Different faiths, same witness: How Vatican explains prayers for peace

cns ^ | June 5, 2014 | Cindy Wooden

[NYer]

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Popes pray for peace; it is part of their ministry. And when war is raging or peace negotiations seem hopelessly bogged down, recent popes have invited leaders of other Christian traditions and other faiths to join them in prayer.

Pope Francis has put a twist on the interreligious prayer gathering by inviting political leaders, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, "to come to the Vatican to pray together with me for peace." The event was scheduled for June 8, the day many Christians celebrate Pentecost.

Pope Francis embraces Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the start of an arrival ceremony at the presidential palace in Bethlehem, West Bank, May 25. (CNS/Paul Haring)

When leaders of different religions come together and pray for a common cause, they are not only appealing to God, they also are showing the world they believe that followers of different religions are still brothers and sisters before the one who created them.

That is not the same as ignoring religious differences or pretending those differences do not matter.

"It should be evident to all who participate that these occasions are moments of being 'together for prayer, but not prayer together,'" said guidelines for interreligious dialogue published in late May by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

"Being able to pray in common requires a shared understanding of who God is," the document said. "Since religions differ in their understanding of God, 'interreligious prayer' -- meaning the joining together in common prayer by followers of various religions -- is to be avoided."

The distinction between praying together and praying at the same time is one Vatican officials have found increasingly necessary to emphasize as popes have led more and more interfaith gatherings for peace.

St. John Paul launched the interreligious prayer for peace gatherings in Assisi in 1986. He asked Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish leaders in particular to join him in Assisi in for a smaller gathering in 1993 as war raged in the Balkans. And, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, he and other religious leaders returned to Assisi in January 2002 to pray and proclaim to the world that violence committed in God's name is an abomination.

Pope Benedict XVI was one of a few Vatican officials who decided not to attend the 1986 Assisi meeting and voiced concern about how it might appear to downplay important religious differences. However, he marked the 25th anniversary of the gathering with his own invitation to religious leaders -- and secular humanists -- to join him in the hometown of St. Francis in 2011.

The commemoration included a public moment of silence and a "solemn renewal of the commitment to peace," but no public prayers.

The next day, back at the Vatican, Pope Benedict told the religious leaders: "Meetings of this sort are necessarily exceptional and infrequent, yet they are a vivid expression of the fact that every day, throughout our world, people of different religious traditions live and work together in harmony."

And, sometimes, while not praying together, they pray alongside each other.

Pope Benedict XVI and Mustafa Cagrici, the grand mufti of Istanbul, pray silently in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul in this 2006 file photo. (CNS file/pool via Reuters)

Visiting Istanbul's Blue Mosque in 2006, Pope Benedict and an imam stood in silence, facing Mecca. Reflecting on the moment a few days later, the pope said, "divine providence allowed me to make a gesture that initially was not foreseen, but which, in the end, turned out to be very significant."

"Pausing a few minutes in recollection in that place of prayer," he said, "I turned to the one Lord of heaven and earth, merciful father of all humanity" and asked that "all believers recognize that they are his creatures and give a witness of true brotherhood."

The witness to brotherhood was a key point for St. John Paul in 1993 when the conflict in the Balkans shocked him and other Europeans who believed war on the continent was a thing of the past. The pope invited representatives of the predominantly Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Muslims from Bosnia-Herzegovina to join him in Assisi.

In the face of violence and war, St. John Paul told the religious leaders, "we cannot help but use the resource of believers; that resource is prayer. This is our strength; this is our weapon. In the face of instruments of destruction and death, in the face of violence and cruelty, we have nothing other than recourse to God with our words and our hearts. We are not strong or powerful, but we know that God will not ignore the pleas of those who turn to him with sincere faith, especially when the present and future fate of millions of people is at stake."

The pope and his guests first met together to listen to the experiences of refugees and others who had experienced the war first hand. Then, for the prayer, the Catholics went into the upper Basilica of St. Francis, and the Muslims and Jews went to separate rooms in the Franciscan convent attached to the church.

Meeting together and praying at the same time for the same intention, "in itself will be a living witness and a happy foreshadowing of the gift we intend to request," St. John Paul said. "Each of us came here motivated by fidelity to our own religious tradition, but also knowing and respecting the traditions of the others."

"May peace reign among us," he said. "The differences that separate us will remain," but coming together will let others see that "the secret of a humanity finally reconciled lies only in mutual acceptance of the other and, consequently, with mutual respect deepened by love."

[piusv]

The distinction between praying together and praying at the same time is one Vatican officials have found increasingly necessary to emphasize as popes have led more and more interfaith gatherings for peace.

More Modernist double-speak. They perfected that in the Vatican II documents. It's Clintonianism at its best: it depends what the definition of "is" is.

I am so sick at this point at what the Vatican II Church has become.

[BlatherNaut]

A priest who submits to this type of “blessing” is exhibiting the fruits of Diabolical Disorientation. The positions of the participants are inverse to their proper orientation.

---

The Beautiful Hands of a Priest.

We need them in life’s early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek it while tasting life’s woes.

When we come to this world we are sinful,
The greatest as well as the least.
And the hands that make us pure as angels
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness
Their dignity stands alone.

For there in the stillness of morning
Ere the sun has emerged from the east,
There God rests between the pure fingers
Of the beautiful hands of a priest.

When we are tempted and wander
To pathways of shame and sin
‘Tis the hand of a priest that absolve us.
Not once but again and again.

And when we are taking life’s partner
Other hands may prepare us a feast
But the hands that will bless and unite us,
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress,
What can a poor sinner do better
Than to ask Him who chose them to bless

When the death dews on our lids are falling,
May our courage and strength be increased
By seeing raised o’er us in blessing
The beautiful hands of a priest.

[BlatherNaut]

Did you see this version? Goofy, frenetic, aerobic “dancing” and kindergarten style music. Pope Francis sitting there looking on approvingly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfRvVk-5CL4

[ELS]

The photo was taken when he was still Archbishop Bergoglio.

[ebb tide]

Does that make a difference?

>>If any bishop or priest or deacon shall join in prayer with heretics, let him be suspended from communion. II Council of Constantinople<<

[ebb tide]

Nobody really talks about the Holy Ghost, and the sins that offend Him, anymore.
Rather they seem focused on some imaginary Spirit of VCII.

[BlatherNaut]

“I am so sick at this point at what the Vatican II Church has become.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAfGKcLJUY

[ELS]

Does that make a difference?

I was just clarifying that the photo was taken before he became Pope.

[ebb tide]

Did you read Post 16? No clarification was necessary.

[piusv]

All we need is a lavender colored one to make it complete.