Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, Prefect of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, maintains that the day of prayer for peace convened by John Paul II in Assisi on October 27, 1986, has already become part of the ordinary teaching of the Magisterium, and links the opposition it aroused to a schismatic rupture. He stated this on October 7 at the Pontifical Antonianum University in Rome, during the lecture that opened the series “The Spirit of Assisi between Memory and Prophecy,” organized by the Franciscan Institute of Spirituality within the chair dedicated to Monsignor Luigi Padovese. The university has published the full text of the address, entitled “The Meeting of October 27, 1986 and the Magnifica humanitas of Leo XIV.”
The thesis is based on the first encyclical of Leo XIV, signed on May 15 and published on the 25th. Koovakad cited paragraph 223, which assigns interreligious dialogue a decisive role in rejecting the logic of violence, and the document’s mention of the spirit of Assisi promoted by John Paul II and continued by Francis. He then concluded that with these words “October 27, 1986 enters the ordinary teaching of the Magisterium,” and that the day ceases to be an event to be remembered and becomes a criterion for interpreting the present. A few pages earlier he had credited Francis with turning the spirit of Assisi into the social doctrine of fraternity with Fratelli tutti, the encyclical he signed in Assisi in 2020.
The passage of the encyclical to which the cardinal refers is not in the body of paragraph 223. The main text of that paragraph states that whoever uses the name of God to legitimize terrorism, violence, or war betrays His face. The reference to the spirit of Assisi appears in footnote 200, which presents it as proof that believers can return to the most authentic sources of their traditions, “where there is no room for sacralized hatred,” and cites as an example Francis’s dialogue with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar. The note does not mention the date October 27, 1986, nor does it describe the format of that day.
Regarding opposition to the day, the cardinal admitted that not everyone understood it. He maintained that the sectors he described as integrist challenged it to the point of counting it among the reasons for a schismatic rupture, and that others feared syncretism or relativism at the time, as they still do today. He did not name Marcel Lefebvre, but the precedent is documented. The Society of Saint Pius X recalls in its own history of the consecrations that its founder considered Assisi, together with the Roman response to his objections on religious liberty, one of the signs that led him to consecrate four bishops without a pontifical mandate on June 30, 1988. In the sermon that day, Lefebvre invoked the spirit of Assisi to explain why he had withdrawn from the agreement with Rome. The excommunication declared then was canonically grounded in the episcopal consecration without a pontifical mandate.
In defense of the day, Koovakad affirmed that it was conceived and lived without any syncretism and that there was no mixing of rites; he invoked John Paul II’s address to the Roman Curia on December 22, 1986, and resorted to the formula that in Assisi they were together to pray, but did not pray together. He also described what took place in the square of the Basilica of St. Francis, where each tradition prayed in turn according to its own forms while the others listened in silence. His account does not mention that several churches in the city were assigned to the prayer of non-Christian delegations, nor that the Buddhists placed an image of Buddha on the altar of the Church of St. Peter, an episode reported by Vaticanist Sandro Magister and cited by critics of the day ever since.
The historical survey of the lecture includes Benedict XVI, who returned to Assisi in 2011 and invited non-believers. It does not record that that edition suppressed the common public prayer, nor that Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1986, did not attend the first day and later publicly criticized the multi-religious prayer that characterized it.
The intervention comes on the eve of the fortieth anniversary. The Community of Sant’Egidio will celebrate its annual meeting for peace in Assisi from October 25 to 27, for whose final day the presence of Leo XIV had been announced. It also comes three months after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declared, on July 2, the excommunication of the six bishops who took part in the consecrations celebrated in Écône the previous day and the state of schism of the Society of Saint Pius X.
Read also