Benedict’s decision to include agnostics, to whom he dedicated the conclusion of his address, was the choice most revealing of his priorities. In acknowledgment of their presence, Thursday’s official program called for “reflection and\/or prayer,” and the day itself was rechristened one of “reflection, dialogue and prayer.” Thus at a gathering of religious leaders, worship had become optional.<\/p>\n
This change, redefining the group as united not by faith but by the desire for peace and justice, ruled out any interpretation of their meeting as an advertisement for religious syncretism. Even more importantly, opening the dialogue to nonreligious “seekers of the truth” underscored one of the major themes of Benedict’s pontificate: the need for Western culture to restore its dialogue between faith and reason, and thus to rehabilitate the concept of objective truth in the realms of metaphysics and ethics.<\/p>\n