Paris: International Meeting of Prayer for Peace in the Spirit of Assisi

150 religious leaders gathered in the city of St. Francis, and prayed with the Pope. This meeting was stigmatized by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who denounced it as an apostasy, a denial of the Kingship of Christ and of the Catholic religion He had founded, the only true religion, which cannot suffer comparison with those that are not, because they cannot lead to God.

The Meetings for Peace perpetuate and continue this “spirit of Assisi,” which, unfortunately, was displayed in front of Notre-Dame de Paris for its closing ceremony, reproducing the scandal of 1986. This spirit continues to forget that the only peace is Christ, the King of peace, who alone can give it.

On the occasion of the Assisi meeting, the magazine Si Si No No exposed the theological criteria which condemned in advance the day of prayer, and which continue to stigmatize the endlessly repeated Meetings for Peace.

What to make of Assisi 1986?

It has been said, certainly with unintentional precision, that the Assisi “prayer meeting” was a “personal initiative” of John Paul II. As a “personal” initiative, it in no way engages his power as “pastor and doctor of all Christians” (Vatican I), nor does it concern doctrine, by conforming to the—political—theme proposed by the UN for the year 1986, proclaimed “International Year of Peace.”

On October 27, not only Catholics, but also “representatives of the world's other religions” will gather in Assisi for a meeting for peace (Cf. L'Osservatore Romano, January 26/27).

Those whom John Paul II called “representatives of other religions” have always been more properly referred to by the Church as “infidels”: “in a more general sense, infidels are all those who do not have the true faith; in the literal sense, infidels are the unbaptized, and they are divided into monotheists (Jews and Muslims), polytheists (Hindus, Buddhists, etc.) and atheists” (Roberti-Palazzini, Dizionario di teologia morale, p. 813).

What John Paul II called “other religions” has always been more properly referred to by the Church as “false religions”: every non-Christian religion is false “insofar as it is not the religion that God has revealed and wishes to see practiced. Also false is every non-Catholic Christian sect, insofar as it neither accepts nor faithfully practices the whole content of revelation” (ibidem).

That said, the “prayer meeting” can only be considered, in the light of the Catholic faith, as:

1) An insult to God
2) A denial of the universal necessity of Redemption
3) A lack of justice and charity towards unbelievers
4) A danger and scandal for Catholics
5) A betrayal of the mission of the Church and St. Peter

An Insult to God

All prayer, including prayer of petition, is an act of worship (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, II-II, 83). As such, it must be addressed to the One to whom it is due, and in the proper manner.

The One to whom it is due: the one true God, Creator and Lord of all men, to whom Our Lord Jesus Christ has brought them back (I Jn. 5:20) by confirming the first Commandment of the Law: “I am the Lord thy God...Thou shalt not have strange gods before me...Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them” (Ex. 20:2,3,5, cf. Mt. 4:3-10; Jn. 17:3, Tim. 2:5.) (See Palazzini, Vita e virtù cristiane, p. 52, and Garrigou-Lagrange, De Revelatione, Rome-Paris 1918, vol. I, p. 136).

In the proper manner: which consequently corresponds to the fullness of Revelation without any admixture of error: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him.” (Jn. 4:23).

Prayer addressed to false divinities or animated by religious opinions that contrast in whole or in part with divine Revelation is not an act of worship but of superstition; it does not honor God but offends Him; objectively at least, it is a sin against the first Commandment (Cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, 92-96).

To whom and how will those who gather in Assisi pray? Invited as “representatives of other religions,” “they will each pray in their own manner and style.” This was explained by Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, President of the Secretariat for the Union of Christians (see L'Osservatore Romano, January 27/28, 1986, p. 4).

This was confirmed on June 27, 1986, by Cardinal Roger Etchegaray in a press conference published in La Documentation catholique (September 7/21, 1986) under the heading “Acts of the Holy See”: “It's a question of respecting everyone's prayer, of allowing everyone to express themselves in the fullness of their faith, their belief.”

