Still Running Off at the Keyboard

The friars of the shrine of St Francis of Assisi, the world-famous centre of inter-religious dialogue and Christian pacifism, have been brought to heel by Pope Benedict XVI.

The mendicant friars, who welcome millions of pilgrims every year to the burial place of St Francis, have at a stroke lost the autonomy that made them one of the boldest and most adventurous institutions in the Catholic Church. Italian commentators on the right and left have hailed the move or roundly condemned it. The daily newspaper La Repubblica called it "a shocking initiative".

The friars were granted autonomy by Pope Paul VI in 1969, and the picturesque shrine of the saint in the Umbrian hills has since become renowned for its annual peace marches, drawing thousands of participants, and for two Assisi peace conferences, in 1986 and 2002, which caused outrage among conservative Catholics.

The first conference in particular, which saw the participation of native American and African animists as well as Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist leaders, still rankles with the conservatives. At the time the current Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II's theological adviser, said of the meeting, "this cannot be the model" for ecumenical dialogue.

Continue reading...