The meeting in Assisi serves also to “bridge the gulfs that have been opened up in the long history of misunderstanding” between religions, write ” “the German bishops” “” “” “
“Common witness for the faith in the forms typical of one’s own religious community must bring religions closer together and help bridge the gulfs that have been opened up in the long history of misunderstanding and error. The interreligious prayer meeting in Assisi serves for this purpose.” The words of the German bishops with regard to the Prayer Day for peace in the world, published in an official communiqué two days before the meeting in Assisi, were an admonishment to those who “err in a dangerous fashion by wishing to connote this great meeting of religions as a step towards a religion of unity”. “The common response for peace does not eliminate the difference between the religious confessions. On the contrary, we Christians can only be credible in dialogue and in collaboration if we don’t overcome what it is that separates us and don’t remain silent about the cause of our hopes for peace. ‘Peace bears the name of Jesus Christ’: this declaration of John Paul II at the first world meeting for peace in Assisi in 1986 remains binding for us. We are indebted for it also to the other religions”. In the light of these words, many initiatives have been promoted in Germany in recent days, aimed at stimulating personal prayer in unison with that of the Pope. The German Institute for the liturgy has gathered texts and materials for prayer meetings (available on the website www.liturgie.de/projekte/frieden/texte), while the responsible office of the episcopate of Mainz has prepared a kind of manual of pastoral liturgy (it too available on the Internet: www.kath.de/bistum/mainz/liturgie/arbeitshilfe_friedensgebet2002). Numerous events are also planned in the main dioceses of Germany. At Munich, capital of Bavaria, a region that comprises some 4,000 Lutheran and 1,200 Lutheran-Evangelical parishes, the Assisi meeting provides the occasion for a variety of ecumenical meetings and celebrations; the central event was held on Wednesday 23 January, at 7.00 pm, in the cathedral of Munich, with the participation of Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, the local bishop of the Lutheran Evangelical church of Bavaria, Johannes Friedrich, who gave the homily, and the parish priest Thomas Péllaton of the Anglican Episcopal Church. A group of pilgrims bound for Assisi left the Rhineland city of Cologne on Monday, 21 January. They were led by Werner Höbsch of the “Department for Interreligious Dialogue” and Father Alois Gomez de Segura. Two Moslem religious from a liberal Islamic community also formed part of the group. The youngest of the group was aged 30, the oldest 82. Nor has Berlin, capital of united Germany, absented itself from the various prayer-for-peace initiatives: Cardinal Sterzinsky, archbishop of the city and president of the local ecumenical Council of Churches, in which many confessions and religions find a forum for dialogue, invited all believers to the Wappensaal in the town hall on 24 January, at 5.00 pm, to “express this yearning for peace in a particular moment of prayer”. Cardinal Sterzinsky lamented the poor response to the initiatives in his diocese, where ” the fast day on 14 December was commemorated only by individual believers”. In view of the fact that “many faithful have difficulty in going on pilgrimage to Assisi”, the cardinal invited the faithful to attend a eucharistic celebration in their own local community on the evening of the 24, in “spiritual association with the event, and as far as possible in communion of spirit with our brothers and sisters of the other Christian confessions”. While recognizing the importance of dialogue with the representatives of other religions, Cardinal Sterzinsky warned of the dangers of a vague form of syncretism. “If we meet together to pray he explained – we need to pay attention to the various religious interpretations and to the different conceptions of God. That’s what happens at Assisi, where people go together to pray and not to pray together.” At Speyer the Catholic community, at the invitation of Bishop Anton Schlembach, united itself in prayer with the Pope with a prayer vigil on the 23rd. The same happened at Hamburg, where the bells of all the churches of the 173 Catholic communities of the diocese rang out for peace at midday on the following day (24 January). Patrizia Collesi