At Assisi then, on October 27, superstition will be widely practiced, and in its most serious forms, from the “false worship” of the Jews who, in the age of grace, claim to honor God by denying Christ (cf. Summa Theologica, II-II, 92, 2, ad 3 and I-II, 10, 11) to the idolatry of the Hindus and Buddhists who render worship to the creature instead of the Creator (cf. Acts 17:16).

Their approval, at least outwardly, by the Catholic hierarchy, is supremely injurious to God by supposing and allowing it to be supposed that He can look with an equally benevolent eye on both an act of worship and an act of superstition, on both a manifestation of faith and a manifestation of incredulity (cf. II-II, 94, 1), on both the true religion and false religions; in short, on both truth and error.

Universal Denial of Redemption

There is only one Mediator between God and man: Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and true Man (I Tim 2:5). By nature, men are “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3): through Him, they have been reconciled to the Father (Col. 1:20), and it is only through faith in Him that they can have the boldness to approach God in all confidence (Eph. 3:12).

To Him has been given all power in heaven and on earth (Mt. 28:18), and in His name every knee must bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth (Phil. 2:10-11). No one comes to the Father except through Him (Jn. 14:6), and there is no other name under heaven by which man can save himself (Acts 4:12). He is the Light that enlightens everyone who comes into this world (Jn. 1:9), and whoever does not follow Him walks in darkness (Jn. 8:12).

Whoever is not for Him is against Him (Mt. 12:30), and whoever does not honor Him also offends the Father who sent Him (Jn. 5:23). It is to Him that the Father has entrusted the judgment of men, but he who does not believe has already been judged, since he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God (Jn. 3:18): in Him and in the Father who sent Him (Jn. 17:3).

He is, moreover, the Prince of Peace (Is. 9:6, cf. Eph. 2:14 and Mich. 5:5), for divisions, conflicts, and wars are the bitter fruit of sin, from which man does not free himself by his own virtue, but by virtue of the Blood of the Redeemer.

What share will Our Lord Jesus Christ have at Assisi in the prayers of non-Christian “representatives of other religions”? None, for He remains either unknown to them or a stumbling block, a sign of contradiction.

The invitation to them to pray for world peace assumes and inevitably leads to the assumption that there are people—Christians—who must approach God through the mediation of Our Lord Jesus Christ and in His name, and others—the rest of the human race—who can approach God directly in their own name, without regard to the Mediator.

That there are men who must bend the knee before Our Lord Jesus Christ and others who are exempt from doing so; men who must seek peace in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and others who can obtain peace outside His reign and even in opposition to it.

This is also what emerges from the statements of the two Cardinals quoted above: “If for us Christians, Christ is our peace, for all believers peace is a gift from God” (Cardinal Willebrands, quoted in L'Osservatore Romano); “for Christians, prayer passes through Christ” (Cardinal Etchegaray, quoted in La Documentation catholique).

The “prayer meeting” in Assisi is therefore a public denial of the universal need for Redemption.

Lack of Justice and Charity Toward Infidels

“Jesus Christ is not optional,” Cardinal Pie said. There are not men who are justified by faith in Him and others who are justified without taking Him into account: every man is saved in Christ or lost without Him.

Nor are there any natural final ends for which man can opt as an alternative to his unique supernatural end; if, led astray as he is by sin, he does not find in Christ the only Way (Jn. 14:6) by which to attain the end for which he was created, all that remains for him is eternal ruin.

True faith, then, not mere “good faith,” is the subjective condition of salvation for all, even pagans; since it is of necessity a means, “if it is lacking (even involuntarily), it is absolutely impossible to bring about eternal salvation” (Heb. 6:4-6) (Roberti-Palazzini, op. cit., p. 66).

Voluntary infidelity, St. Thomas explains, is a fault, and involuntary infidelity is a punishment. Indeed, unbelievers who are not lost by the sin of unbelief—that is, through the sin of not having believed in Christ, of whom they have never known anything—are lost through their other sins, of which remission can be made to no one without true faith (see Mk. 16:15-16; Jn. 20:31; Heb. 6:4-6; Council of Trent, Denzinger 799 and 801; Vatican II Dz. 1793; cf. S. Th. II-II, 11, 1).

