Pope John Paul, who celebrated his eighty-first birthday this week, is a man in a hurry. In the twilight days of his long papacy, he is expanding the perspective of his by now traditional pastoral visits around the world and he is laying down markers for the future. These concern the future relations of the Roman Catholic Church both with the separated Orthodox Christian Churches, and with the other monotheistic religions, Islam and Judaism.

Hence the first-ever visit this month by a pope to a mosque, the impressive Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Twenty years ago it would have been inconceivable that a pope from Rome should remove his shoes, put on white slippers and traverse one of the great Holy Places of Islam for a meeting with the Grand Mufti and other clerics in the courtyard of the mosque.
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SAN DIEGO (ELCA) — Fifty of about 300 participants at the National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) here April 30-May 3 were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). A list of ecumenical dialogues and agreements put the ELCA at the center of many of the workshop’s seminars, plenary and luncheon speeches, and
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SAN DIEGO (ELCA) — The Lutheran Ecumenical Representatives Network (LERN) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) sent a “Statement of Concern” to its membership and staff and to its counterpart organization in the Episcopal Church. LERN outlined problems it has with a proposed bylaw of the ELCA Constitution that the church’s bishops —
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A dozen Saskatoon church leaders are calling on the federal government to establish an independent commission to implement aboriginal land and treaty rights.

The leaders signed a petition advocating First Nations land rights Thursday.

The petition is being circulated to faith groups across Canada and is part of the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, a campaign dedicated to caring for and renewing the earth.

“The church leaders are concerned about the world, they are concerned about the fact that we have, as a country of Canada, places of injustice,” said Sister Anne Keffer of the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism.

“It is from our aboriginal neighbours and friends that we need to learn how to care for the earth and to listen. To achieve true healing of this wounded Canadian life, there’s work to do that requires the active co-operation of Canadians as a whole,” Keffer said.
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