It seems to me that CathNews.com is spinning Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks at the 2006 St Egidio conference For a World of Peace, Religions and culture in dialogue. This is the 20th anniversary of the same conference in Assisi that has so many radical traditionalist up in arms. Not their has been some valid critiques of the original conference including then-Cardinal Ratzinger. Back to the my original question CathNews reports.
Pope Benedict thus also took the opportunity to note that the original inter-faith meeting organised by the Community of St Egidio avoided any "streaks of syncretism" and its successors needed to continue to do so.
From what I have read of the remarks in other sources it certainly does not appear that syncretism was mentioned in a context saying the that the first meeting avoided them. AsiaNews.it quotes the Pope as saying.
…Already in 1986, continued Benedict XVI, attention was drawn to the fact that “the inter-faith prayer meeting should not lend itself to syncretistic interpretations, founded on a relativistic concept.”
Pope Ratzinger did not mention them but at the time, and even later, there were controversies about this. It was probably these controversies that prompted the pope to emphasize, when greeting people attending events in Assisi organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, “the duty” even now to “avoid inopportune confusions. This is why even when people come together to pray for peace, prayer should unfold according to the distinct journeys that belong to each religion. This was the choice of 1986 and it was a decision that cannot but remain valid still today. The convergence of what is different should not give the impression of ceding to that relativism that denies the very meaning of truth and the possibility of drawing from it.”
What the Pope said and goes on to say does not seem to be any kind of pass on the original meeting and was more a kindly rebuke of passed excesses. The Pope is not directly saying that the first meeting was syncretistic, but he is not giving it a pass that CathNews alleges. This is a continual correction and the Pope last year placed the Franciscans in Assisi under the threefold control of a new local bishop, the Italian Bishops Conference and a yet-to-be-named papal overseer.
This is not the first time that I have noticed the Australian CathNews spinning things and I suspect it won’t be the last.
5 comments
Jeff, Cathnews reaches a lot of people and unfortunately they do spin news sometimes and the headlines sometimes don’t accurately reflect what is in the article.
But in this case….
I went to the Asia News link and found this :
In a message marking 20 years since the Assisi meeting, Benedict XVI stressed that no one can use faith to justify violence. The inter-faith meeting did not have, nor should it have now, any streaks of syncretism. There was a reference to St Francis: his activities were the fruit of his conversion.
This was at the top of the article in italics.
Perhaps this was just a case of sloppy reporting; attributing to the pope a coment of the compiler of the report.
I will mention this on it on Cathnews discussion board and send a question to ‘the powers that be’ on the site – crediting you of course! lol
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=7115
It saddens me that only the so called “radical traditionalists” see anything wrong here, and that one has to be labeled “radical” to be a defender of the faith, a soldier of Christ as one becomes when they receive their conformation (does that even exist anymore?)
It is appearing more and more that only Traditionalists, these horrible radical bunch as labeled as such actually want to defend the faith and when they see a wrong point it out and are willing to take whatever abuse comes their way
God bless them
John, I promise you it isn’t only the radical Traditionalists who feel strongly about this.
I am, by most standards, a liberal, and a devout, and I think orthodox, Catholic.
I don’t have to be among that group that hurled invective on JPII’s head for what happened at Asissi to oppose syncretism.
I do some work with a local ecumenical group, and I am constantly having discussions that verge on arguments with my fellow Catholics in the group that “respecting” other faiths is NOT the same as denying that there is objective truth in the Catholic faith and that while other religions may have some truths, in every aspect in whihc their beliefs diverge from ours, theirs are FALSE.
I can’t get these Catholics to stop using phrases like “well, it’s true for THEM.”
The post wasn’t about the rights or wrongs of what took place at Assisi 20 years ago. It was about sloppy journalism.
The worst thing about poor journalism is that, like lies, some of us forget to include its possibility and walk around for days saying things like “Now why would the Pope want us to do today what he just asked us not to do yesterday?” The best thing about poor journalism is that discovering misquotes and quotes taken out of context sure beats questioning one’s sanity or the sanity of the Pope!!
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