Assisi III?

Someone please tell me why this should be considered a good thing, and not a step beneath an international Care Bear convention? I have read that a pope at the time of the Protestant Reformation (Paul III?) went through the streets of Rome in sackcloth and ashes in penance for the sins of the Renaissance popes.¹ That is a sort of procession I could gladly join. Even a public penance of this sort, led by the Pope in Rome, in supplication for world peace is something I -- and I think the world -- would find understandable. But this Assisi exercise, again, after the terrible confusion created by Assisi I and II? Of course, I am little more than a lowly pew peasant; but I cannot avoid voicing my concern bleat. Oremus!

Notes

1. "In the very year that Henry VIII's obedient Parliament named him head of the English church, Pope Paul III went through the streets of Rome in sackcloth and ashes for the sins of his predecessors -- but not for their errors in doctrine." Sheldon Vanauken, "The English Channel: Between Canterbury and Rome," in Under the Mercy (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1985; rpt. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 226. [back]

Updates illustrating the controversial nature of the question:

• Fr. John Zuhlsdorff, "SSPX's Bp. Fellay criticizes Benedict XVI about Assisi meeting" (WDTPRS, January 12, 2011)
• Fr. John Zuhlsdorff, "The Catholic Herald's William Oddie about the critics of Benedict XVI's Assisi confab" (WDTPRS, January 15, 2011).
• "Revisiting Assisi" (Musings, Sept. 11, 2006) [includes the article by Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S., "John Paul II and Assisi: Reflections of a 'Devil's Advocate'"]

[Hat tip to J.M. for Fr. Z reference.]