Posted on 10/29/2025 1:24:30 PM PDT by ebb tide
At Constantine’s Arch, Leo XIV lit a candle beside leaders of every creed; at the Vatican, screens glowed with the image of a woman holding the “evil eye.” The symbolism wrote its own commentary. The Cross that once conquered pagan Rome has been replaced by a talisman meant to ward off misfortune; a fitting emblem for a Church now terrified of proclaiming the exclusive truth of Christ.
What began as a “Meeting for Peace” beneath the Arch of Constantine ended as a weeklong festival of pluralism, a Nostra Aetate jubilee choreographed to prove that the Church of dialogue can outshine the Church of doctrine. In the process, Rome managed to turn the victory of In hoc signo vinces into the closing act of a world-religions pageant.
The spectacle was not an accident. It was the logical sequel to the theology of Nostra Aetate, now staged in full color: eyes, idols, and all.
The “Spirit of Assisi,” Reloaded at the Arch of Constantine
The International Meeting for Peace, staged by Sant’Egidio, was billed as prayer, testimony, and a common message against war. Leo’s address at the Colosseum declared, “war is never holy; only peace is holy,” and grounded the evening in the Council’s Nostra Aetate. The symbolism is deliberate. Where Constantine once marched under the Cross as a sign of the true God’s triumph over idols, the pope now processes with the representatives of those idols to light a common flame for a generalized “reconciliation.” The location is catechesis: the Milvian Bridge is reimagined as an interfaith footbridge.
Catholic doctrine has never treated “peace” as a freestanding divinity. Peace is the tranquility of order that flows from the reign of Christ and the observance of God’s law. When the Church speaks about just war, she does so precisely because justice and truth sometimes require the sword to restrain grave evils. To pronounce that “only peace is holy” is to flatten an entire theological tradition, to treat Crusade, just defense, and the martyrs who resisted pagan cults as awkward relatives we no longer invite to dinner. Holiness adheres to God, to His worship, to His law, to His Church; not to an abstraction that can be equally invoked by the Qur’anic da‘wah, the Vedic pantheon, and a UN communiqué.
“Prayer together” among religions, moreover, is not neutral ground. It inevitably suggests that diverse objects of worship converge toward one divine horizon. That is why the pre-conciliar magisterium insisted upon the unique claim of revealed worship and warned repeatedly against syncretism and indifferentism. The staged simultaneity of rites, chants, and silent meditations under Roman arches doesn’t relieve that tension; it performs it. The public sees one thing: all religions are paths up the same mountain, and the Church is now happy to host the base camp.
Look again at the image: a pope in white lights a tree of oil lamps while imams, monks, patriarchs, and gurus look on. A set designer could not better express the new dogma that peace is the sacrament and pluralism the liturgy.
Nostra Aetate at Sixty: From “We Believe” to “We Are the World”
The commemoration of Nostra Aetate did not even try to hide its thesis. The celebration opened with a paganesque procession down the central aisle of the Aula, dancers bearing sun-disks and shields, the crowd filming like a pop concert.
Children later sang “We Are the World,” Michael Jackson’s humanitarian hymn, while Leo worked the room greeting unbelievers and representatives of other faiths.
A Vatican video promo flashed the blue-and-white apotropaic “evil eye” amulet, a charm meant to ward off malice, as if to say that the Church now curates the world’s spiritual trinkets in a single friendly museum.
What’s wrong with this? Start with the obvious. Catholic worship is theocentric and sacrificial. It is not a culture fair. The Church used to bring the nations into her sanctuary to adore the true God through the one Sacrifice of Christ. Now Rome brings the nations in to adore their own symbols under her roof while she provides the stage, the camera crews, and the applause. The message transmitted to every Catholic child watching is that religion is primarily a shared human aspiration toward peace, and doctrinal differences are secondary décor.
Nostra Aetate itself whatever good it encouraged in personal charity and the repudiation of hatred, has metastasized into a working theology: the Church’s primary task in the public square is to affirm the religious sense of mankind, discover “seeds of the Word” everywhere, and meet the world halfway by celebrating common values. Evangelization fades to background; mission is recoded as dialogue; the First Commandment is reinterpreted as a ban on “exclusion.” The photo of the dancers in the Aula captures that pivot better than a thousand footnotes. And the musical choice says the quiet part aloud. We are not singing Credo in unum Deum; we are singing We are the world. The new creed begins with “we.”
Ping
No words about the Risen Christ? What has the Catholic Church become?
In English translation, the Nicene Creed begins with "I" ...
A parody of its former self.
Reminds me of Solomon who put idols of his wives’ gods in the Temple at Jerusalem. Did not go well for him.
So disheartening.
Prayers up for Holy Mother Church.
Constantine: The first pope.
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