Nothing, then, is more important for man than acceptance of the Redeemer and union with the Mediator: it is a matter of death or eternal life. This is what unbelievers have the right to hear announced by the Catholic Church, in accordance with the divine commandment (Mich. 6:16; Mt. 28:9-20). And this is what the Catholic Church has always proclaimed to unbelievers, praying not with them but for them.

What will happen in Assisi? There will be no prayer for the unbelievers, on the implicit and public assumption that they no longer need the true Faith. Instead, we'll pray in union with them, or, in the rabbinic subtlety of Radio Vaticana, we'll stand beside them in prayer, thus implicitly and publicly assuming that prayer dictated by error is as acceptable to God as prayer made “in spirit and in truth.”

“It's a question of respecting everyone's prayer,” Cardinal Etchegaray says. This means that the unbelievers who will gather in Assisi and who—let us be careful—are not those who were brought up in some remote place, “in the forests,” who “have never known anything of the faith” and on whom theologians build their hypotheses when discussing the problem of the salvation of unbelievers (St. Thomas, De Veritate XIV, 11), will be “respectfully” left “in darkness, and in the shadow of death” (Lk. 1:79).

Allowed to pray in their distinctive garb of “representatives of other religions” and in accordance with their erroneous religious beliefs, they are even encouraged to persevere in sins, material at least, against the faith: infidelity, heresy, and so on.

Invited to pray for world peace, defined as a “fundamental” and “supreme” good (John Paul II and Cardinal Willebrands, L'Osservatore Romano, April 7/8 and January 27/28 1986), they are diverted from eternal goods towards a temporal good, towards a natural secondary end, as if they were not to obtain a supernatural final end, truly fundamental and supreme: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Mt. 6:33).

For all these reasons, the Assisi “prayer meeting” is, at least viewed from the outside, a failure in justice and charity toward unbelievers.

Peril and Scandal for Catholics

True faith is indispensable for salvation. Catholics are therefore obliged to avoid any imminent danger to their faith. Among the external dangers is contact with unbelievers when it is not the result of genuine necessity. Such contact is illicit by virtue of natural and divine law, even before it is illicit by virtue of ecclesiastical law, and even in cases where ecclesiastical law does not forbid it, for example, in social relations: Haereticum hominem devita, “Avoid the heretic” (Tit. 3:10).

Indeed, the Church has always forbidden, out of maternal concern, anything that might be for Catholics not only a danger to the faith but also a cause for scandal (see the Code of St. Pius X, which took up the secular law of the Church, canons 1258 and 2316; and S. Th. II-II, 10, 9-11).

As for false religions, the Church has always denied them the right to public worship. She has tolerated it when necessary, but tolerance has always meant “in relation to an evil to be permitted for a proportionate reason” (Roberti-Palazzini, op. cit. p. 1702). In any case, the Church has always avoided and forbidden any apparent approval of non-Catholic rites.

What will happen in Assisi? Catholics and infidels “will be there together to pray” (although not “to pray together”). This simply means that they will pray together in Assisi, but first at the same times in their respective residences, and then in turn, gathered for the closing ceremony in front of the Upper Basilica of St. Francis.

But this is not done to protect the faith of Catholics, or at least to avoid scandalizing them. It is done to allow everyone to pray “in their own manner and style,” to “respect each person's prayer,” and to “allow each person to express themselves in the fullness of their faith and belief” (quoted statements by Cardinals Willebrands and Etchegaray). This implies at least outward approval:

1) False cults, to which the Church has always denied any right; 

2) Religious subjectivism, which the Church has always condemned under the names of indifferentism or latitudinarianism, and which “seeks to justify itself through the alleged demands of freedom, ignoring the rights of objective truth manifested either by the light of reason or that of Revelation” (Roberti-Palazzini, op. cit., p. 805).

Yet religious indifferentism, which “is one of the most deleterious heresies” and which “puts all religions on the same level,” inevitably leads to looking upon the truth of religious belief, the raison d'être of regulated life and eternal salvation, as unjustified:

“We end up looking at religion as an entirely individual matter, in which we adapt to the dispositions of each person, leaving him to form his own personal religion, and concluding that all religions are good, even though they contradict each other” (Ibidem op. cit. p. 805).

