VATICAN CITY — In response to the “continuing disturbed and tense international situation,” Pope John Paul II announced at the Sunday Angelus of November 18 two spiritually dramatic initiatives.

The Holy Father asked all Catholics to observe Friday, Dec. 14, as a day of fasting. He made the announcement remembering the “thousands of innocent victims of September 11” in the United States, and all those “forced to abandon their homes to face an unknown and sometimes cruel death” as a result of the subsequent war.

At the same time, John Paul announced that he was inviting leaders of the world's religions to Assisi next Jan. 24, to pray for the “promotion of authentic peace".

Details of the Assisi event are still to be worked out over the next few weeks, according to papal spokesman Joaquìn Navarro-Valls. He said that the organization of the event and the decision about who to invite has been entrusted to three pontifical councils: Interreligous Dialogue, Christian Unity, and Justice and Peace.

Catholics should “pray fervently to God to grant the world a stable peace, founded upon justice, and to make it possible to find adequate solutions to the many conflicts which the world is suffering,” John Paul said concerning the day of fasting. “That which is saved by fasting could be put to the use of the poor, especially those who are now suffering the consequences of terrorism and war.”

The Holy Father noted that the Islamic holy month of Ramadan has just begun, in which devout Muslims fast daily from sunrise to sunset, and remarked that Christians too will soon begin the penitential season of Advent.

The Assisi meeting will be the third time the Holy Father has convoked an extraordinary assembly of religious leaders in the city of St. Francis, chosen according to the Pope because the saint is “known and revered by many across the world as a symbol of peace, reconciliation and fraternity.”

Previous meetings in Assisi were held in 1986 for peace in the world, and in 1993 for peace in Europe, especially the Balkans. These meetings, an innovation of John Paul II, brought together Christians of various Churches and ecclesial communities, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even animists.

“One will find together, in particular, Christians and Muslims, to proclaim before the world that religion must never become a reason for conflict, hate and violence,” said the Holy Father about next January's meeting. “Whoever truly receives within himself the word of God, good and merciful, must exclude from his heart every form of rancor and enmity. In this historic moment, humanity needs to see gestures of peace and to listen to words of hope.”

It is a measure of how far interreligious dialogue has come that this announcement was treated as something almost routine. When the first Assisi meeting was announced in 1986, there was a firestorm of opposition, and not only from traditional-ist quarters hostile to ecumenical and interreligious ventures. Even senior members of the Roman Curia had misgivings about whether John Paul was going too far, risking syncretism with his bold gestures.

“The coming together today of many religious leaders for prayer is by itself an invitation to the world to become aware that there exists another dimension of peace and another way of promoting it that is not the result of negotiations, political compromises or economic bargaining,” answered John Paul in 1986. “But it is the result of prayer, which, even in the diversity of religions, expresses a relation with a supreme power which surpasses our human capacities alone.”

“In a world where there is too little prayer, the unheard of fact that believers of the different religions find themselves together to pray acquires an exceptional value,” wrote then-Bishop Jorge Mejía of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. “What better response can we make to widespread secularism, if not this journey, this mutual encounter, for no other reason than to speak to God, each in his or her own way?"

Fifteen years later, Vatican observers note that this day of prayer of peace will be aimed not so much at countering secularism, but the idea that secularism is the only safe way to order society in the face of religious fundamentalism. Given the apparent “religious” motivations of the terrorists of Sept. 11, many have come to the conclusion that religion is itself a threat to public order and human rights. Inasmuch as the Assisi meeting next January counters that impression, it will be an important day not only for Catholics, but perhaps even more so for Muslims.