Earlier today, some conservative non-traditional Catholics on Twitter got mad at me for pointing out that what Pope John Paul II did in Assisi in 1986 was just as bad (or almost as bad) as the Pachamama event of 2019. If you doubt the evil of Assisi ’86, read this OnePeterFive article. One paragraph in that article explains one of the most horrendous things that happened in Assisi in 1986:
At this meeting, under [Pope John Paul II’s] presidency, representatives of many Christian churches, together with an assortment of Hindus, Tibetan lamas, Japanese bonzes, tribal snake worshippers, and animists of all sorts performed their respective rites, some of the less mainstream officiants showing a little embarrassment at having to exhibit their customs outside the privacy of their native groves. For a day, the town of St. Francis was given over to displays of pagan worship. Cardinal Silvio Oddi reported that a group of Buddhists entered the church of San Pietro, set up a statue of Buddha on the tabernacle of the altar and venerated it with prayer scrolls and incense; when a Benedictine priest protested at the sacrilege he was taken away by the police. These activities, all conducted at the pope’s behest, provoke the question what meaning John Paul attached to the first Commandment, by order and by importance, “Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.”
p/c L’Osservatore Romano at Assisi
Many of you know that he allowed a Buddhist statue on the tabernacle in Assisi. Dr. Taylor Marshall closely covers this horrendous event in his book Infiltration. But what interests in today’s blog post is how many American Catholics will justify Assisi ’86. The unnamed-author at 1P5 continues:
In its practical effects, the influence of the prayer meeting at Assisi could only be to encourage the belief, already well rooted among hazy-minded Catholics, that all the world’s religions are manifestations of the same great truth, and we should pick whichever one of them gives us the best of a warm inner feeling. This estimate will doubtless offend the adepts of liberalism, and they will call it an example of the bigoted absolutism that the Second Vatican Council repudiated. Those who think on those lines believe that the Church shows its Christ-like humility the more it abases itself and surrenders its claims.
Notice that many neo-con non-trads (and even a few trads) will defend Pope John Paul II at Assisi because they believe Jesus Christ Himself would be this humble before other world religions. (The blog linked above continues with numerous New Testament quotes to show how preposterous this is.) But the post-modern man (or rather, the modernist Catholic) is continually tortured by what appears to be a rub between the First Great Commandment and the Second Great Commandment: How can I insist Jesus is the only way to the Father while also being meek before people of other world religions?
Put another way, we might rightly ask: How can I evangelize if other people think I’m arrogant in my beliefs?
Now we divert from the above issue of Pope John Paul II in Assisi in 1986. I simply want to ask your prayers (as this is the “Life Update” section of my blog) to help me live out the right balance to the above question: How can I evangelize if other people think I’m arrogant in my beliefs?
One thing I have noticed in my world travels is that Americans are the most sensitive people on this issue. Just the other night, I gave a Miraculous Medal on a chain to my Uber driver from Ethiopia. He dropped me off at my place in Denver around midnight as I returned from the Conference for the Coalition for Canceled Priests (even though I’m only semi-canceled, that is, from parish life but still in good standing.) In any case, the Muslim Uber driver happily accepted the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady. I continually find that people all across the globe accept bold assertions from me, provided I say it with charity.
But we in the West, due to fear and wokeness, have got Meekness and Boldness all conflated in our emotions and intellect, as GK Chesterton rightly predicted in Orthodoxy:
We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.
Many so-called “Catholics” follow the “spirit of the world” as dubbed by Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (the early 20th century New Age Jesuit sadly honored by Pope John Paul II.) Such leftists today believe they must be bold about their subjective egos, and yet they are continually found meek and weak in their own objective convictions (if they have any at all.)
Yet notice that all the saints who followed Jesus Christ and Apostolic Catholics were the exact opposite (as they made converts across the globe): They were extremely bold about their Gospel convictions, but very meek in reference to their own egos. Please pray that I can practice what I preach on this one. In prayer, I repeatedly see that I actually need to work on the boldness in conviction, just as much as the meekness in the ego. Most my enemies think it’s only the latter. But no—I need a great increase in Gospel boldness, too.