Professor Peter Beyerhaus var/er ganske godt kjent blant konservative lutheranere i Norge, og kardinal Ratzinger var hans kollega i Tübingen for mange år siden (på slutten av 60-tallet), har stor respekt for ham, og de har holdt kontakt i alle disse årene. Slik svarer pave Benedikt på et spørsmål fra Beyerhaus om hvordan han kan være med på det risikable religiøse arrangementet serere i oktober (fra Rorate Cæli):
«I understand quite well – Benedict XVI wrote on March 4, 2011 – your concern regarding the participation at the Assisi meeting. However, this commemoration would have to have been celebrated in some way and, all things considered, it seemed to me that the best thing would be for me to personally go there being thus able to determine the direction of it all. I will nevertheless do everything in order that a syncretistic or relativistic interpretation of the event will be impossible and so that what will remain is that I will always believe and confess that which I had called to the attention of the Church with [the Declaration] ‘Dominus Iesus’.»