Wow! I did not realize until I had to translate it word for word how strong are the opinions and judgments rendered by Messori in this interview about the Franciscans! Inclduing some eye-opening historic facts about St. Francis!
Here, from the Italian daily, La Stampa, is the interview with Messori:
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“The Church has a long memory. This concerns the inter-religious meeting of 1986 about which Joseph Ratzinger had an account to settle with the friars of Assisi. And now things have come to a head.” Vittorio Messori, probably the most-read Italian Catholic author in the world (the only journalist to have co-authored a book with each of the last two Popes) reveals what is behind the recent pontifical action regarding the three Franciscan churches in Assisi and recounts how the future Pope Benedict XVI was indignant over some pagan sacrifices conducted at the altar of St. Clare’s Basilica, right over the Gothic crypt where the remains of the saint are kept.
Pagan sacrifices?
“Ratzinger has not pardoned the Franciscan community for the excesses of the first day of prayers conducted by Pope John Paul II and leaders of other world religions. It was
carnival-like, in the opinion of many – and it was the friars themselves who had gone far beyond previous agreements on what was to be done, in effect forcing the Pope to take part in questionable rites. The friars allowed African animists to kill two chickens on the altar of St. Clare’s and some American Indians to perform dances inside the Church. Ratzinger, perplexed, had strong reservations about all this from the start, and refused to go to Assisi then. Perhaps his reservations limited the damage.”
In what way?
"The night before that meeting, he reviewed the Pope’s text for his discourse and he advised reining in some parts. It had become clear to him that the Franciscan enclave, free of any links with the Bishop of Assisi, was an anomaly that had to be corrected, that it should be limited in its autonomy and brought back under the jurisdiction of the Church. Thus, the accounting for the 1986 aberration of a Christian church used for pagan rites has been settled after 19 years.”
Too much autonomy?
“The friars have abused the so-called spirit of Assisi. In fact, they venerate and disseminate illicitly the image of a romantic saintlet of Protestant descent, a mythic St. Francis, a sort of village fool who speaks to wolves and birds, sends everyone off with a pack slung on the shoulders. It is a false vulgarization of St. Francis, which debases his message. The historic Francis is, in fact, the most authentic son of the Church of the Crusades.”
He was not a pacifist?
“Absolutely not. Franscis participated in the fifth Crusade as chaplain of troops who were certainly not men of peace. He sought martyrdom through participating in a crusade to reconquer the Holy Land and fell into depression when the crusaders lost. He did not go to the sultan to dialog but to try and convert him, challenging him to walk over burning coals to prove whether Christ or Mohammed was more powerful. And he was not even an animal lover. In his Song of Creation, he never mentions animals. Nor was he an ecologist! He opposed those among his followers who wanted to be a vegetarian community.”
Now, therefore, the Pope wishes to re-establish orthodoxy?
“Of course. Even in San Giovanni Rotondo [hometown of Padre Pio], the Franciscans have taken the Sanctuary from the control of the diocese. So both there and in Assisi, it is important that the friars’ initiatives be in agreement with that of the bishopric. It wil be good even for the Sacred Convent [main Franciscan church in Assisi], because it will put an end to the friars' politically correct demagoguery. An end to the pretense of peace, ecology, ecumenism and pseudo-courageous vaingloriousness which shakes the hands of dictators [this refers to the ostentatious welcome given by the friars to Saddam's deputy Tariq Aziz, a Christian, when he visited Assisi a few months before the war] and violates the Church itself.”
The Pope wants to normalize things?
“The spirit of Assisi is not what the friars of the Sacred Convent have made it to be, and Joseph Ratzinger is fully aware of the colossal error made during that World Day of Prayer in 1986. So much so that three years later, he succeeded in attenuating the syncretist tendencies of the last inter-religious meeting in Assisi, beginning with a correction of the false picture of the historic Francis . And it has been disconcerting that up to now, the bishop of Assisi has learned of any new initiative by the friars only by reading about it in the papers.”
The end to the “world capital of ecumenism”?
“The sanctuaries should coordinate with the bishops. Ratzinger’s intervention at this point is irreproachable. The Pope has followed his own style, acting in a respectful manner that does not interfere with the monastic life of the order itself, but decisively, in a way that serves as a warning to all. The Church will no longer tolerate events which are exempt from the laws of the Church. It is a choice that is well within Benedict’s pastoral strategy. No one can be a law unto themselves.”