Benedict XVI will travel to Assisi in October 2011

Twenty-five years after the gathering of the leaders of all the world religions, Benedict XVI will go “as a pilgrim” to Assisi, “inviting my Christian brethren of various denominations, the exponents of the world’s religious traditions to join this Pilgrimage and ideally all men and women of good will” to accompany him for the purpose of remembering the historical gesture of John Paul II.  The pope also expressed the hope that believers of every religion would “solemnly” renew their commitment to live their own religious faith as a service to the cause of peace.

Just before reciting the Angelus in the presence of thousands of pilgrims gathered on St. Peter’s Square, Benedict XVI maintained that one of the “dramatically urgent” challenges of our time was religious freedom.  These remarks were made just as an attack with a booby-trapped automobile struck the Coptic Church of Al-Kidissine in Alexandria, in northern Egypt, in the night from December 31 to January 1, leaving 21 dead and dozens injured.  “Peace is not obtained with weapons nor with the power of economics, politics, culture or the media.

Peace is achieved by consciences that are open to the truth and to love,” the pope declared.

Benedict XVI mentioned two opposing trends that he had denounced in his Message for the World Day of Peace, published in mid-December and entitled “Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace”.  Thus he denounced “secularism, which marginalizes religion in order to confine it to the private sphere,” and “fundamentalism which, on the contrary, would like to impose it upon everyone by force.  Therefore, the pope continued, “religious freedom is … a privileged path for building peace.”

Comment:

In the Message for the World Day of Peace we can read the following statements about religious freedom, which is presented as “an essential good: each person must be able freely to exercise the right to profess and manifest, individually or in community, his or her own religion or faith, in public and in private, in teaching, in practice, in publications, in worship and in ritual observances. There should be no obstacles should he or she eventually wish to belong to another religion or profess none at all. In this context, international law is a model and an essential point of reference for states, insofar as it allows no derogation from religious freedom, as long as the just requirements of public order are observed.”  A little further on Benedict XVI declares:  “In a globalized world marked by increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies, the great religions can serve as an important factor of unity and peace for the human family. On the basis of their [own] religious convictions and their reasoned pursuit of the common good, their followers are called to give responsible expression to their commitment within a context of religious freedom.”  And he invited them to “a serene and balanced vision of pluralism and the secularity of institutions”.

You see then how, for the pope, a close connection is established, in his Message for Peace and the announcement of his trip to Assisi in October, between religious freedom and interreligious dialogue, between secularism and peace.  This peace must be obtained by the recognition of secular pluralism, in the name of religious freedom which authorizes interreligious dialogue.  The revealed Truth is then reduced to the level of other “religious convictions”.

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