[Question:]{.underline} What are we to think of Assisi III?
[Answer:]{.underline} This is the meeting of all the world`s religions that took place on October 27, 2011. This was the third meeting of all religions to be chaired by a Pope, and was officially entitled “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the world”. It tried to avoid the accusation of syncretism (the mixing of religions) directed against the first meeting in 1986, by refusing to give the false religions a church of their own to adore their false deities, and by refusing to allow prayer of all these religions together, it nevertheless openly and publicly promoted the equality of all religions, by encouraging them all to pray at the same time for peace in the Basilica of St. Francis. It thus pretended that the false religions had some power to obtain peace from their false deities, as if their false worship could be in some way pleasing to God. It is no wonder that in 1928, speaking of such ecumenical meetings over which some “go so far as to desire the Pontiff himself to preside,” Pope Pius XI had this to say: “It is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take part in these assemblies, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics to give to such enterprises their encouragement or support. If they did so, they would be giving countenance to a false Christianity quite alien to the one Church of Christ” (Mortalium animos, §8 & 9).
The students likewise learned that no unity can derive from such meetings, the only true unity being that which is produced by the supernatural and infused Faith, found only in those who submit themselves to the Church’s magisterial authority, through which we submit to God Himself: “How so great a variety of opinions can clear the way for the unity of the Church, We know not. That unity can arise only from one teaching authority, one law of belief, and one Faith of Christians” (Ib. §12). They learned, moreover, that it is the Social Kingship of Christ that is the only answer to the Secularism, fruit of Ecumenism, condemned by the Church yet promoted by Benedict XVI, through which the Catholic Church is “placed ignominiously on the same level with them [false religions]” (Pius XI, Quas Primas, 1925).
However, the biggest scandal of this October’s Assisi meeting of the world religions was actually Pope Benedict XVI’s address, which opened it up to non-religions. For he dared use this discourse not only to promote the meeting of religions, but even agnosticism itself, the denial of all religion. His principle was that violence is to be abolished, and that there are two causes of violence: - religion and state imposed atheism. Without any distinction whatsoever, in one foul stroke, he condemned every use of violence by Catholics throughout history — everybody from Heraclius recovering the Cross to Charlemagne founding the Holy Roman Empire, from the Crusaders to the Cristeros, from the Inquisition to the heroes of the Spanish civil war, from St. Pius V and Lepanto to the wars against Communism in the 20th century. “As a Christian, I want to say at this point: yes, it is true, in the course of history, force has also been used in the name of the Christian faith. We acknowledge it with great shame. But it is utterly clear that this was an abuse of the Christian faith, one that evidently contradicts its true nature.”He makes no distinction at all between the just, proportionate use of force for the sake of truth and justice, and the injustices with which we are so familiar, perpetrated by false religions and by atheists.
After having pointed that that Atheism, too, being a denial of God, leads man to violence, he then went on to make the most frightening and horrifying statement that could come from the Vicar of Christ, whose mission it is to teach divinely revealed truth on Faith and morals. He promoted Agnosticism, as the solution to violence and a way for peace:
In addition to the two phenomena of religions and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the lookout for truth, searching for God…They are ‘pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace’…They challenge the followers of religions not to consider God as their own property, as if he belonged to them, in such a way that they feel vindicated in using force against others. These people are seeking the truth; they are seeking the true God…
What an absolutely revolutionary thought — that agnostics, who have no faith, who pretend to not even know if God exists or not, who refuse all revelation, who deny the miracles accomplished by Christ Our Lord and the saints, who despise the Church and her divinely instituted authority, who refuse to submit to divine truth, who rebel against the ten commandments and pervert the natural law itself according to their whims, who live in the disorder of their self-centeredness, have something to teach us about human dignity, and that they can show us how to find peace! Surely, this is the ultimate indifferentism, the praise of those who are peaceable because they know no truth. Surely this is the apex of humanism, when it does not matter if you even have Faith or not, let alone practice the true religion. How can it be said that they are seeking the truth, and the true God, when he is right before their eyes and they refuse to even so much as accept that he exists! To add insult to injury, Benedict XVI, applies the title of honor that he gave to agnostics, ‘pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace’, to Catholics also. This is his conclusion: “*We [in the Catholic Church] are animated by the common desire to be ‘pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace’.” *
You can imagine how difficult it is to instruct students to respect such a Pope hell bent on the destruction of the very Church that he is supposed to be governing. For if it suffices to be a good agnostic to be a lover of the truth and a seeker of the true God, why would one bother to do anything more? If anybody were to object that this is not really what the Pope means, he has simply to refer to the invitation to this meeting, for he himself says that he “consciously invited” delegates of agnosticism to come to this day of reflection for peace. They are his heroes for peace for they have nothing to fight for, if it not be the material concerns of every day.
If one were to exclaim — how could a Pope stoop so low as to betray not only the Faith, but also the evidence of the existence of God — the answer is to be found in the encyclical of St. Pius X condemning Modernism — Pascendi. He there explains that there are two principles to their way of thinking — a negative one, which is Agnosticism, and positive one, which is Vital Immanence. According to their theory we cannot know realities by reason, but only phenomena. Consequently we cannot know if God exists or if objectively he has revealed himself. However, through Immanence, we can experience God within us, and this is the basis of faith and religious experience. This religious consciousness is the foundation of all religions, and it is to this that revelation is reduced. It is in this sense that all religions, inasmuch as they express the need for the divine, are acceptable and true to the individual believer. It is likewise in this sense that the agnostic is on the right path, for he acknowledges that he cannot alone possess the truth, but that it is relative to every individual and his religious experience. This is why the Pope praises them, for they, at least, do not consider God their own property!
We must thank Benedict XVI for clarifying all this for us. He has shown us not only that Ecumenism leads to Agnosticism, but that Agnosticism is an essential part of the system that justifies interreligious dialogue. If we ever doubted it, we now know that Ecumenism is a clear manifestation of Modernism in the classical sense, as defined by St. Pius X. We may not know whether or not the Pope himself is personally agnostic, but we do know that he has no objection to such “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”, and that he actively promotes agnostic, immanent Modernism, of which St. Pius X so truly said “their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion” and “no one will be surprised that We should define it to be the synthesis of all heresies” (Ib. §39).
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.