"The Pope wanted the Atheists in Assisi." Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, returning from Bucharest, where he received an honorary degree and has chaired a meeting of the "court of the gentiles", explains to reporters the programs and projects of his department. He also explains how the idea to invite some non-believers to Assisi for the interreligious prayer meeting for peace on the twenty-fifth anniversary of that led by John Paul II in 1986.
"It was an idea of Benedict XVI's", says the cardinal of Milan, "and he himself presented it during a meeting with some cardinals in sight of the preparations for Assisi. " In doing so, explains Ravasi, "Ratzinger shows that he holds in great esteem an ancient teaching of Christian theology: man is made of natural and supernatural. The supernatural does not remove or destroy nature, but perfects it. It sets itself, that is, an additional element, but does not eliminate human nature. So the invitation of the Pope's attempt to reassert the importance of the relationship between faith and reason."
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