Forty years after Pope John Paul II's 1986 interreligious gathering in Assisi, the controversy has not faded, it has returned. Frank Wright revisits footage from the original event: Buddhist prayers conducted inside a Catholic church, a Buddha statue placed on an altar, Hindu ceremonies invoking their deities. Such gatherings, he argues, risk promoting religious indifferentism by appearing to place non-Christian religions on equal footing with the Catholic faith. Yet Vatican officials now defend Assisi's legacy, and suggest that opposition to the gathering could indicate a rupture with Church authority.

Frank contrasts the interreligious initiative with the teachings of earlier popes, particularly St. Pius X, arguing that inviting non-Christian worship into Catholic settings undermines the First Commandment and the Church's unique mission of salvation through Jesus Christ. He discusses Pope Leo XIV's message of solidarity with the anniversary gathering, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's public criticism, and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's opposition to the original Assisi meeting.

The controversy reflects a broader struggle over religious indifferentism, modernism, and the preservation of traditional Catholic doctrine. A Buddha on the altar. Hindu prayers in a church. And Rome says opposition is disobedience. The question is whether the First Commandment still matters, or whether Assisi has become the new orthodoxy. The answer may determine whether the Church remains Catholic.

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