allah” to the perpetrators who committed suicide in the attack.

The real concern
It was no coincidence that the Pope addressed his public invitation to all religions, but “especially” to the Muslims. It was no coincidence that he chose to have the day of fasting for Catholics coincide with the final Friday of prayer of Islamic Ramadan. These decisions scandalized some Catholic commentators, who were worried about a presumed yielding on the part of the Pope to the Islamic “persecutors.” This is a concern–and herein lies the real difference with the first meeting in Assisi–shared also by an influential segment of secular public opinion. In 1986, the mass media valued from the beginning the gesture announced by the Pope, but distorted its most authentic intention in order to emphasize the radical equality of the religions (which John Paul II naturally never affirmed). In 2002, on the eve of the new inter-religious summit, the lay attitude was paradoxically reversed. Numerous voices were raised in Italy to ask the Catholic Church not to give in to the relativist culture which puts all civilizations on the same plane, and to change direction from that of the first Assisi meeting, with a greater show of strength in the confrontation-clash with the Crescent. This is also an effect of the emotional and intellectual shock provoked by the attack on the Twin Towers: after those events, liberal Western culture has begun to rediscover its Christian identity, but often as a sort of ideological-political banner, raised as a bulwark of our civilization under siege by the new Islamic barbarians.

The Pope’s gaze on the Day of Prayer in Assisi was of a different sort. John Paul II did not put on a stern face with the representatives of Islam, the most numerous and authoritative delegation among the non-Christian religions, but established with all his guests–more than 200 from all over the world–a climate of sincere friendship. The shared pilgrimage on the train, the hospitality of the Franciscans in the sacred Convent, individual greetings... These simple gestures created a climate of familiarity, a willingness to listen “which is in itself,” said the Pope, “a sign of peace.”

It was clear that the idea was not to empty out one’s own identity in the name of an impossible “United Nations of the Faiths.” The choice not to hold a moment of common prayer, but to pray in separate places, each according to his own tradition and convictions, dispelled the fears of syncretism. On the other hand, when one is serenely certain of the grace received with Christian faith, nothing is a real cause for fear, and it is possible to value everything, even the fragments of truth, or the nostalgia for truth, present even in the primitive rites of traditional African religions.

Quite the opposite of the rigidity of a certain Catholicism which seems on the surface “hard and pure,” always ready to launch anathemas and embittered by the siege psychosis.

Before God
Only a climate like this, of brotherhood without ulterior motives, made the “miracle” of Assisi possible: the assumption of a solemn commitment, before God, that the symbols of religion never be used again as a pretext for war and terrorism–so that religions may be the bearer of peace, and thus of justice and forgiveness, the Pope specified, thinking in particular of the Holy Land. He was thinking of the Jews and Muslims who are ever more divided by a wall of hatred, of the “blind alley” into which the irresponsible policies of Sharon, with the de facto rescinding of the peace agreement reached in Oslo, and the perverse logic of suicide attacks have led the protagonists of the conflict. How effective will this day of prayer be? Once the TV cameras are turned off and the stage and tent on the square in front of the Basilica of Saint Frances are taken down, what will remain of the Pact of Assisi? These are real questions; all triumphalistic rhetoric is out of place in this area. In the majority of the conflicts that make the world resemble a “vale of tears,” religion is, in fact, just a pretext. The interests that move the War Lords are of a different kind. But removing the pretexts or reducing further hotbeds of hatred would in itself be a great contribution to peace in the world. In the blessed earth of Assisi, a small seed has been sown. The good God will decide if, how, and when to make it grow. And bear fruit.