VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Today St. Peter’s Basilica will host a public debate between a Catholic, an Orthodox, and a Protestant theologian on the primacy of Peter.
The November 22 debate, entitled “On this rock I will build my Church,” is part of the Vatican Lectio Petri project. This is a series of four meetings, sponsored by St. Peter’s Basilica, the Courtyard of the Gentiles, and the Fratelli tutti Foundation. According to the Vatican’s announcement, the project is “dedicated to the life and ministry of the saint in theology, history, arts and culture.” The theologians to take part in the debate are Professor Dimitrios Keramidas, the Orthodox theologian; Professor Paolo Ricca, the Protestant theologian; and Professor Don Dario Vitali, the Catholic theologian.
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Peter’s, will introduce the debate. In anticipation of the event, Gambetti said: “We would like to understand, how to understand today, the primacy of the last place experienced by the Apostle and how the maternal trait contained in Jesus’ mandate to Peter, which the first of the Apostles was able to embody, can be expressed.”
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture, remarked on the significance of the debate being held at St. Peter’s Basilica.
“This second Lectio Petri, is undoubtedly particularly evocative and significant because, for the first time, St. Peter’s Basilica – a place that symbolizes in an, I would say, absolute way the Primacy of Peter – will host a representative of Protestantism and one of Orthodoxy, in dialogue with each other and with a Catholic theologian on a topic that for the three confessions might seem divisive,” he said.
“On the contrary, I am convinced that the meeting and confrontation between the protagonists of the evening will be extremely enriching and stimulating: it is certainly a virtuous example of ecumenical dialogue, which also well represents the spirit of the ‘Courtyard of the Gentiles.’”
Ravasi founded the Courtyard of the Gentiles foundation within the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education to promote “dialogue between believers and nonbelievers through events, debates, and research.” Its co-sponsor of the Lectio Petri, the Fratelli tutti Foundation, was founded by Pope Francis in December 2021.
The Courtyard of the Gentiles has been known for scandalous “ecumenical” events in the past. In 2019, video footage surfaced showing Ravasi participating in a procession honoring the infamous Pachamama, the Inca fertility goddess, and Tata Inti, Father Sun, in the town of San Marcos Sierras in the Cordoba province of Argentina.
The ceremony, in which a pagan shaman invoked the Pachamama in a prayer, was part of an interreligious “ecumenical” event hosted by the Courtyard of the Gentiles. A spokesman for the cardinal told LifeSiteNews that the ceremony was not intended to be religious. Nevertheless, the shaman who led the ritual clearly presented it as religious in nature.
READ: Video of Vatican cardinal at Pachamama, ‘Father Sun’ ceremony surfaces
Gambetti made headlines in 2021 when, as Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, he oversaw the implementation of restrictions on the celebration of Masses offered privately or according to the Missal of 1962, and restricted the use of Latin at the basilica’s public Masses. Despite these restrictions, each year the Summorum Pontificum – now “Ad Petri Sedem” – Pilgrimage in celebration of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio widening access to the Latin Mass have continued at St. Peter’s Basilica, this year drawing over a thousand pilgrims from around the world.
The “values” of the Fratelli tutti Foundation – the other sponsor of the Lectio Petri project – have been likened by LifeSiteNews correspondent Jeanne Smits to the secular ideology underpinning the French Revolution. After listing the Foundation’s objectives, Smits wrote:
References to God, the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Beloved Mother are totally absent from this catalogue of politically correct ‘values,’ among which environmentalist concerns and ‘fraternity between believers and non-believers’ are, of course, paramount. For French observers, the mention of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ in objective VI, together with a nod to ‘fraternal humanism,’ has obvious Masonic overtones.
“Making Reason for the Hope that is in Us” is the title for the third session of the Lectio Petri project. The January 17, 2023, session will be dedicated to considering the figure of St. Peter in history and culture. Ravasi will comment on the two Letters of Peter and several passages from Pliny’s Letter, one of the earliest Roman sources depicting the life of the early Christians. Professor Giuliano Amato, president of the Courtyard of the Gentiles Foundation, will conclude the meeting with a reflection on the relationship between faith and society.
The last Lectio Petri session, entitled “Quo vadis,” will take place March 7, 2023, and will examine the figure of St. Peter in the arts, literature, and music.