I had thought, that the Holy Father put control of Assisi in the hands of the local bishop, Cardinal Ruini in 2005-ish. I guess, that could have just been a rumor.
He did.
From what I understand there was a committee of friars, locals and people from the Vatican. There were the above mentioned situations. As the article says at the bottom, the rule of St. Francis does not allow the friars to be inappropriate in any way. The friars did not know what to do. My take (REMEMBER: I WAS NOT THERE) is that they lost time in dealing with the situation and people were offended. They did deal with it, but apparently, not in a manner that was satisfactory to the Sacred Congregation for the Faith. That can and does happen. You’re caught between the rule of your founder and the expectations set by the world around you, in this case, the Church. However, the rule of law is that the founder takes presedence until the proper authority in the Church overrrules him. In other words, you don’t go by expectations. Unless you have a clear statement from Church authority, you follow the founder.
So, to avoid such a conflict, the Sacred Congregation again gave the Basilica and surrounding property to the Diocese of Assisi. It had always belonged to the diocese. The rule does not allow the friars to own property. Pope John Paul overruled St. Francis and gave it to the friars. Pope Benedict went back and gave it to the diocese.
There is nothing new here. The friars will continue to do what they have done since 1209. They will ask the local bishop for permission to do whatever. The Franciscans are not upset about this, since they may not own and never did until very recently. As usual, observers to the left and right made more of it than the friars around the world have.
It’s been 25 year since the first Assisi meeting. How much longer before they start getting down to the nitty gritty?
We have no idea what they’re talking about behind closed doors.
The Franciscan and Dominican missionaries never encouraged false worship, and never led others to believe their religion was fine. The true missionaries preached the truth with clarity and confidence, and reaped the fruits.
My friend, you’re reading more into this than is there. No one is encouraging anything. It’s a meeting or a get together, nothing more.
You are mistaken in your assumptions. Dominicans and Franciscans risked going to prison for opposing the Catholic Spanish colonists, because the friars were convinved that the colonists were treating the indigenous people with disrespect the way that they called them savages and referred to their religions as the work of the devil and destroyed half the empire that existed between Mexico down to Chile, just to destry temples. In other words, they offended people and proved to be very ignorant of the cultural value of what was before them. The friars wrote letters or protest to the King and to the pope. The two most famous advocates were the Dominican Friar, Bartolome de Las Casas and the Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra.
They did not feel that this was promoting pagan religions. However, they felt very strongly that these were people and that you don’t deal with people and the things they value as if you were dealing with animals. You win them over. You invite. You answer questions. You teach. Most importantly, you serve.
St. Francis did his preaching through actions (and sometimes words), but his actions always corresponded to the truth. In other words, he never implied, through his actions, that other religions were in any way good. In fact, in the famous story his meeting with the Muslim leader, he told the Saracen publicly that he was there to preach Christ and convert him. He even challenged their the Muslim clerics to a trial by fire, in which he and the clerics of the false religion would walk through the fire. Whoever came out alive had the true religion. Of course, the Muslims would not accept the offer.
The story is famous, but Franciscan historians believe that it is hagiography. There is no evidence of it ever having happened. It was reported by Tomas of Celano, who was not there. The friars who were there, do not mention it in their anecdotes. They do mention that the Sultan was very impressed by Francis’ courage, holiness and his knowledge, so much so that he invited him to spend a few days with him. His parting words were, “If all Christians were like you, I’d would convert today.” It is believed that this story was part of an apologia to protect Francis from being accused of heresy, precisely because he came back to Europe with a passport from a Muslim Sultan allowing him and his brothers safe passage though his territory, a gift from the Sultan, which is still in Assisi, and a story of having spent three days with the Sultan. It made Francis look very shady in the eyes of many fanatics of his time. This was a good story. What Brother Iluminator and Leo say that Francis did say to the Sultan was that he had come in the name of Jesus Christ and that he was there to bring him Good News.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
