28th October 2011
Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace
25 years to the day that Pope John Paul II hosted an unprecedented gathering of world religious leaders in Assisi to pray for world peace, Pope Benedict XVI on 27 October hosted, in the same place, his own “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World”. Again, leaders of the world’s faiths and religions were invited, with 400 special guests – or pilgrims – including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, other Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christian leaders, delegates representing Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism and other faiths. A new departure, apparently at the express wish of the Pope, was also to invite a small group of “non-believers”, agnostic humanists prepared to join this extraordinary assembly calling for peace, dialogue, justice, tolerance of diversity and environmental understanding.
There is always a danger that such an assembly can descend into platitudes. “So what?” one can hear hard-bitten politicians cry. But as an invited observer it was clear to me that the seriousness and solemnity of the engagement of the participants – who between them represented most of the world’s billions of believers – was both grounded and realistic.
Pope Benedict, in his address, tackled head on the accusation that religion is often a cause of violence. He acknowledged, “with shame”, that violence had been used through history in the name of Christianity. And he argued that it was the role of religious leaders to work to ensure that religion served as an instrument of peace.
For his part, the Archbishop of Canterbury argued that the world’s faiths, while recognising their distinctiveness, needed to demand a “common witness” from their followers to meet the challenges of intolerance, violence, war and disease, based on that mutual recognition of common humanity: “we cannot ultimately be strangers”.
The world will not change overnight because of Assisi. But it will change for the better if politicians, and people of faith (and none) were listening. The humanist and feminist Julia Kristeva called on us all to accept our responsibilities – “we are history”, not its servants. Assisi was a powerful affirmation of the best of human values.
1 comment on “Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace”
Comments are closed.