But this takes us outside the Catholic act of faith. We are in Rousseau's “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar”, which is an act of disbelief in divine Revelation. This is a real fact, a truth accredited by God through certain signs, because error in this area would have the most serious consequences for man (Leo XIII, Libertas).

Now, “in the presence of a real fact or an obvious truth, we cannot be so tolerant as to approve the attitude of someone who considers them non-existent or false: this would presuppose that we do not entirely believe or are not fully convinced of the truth of our position, or that we are (or consider ourselves to be) in the presence of an absolutely indifferent or trivial matter, or that we consider truth or error to be purely relative positions” (Roberti-Palazzini, op. cit. p. 1703).

And since the “prayer meeting” involves precisely all these things, it is an occasion of scandal for Catholics and a grave danger for their faith. As a result of ecumenism, they will at last find themselves united with the infidels, but in their common “destruction” (Pius XII, Humani Generis, 1950).

Betrayal of the Mission Entrusted to Peter and the Church

This mission is to announce to all nations:

1) That there is one true God, who has revealed himself for the benefit of all men in Our Lord Jesus Christ;

2) That there is only one true religion, the only one in which God wishes to be honored, because He is Truth and all that is opposed to truth in false religions is repugnant to Him: errors of doctrine, immorality of laws, impropriety of rites;

3) That there is only one Mediator, between God and men, through whom man can hope to be saved, because all are sinners and remain in their sin if they are deprived of the Blood of Christ;

4) That there is only one true Church, preserver of this Blood in perpetuity, and “that it must therefore be believed that no one can be saved outside the Roman Apostolic Church, which is the only ark of salvation, and that those who do not enter it will perish in the flood” (Pius IX, Denzinger 1647); but they must enter with at least an explicit or implicit desire, among their moral dispositions, to accomplish the whole will of God, if their ignorance is truly invincible (Ibidem).

The Church's proper mission, then, is to proclaim all of this: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:19-20). “And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:15-16).

So that the Church could carry out this mission with confidence through the centuries, Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted St. Peter and his successors with the mission of visibly representing Him (Mt. 16:17-19; Jn. 21:15-17): “This Vicar of Jesus Christ is not charged with establishing a new doctrine by means of new revelations, nor with creating a new state of things, nor with instituting new sacraments; this is not his function.

“He represents Jesus Christ, at the head of His Church, whose constitution is complete. This essential constitution—that is, the creation of the Church—was Jesus Christ's own work, which He Himself had to complete, and of which He said to the Father: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (Jn. 17:4). There is nothing more to be added, there is only to maintain this work, to ensure the work of the Church and to preside over the functioning of its organs.

“Two things are needed: to govern it and to perpetuate the teaching of the truth. Vatican Council I reduced the supreme function of the Vicar of Jesus Christ to these two objects. Peter represents Jesus Christ under these two aspects” (Dom Adrien Gréa, De l'Eglise et de sa divine constitution; cf. Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter IV).

Peter's power is therefore without equal, but his power as vicar is by no means absolute, but limited by the divine right of the One he represents: “The Lord has entrusted to Peter not Peter's sheep, but His own, to feed them not in his own interest, but in that of God” (St. Augustine, Sermon 285, no. 3).

It is therefore not in Peter's power to promote initiatives at odds with the mission of the Church and the Roman Pontiff, as the Assisi “prayer meeting” clearly is. He cannot invite “representatives” of false religions to pray to their false gods in places consecrated to faith in the true God, he who is the Vicar of the One who said: “Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan: for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve” (Mt. 4:10; cf. Deut. 6:13).

He cannot allow us to disregard Our Lord Jesus Christ, the successor of the one who obtained the primacy because of his faith for having said: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16; cf. Jn. 6:69-70). It is not for him to be a stumbling block to the faith of his brothers and his sons, he, the successor of the one who received the task of confirming them in the faith (Lk. 22:32).