In his New Year message, Pope Benedict mentioned that he is organising a “Peace Summit” at Assisi, Italy, in October 2011.

He said its purpose would be “to solemnly renew the effort of those with faith of all religions to live their faith as a service for the cause of peace”.

Also that the Summit would “honour the memory of the historical event promoted by my predecessor”.

25 years ago, in 1986, Pope John Paul II held a Summit, also at Assisi, calling together leaders of many ideological groups, including Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Animists etc.

Will the same be done again?

How far can we take this? Will Satanists be invited?  

Mormons?

Time will tell.

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It seems certain that this proposed meeting will include many things that would have been prohibited by earlier traditional Catholic Popes . . . .

Like Pope Pius XI who, in the 1920s, said, “The Catholic Church has never permitted its subjects to take part in congresses of non-Catholics. The union of Christians cannot be considered except by promoting the return of the dissidents to the One True Church.”

Traditional Catholics cannot avoid recognising such get-togethers as a betrayal of the Faith for which many in the past laid down their lives.

The original Christians willingly accepted being fed to the lions rather than compromising and pretending to go along with non-Catholic religion.

* * *

It is the duty of every Catholic to love our non-Catholic brothers and sisters.

We can do this best by letting them know what the true Catholic message is.

And that God does not regard the Catholic Sacraments as optional extras.

If our message comes over as “all religions are nice and more or less the same etc.” we are letting non-believers down badly.