Friday, January 7, 2011

Assisi III

Hands up all those who uttered an inward groan when this little gem popped up during the week. The fact that some sort of pronouncement has been made suggests that planning is actually fairly well advanced. Now for those of you who may have missed this little side show of politically correct self abnegation on the part of the Catholic Church it has become one of those 'crisis points' for traditional minded faithful. The image of a pagan deity being enthroned above a tabernacle was always going to be problematic.* Strike that! I was being a little bit too pc. Let's put it bluntly. It was unacceptable and whoever let that one through the protocol office deserved to become nuncio to Tehran toute suite in a noble tradition of curial pariahs. He can take with him a certain papally osculated book as a token of good will.

Anyhow it seems that Assisi III is upon us and I just hope the confusion of the previous multi faith pow-wow- come- pass- the- peace- pipe will not be repeated. The Catholic Church does have quite clearly stated objectives in this area; (1) Peace is generally a good thing (2) Talking to other religions and understanding them is a good thing. (3) Acting as a negotiator on the world stage is a good thing. However (1) There are times when defending oneself makes peace impossible. (2) Dialogue is fine but remember who actually has the Divine Revelation and who have, at the best fragmentary glimpses of it. (3) Remember that souls come first before bodies. No matter how much ecumenical rear kissing might seem to be polite we've gotta get those babies saved and those stomachs filled!

* By the way if you really want to see the apostasy of previous Assisi pow-wows you can look here. I'm not wasting space here when we can have a perfectly lovely picture of an historic inter faith dialogue at a practical level which led to peace and the relief of suffering.
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6 comments:

  1. jangojingoJanuary 7, 2011 at 12:10 PM

    Our hands went up very quickly! But as they say, “you come to me”-ism is the voice of Peter. Jackie and Paul

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  2. Left-footerJanuary 7, 2011 at 3:25 PM

    Much as I admired John-Paul II, what was that saintly, clever man thinking of?

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  3. GORJanuary 8, 2011 at 6:21 AM

    Yes, another initial groan here also. However, I trust the Holy Father’s instincts. As with former ‘disasters’ (Regensburg, the SSPX etc.), when the dust settled, good resulted. I expect the same thing with Assisi this year. Given how he was disturbed by the 1986 shenanigans, I believe he plans to ‘set the record straight’ this time – and he will have a very broad audience.

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  4. love the girlsJanuary 12, 2011 at 10:19 AM

    Now you have me wondering, what's a 'Traddie'?

    I was under the assumption that is was someone who gagged at kissing korans or praying to idols. But perhaps it means something a bit different.

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  5. Left-footerJanuary 12, 2011 at 2:52 PM

    Fr Raven - I take it that the picture is of the Battle of Lepanto, my kind of 'historic inter-faith dialogue'.

    love the girls - I think 'traddie' here refers to someone who pays too much attention to the incidentals of the Faith, vestments, gestures, etc.

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  6. love the girlsJanuary 12, 2011 at 9:55 PM

    Then I don't think I've ever met a traddie since I can't think of a single person I know who pays too much attention to the incidentals of the Faith.

    Now, paying attention to the wrong incidentals is a different matter, but that's a fault not of tradtionalists, but of traditionalist wannabees. Not unlike the Catholics who insist on wearing denim jumpers with tee-shirts underneath because they mistakenly think that is proper modesty.

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