A group of Catholic and Anglican theologians has publicly called on the Vatican to review and overturn a papal document from 1896 that declared Anglican ordinations “absolutely null and utterly void.” “Where we once walked apart, we now walk together in friendship and love,” wrote members of the Malines Conversations Group after tracing the history of ecumenical agreements between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion and, especially, reviewing examples of collaboration and gestures of recognition.

The judgment made by Pope Leo XIII in his apostolic letter “Apostolicae Curae” in 1896 “does not accord with the reality into which the Spirit has led us now,” said members of the group, which is an informal Catholic-Anglican dialogue that began in 2013. Members of the group, who are not appointed to represent their churches but keep their respective ecumenical offices informed of their studies and discussions, presented their document Dec. 15 at Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. The 27-page document is titled, “Sorores in Spe — Sisters in Hope of the Resurrection: A Fresh Response to the Condemnation of Anglican Orders.”
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In a joint letter of 28 October 2021, Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Cardinal Mario Grech, General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops, addressed the Bishops responsible for ecumenism in their Episcopal Conferences and Synods of the Oriental Catholic Churches.

In the letter, the two Cardinals offer practical suggestions aimed at implementing the ecumenical dimension of the synodal process in Dioceses, Episcopal Conferences, and Synods.
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Dans une lettre conjointe datée du 28 octobre 2021, le Cardinal Kurt Koch, Président du Conseil pontifical pour la promotion de l’unité des chrétiens, et le Cardinal Mario Grech, Secrétaire général du Synode des évêques, se sont adressés aux évêques responsables de l’œcuménisme des Conférences épiscopales et des Synodes des Églises orientales catholiques.

Par cette lettre, les deux cardinaux entendent offrir quelques suggestions pratiques pour assurer la dimension œcuménique du processus synodal dans les diocèses et les Conférences épiscopales et les Synodes des Églises orientales catholiques.
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A church wants to receive a Christian who was baptised in a different church. A woman wants to marry someone from another faith tradition. A child is growing up in an inter-church family.

These real-life situations are evidence that thinking about mutual recognition of baptism shouldn’t be relegated solely to lecture halls in theological institutions. Recognising that mutual recognition of baptism — and the obstacles toward it — is an issue that affects the daily lives of countless Christians across Europe and beyond. The Conference of European Churches (CEC), through its Thematic Group on Ecclesiology and Mission, has initiated a study process to explore this topic.

The study seeks to identify agreements concerning baptism within CEC Member Churches, and explore official guidelines with regard to the reception of Christians moving from one church to another, recognition of and pastoral care for inter-church families, and Christian initiation, religious education, and pastoral care of children raised in inter-church families.
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Global religious leaders and leading scientists issued a joint statement on 4 October calling on the international community to raise their ambition and step up their climate action ahead of COP26.

Almost 40 faith leaders signed the joint appeal, which was presented by Pope Francis.

Signatories included World Council of Churches acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, along with representatives from across the Christian denominations, Sunni and Shi’a Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism and Jainism.

The appeal calls for the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions as soon as possible, and to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) met on 25 August in Geneva to explore and discuss possible areas of future cooperation.

The two organizations shared current plans and discussed possibilities for closer collaboration on thematic areas such as advocacy and peace building, the climate emergency, and membership matters.

The WEA is a network of churches in 143 nations that have joined to give a worldwide identity, voice and platform to more than 600 million evangelical Christians.

The WEA has six programmatic departments: Global Advocacy, Global Theology, Global Witness, Alliance Engagement, Church Engagement, and Public Engagement.
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A collection of documents and publications from the World Council of Churches (WCC) is now available through its longstanding partner organization Globethics.net. The WCC collection, updated weekly, reflects a growing and longstanding electronic bridge between the organizations’ websites.

For many years, the Globethics.net Library has hosted a variety of collections on behalf of the WCC, an active member of the Globethics.net Consortium on Ethics in Higher Education, as well as co-founder of the former Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism (GlobeTheoLib).

The institutional “World Council of Churches collection” has recently been updated with new content collected from its website, including documents and publications published at www.oikoumene.org/resources. Thanks to an electronic bridge between the two sites, new resources are automatically added to the collection on a weekly basis.
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ACSC will “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” A new Anglican Communion Science Commission (ACSC) is being formed to “resource the whole Anglican Communion for courageous and confident spiritual leadership in issues involving science.” The ACSC will be co-chaired by the Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba; and the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft. The ACSC will formally launch at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, in July and August next year; and will hold its first conference shortly afterwards.

Scientists, theologians, and bishops from around the globe are being invited by the Anglican Communion’s Secretary General, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, to serve as Commissioners. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has asked Anglican Communion Primates to nominate a Bishop from their Church to serve as provincial representatives at conferences of the Commission. Science will be a significant feature at the 2022 Lambeth Conference. Today, organisers have posted a series of videos, exploring the relationship between science and faith, on the Lambeth Conference website.
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A webinar on how churches make moral decisions—and what causes divisions—brought a lively discussion attended online by more than 100 people on 29 April.

Basing their remarks on a World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission publication, “Churches and Moral Discernment. Volume 1: Learning from Traditions,” the speakers shared insights from very different church perspectives.

As the foreword of the publication says, “The hope is that necessary prerequisites are fulfilled, allowing for constructive conversations within traditions. This will prevent divisions over moral issues and provide solid ground to engage in fruitful ecumenical dialogues that appreciate and attribute appropriate relevance to moral issues.”
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