ASSISI, Italy ? Pope Benedict XVI joined Buddhist monks, Islamic scholars, Yoruba leaders and a handful of agnostics in making a communal call for peace Thursday, insisting that religion must never be used as a pretext for war or terrorism.
Benedict welcomed some 300 leaders representing a rainbow of faiths to the hilltop town of Assisi to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a daylong prayer for peace here called by Pope John Paul II in 1986 amid Cold War conflicts.
While the event lacked the star power of 1986, when the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and others came together to pray, Thursday's peace meeting included some novelties that the original lacked. Buddhist monks from mainland China were on hand as were four people who profess no faith at all ? part of Benedict's efforts to reach out to agnostics and atheists who nevertheless are searching for truth.
Thursday's meeting also included Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and representatives from Greek, Russian, Serbian and Belarusian Orthodox churches as well as Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist leaders. Several rabbis were joined by some 60 Muslims, a half-dozen Hindus and Shinto believers, three Taoists, three Jains and a Zoroastrian.
Traditional Catholics condemned the meeting ? just as they did in 1986 ? saying it was blasphemy for the pope to invite leaders of "false" religions to pray to their Gods for peace. The Society of St. Pius X, a breakaway traditionalist group that Benedict has been working to bring back into Rome's fold, said it would be celebrating 1,000 Masses to atone for the damage done by the event and urged the pope to use it to urge others to convert to Catholicism.
The pope did no such thing.
But Benedict too objected to the 1986 event and didn't go, disapproving of members of different faiths praying in the presence of one another. His 25th anniversary edition stripped away all communal public prayer in an attempt to remove any whiff of syncretism, or the combining of different beliefs and practices.
In his remarks, the German-born Benedict noted that in the 25 years since the landmark peace day, the Berlin Wall had crumbled without bloodshed and the world was without any great new wars. But he said nations are still full of discord and that religion is now frequently being used to justify violence.
"We know that terrorism is often religiously motivated and that the specifically religious character of the attacks is proposed as a justification for the reckless cruelty that considers itself entitled to discard the rules of morality for the sake of the intended 'good,'" he said.
But the pope said it was wrong to demand that faith disappear from daily life to somehow rid the world of a religious pretext for violence. He argued that the absence of God from people's daily lives was even more dangerous, since it deprived men and women of any moral criteria to judge their actions.
"The horrors of the concentration camps reveal with utter clarity the consequences of God's absence," said Benedict, who as a young German was forced to join the Hitler Youth.
A leading Islamic scholar, A. Hasyim Muzadi, also lamented that a misunderstanding of religion was often to blame for the onset of violence, when followers only have a "partial understanding" of their faith.
"A mistake in understanding religious comprehension no doubt has caused a misapplication of the religion itself," he said.
Benedict's relations with Muslims got off to a rocky start when in 2006 he delivered a now-infamous speech in which he quoted a Medieval text that characterized some of Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."
Amid post-Sept. 11 tensions, Benedict later said he regretted that the comments offended Muslims and he has sought ever since to mend ties with moderate Islam.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and one of the first speakers at the peace meeting, said the delegates weren't gathered there to come to a "minimum common ground of belief."
Rather, he said, the meeting would show the world that through their distinctiveness, different faiths provide the wisdom to draw upon "in the struggle against the foolishness of a world still obsessed with fear and suspicion, still in love with the idea of a security based on active hostility, and still capable of tolerating or ignoring massive loss of life among the poorest through war and disease."
And there was a lot of distinctiveness on hand. Standing on the altar of St. Mary of the Angels basilica, Wande Abimbola of Nigeria, representing Africa's traditional Yoruba religion, sang and shook a percussion instrument as he told the delegates that peace can only come with greater respect for indigenous religions.
"We must always remember that our own religion, along with the religions practiced by other people, are valid and precious in the eyes of the Almighty, who created all of us with such plural and different ways of life and belief systems," he said.
The presence of the Chinese Buddhists in Assisi was significant given the recent Sino-Vatican tensions over the appointments of Catholic bishops in the country. They came from Henan's Shaolin temple, famous for its kung fu-fighting monks.
One of the nonbelievers, Julia Kristeva, spoke to the delegates about humanism, feminism and a shared commitment to save the world.
All the delegates traveled together to Assisi on a special papal train that left early Thursday from the Vatican's train station. The delegates ate a small lunch together and had time for silent, private prayer before coming together for the joint call for peace. They are to return to Rome together via train Thursday night and have a special audience with Benedict inside the Vatican on Friday.
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