How is one to understand Assis of 1986?

[brand0c0mmand0]

I don’t really know what to think. My natural instict is to say that John Paul II committed a gross error in what he did. He betrayed the faith and committed a grave scandal. I don’t want to go too far though, and I don’t want to be disrespectful of a highly regarded Church figure. I also want to truly understand it, and not make a rash judgment.

So, I understand that one can POSSIBLY be saved outside of the Church, due to invincible ignorance and if they sought God with an honest heart with what they did know…but this event was totally different. All those leaders at the Vatican CANNOT claim invincible ignorance of the Church’s teachings, and the Pope holding a public prayer service for them all to worship their own "god’ seems so…like religious indiferentism by John Paul II. What about his comments that we are all praying to the same god? When we all clearly are not?.. Where is the call to conversion in Christ? What about the fact that they are all in danger of being eternally damned for their sins against Christ?

I know protestants who use this as a support for the apostasy of the Church, that we seek a “one world religion”…does it not seem like John Paul II is too ecumenic? Please help me? :3

 

[thedarknight]

You might find the thread: *Pope’s call for interfaith day of prayer provokes debate * interesting.

A commentator from the thread (I don’t remember who) suggested reading* Witness To Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II* by George Weigel, citing the passage that describes the pope’s intention. I have the book and will now cite the passage, page 512:

The Pope’s point, as [Cardinal Roger] Etchegaray explained to his colleagues, was that the world’s religious traditions had “deep resources” for addressing international world conflict. Their commitment to prayer was one of them.

John Paul understood that this could not mean a universal praying together, which would indeed be syncretism and therefore impossible, for other as well as for him. “Being together to pray” was something different. The task laid on Etchegaray and his colleagues was to “find a formula by which each one could pray in his own way, and then come together with the others.”

…John Paul would receive the other religious leaders at the Portiuncula, the small chapel located on the plain below the town of Assisi that was St. Francis’s favorite church. Each leader would go to a separate site in the town to pray for ninety minutes with those of his followers who were present. Everyone would then walk to the great piazza in front of the basilica of Assisi where a podium would be erected. There, each religious leader would offer a prayer according to his tradition. The Pope would give a closing speech, and afterward the religious leaders would break their fast together.

I do not think this is a personal scandal of Blessed Pope John Paul II. However, those who see the event superficially or are ignorant of the details, perhaps find Assisi shocking.

 

[TrueLight]

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, but through me.

Events like these do nothing but promote and condone the idea that all religions lead to
God.

 

[Corki]

I am very traditional and conservative but Assisi doesn’t bother me at all.

Blessed Pope John Paul II had more world exposure before and during his papacy than any Pope of the modern age (post medieval). He had a real heart for ecuminism and outreach. I think he may have made a move in Assisi that underestimated the power of the sound bite and/or the world was not ready for.

I don’t really know what to think. My natural instict is to say that John Paul II committed a gross error in what he did. He betrayed the faith and committed a grave scandal. I don’t want to go too far though, and I don’t want to be disrespectful of a highly regarded Church figure. I also want to truly understand it, and not make a rash judgment.

At worst, he may have made an error of prudential judgement. But it does not even come close to “gross error”, “grave scandal” or betraying the faith.