“We had heard that racism continues to be an issue in the United States,” said Dr Agnes Abuom, moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC). “But we did not expect to find it so deep, so wide and so pervasive.”

Abuom spoke at a closing conference of the WCC’s US racial justice accompaniment visit, which she led from 19 through 25 April on an itinerary that included the cities of Charleston, South Carolina; Ferguson, Missouri; and Chicago, Illinois.

The team of WCC visitors who made the journey will now collaborate in preparing a report on their experience and findings, with recommendations for the next steps in a renewed and reinvigorated response to the sin of racial hatred, violence and discrimination in the early 21st century. The report will be submitted in May to the WCC Central Committee for consideration at its June 2016 meeting in Trondheim, Norway.

After due deliberation, the Central Committee will determine appropriate action for the WCC and its partners in the United States and throughout the world.
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One of the most important and troubled projects from the Second Vatican Council arrives in Toronto May 11 for some serious, scholarly, and saintly talk.

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, better known as ARCIC, rolls into town to puzzle over how Catholics and Anglicans make decisions over ethical questions and to find new ways to sum up its work over the last five decades.

ARCIC is the official ecumenical dialogue between the world’s 85 million Anglicans and 1.3 billion Catholics set up by the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1969.

This is the first time ARCIC has met in Canada, and it gives Canada’s own Anglican-Catholic dialogue partners a chance to rub shoulders with their international counterparts.
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Affirmation of the Lutheran-Catholic agreement on justification and a call for Anglicans to commemorate the 2017 Reformation anniversary were among ecumenical resolutions adopted by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) at its recent meeting in Lusaka, Zambia.

Bishop Dr Matti Repo of Tampere, Finland, who participated in the Anglican Communion’s governing body meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, mid-April says he was encouraged by the enthusiastic discussions on these issues “which both point to the grace of God and the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.”

Repo was at the ACC as an ecumenical guest representing The Lutheran World Federation (LWF). He presented the call to affirm the substance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), which was signed by the LWF and the Roman Catholic Church in 1999. The LWF was also asking Anglicans to recognize the significance of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation which will be observed next year.
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A call for Anglicans to commemorate next year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the commendation of a number of new inter-denominational agreements and reports were amongst a raft of ecumenical resolutions adopted by the Anglican Consultative Council when they met in Lusaka, Zambia, earlier this month.

In Resolution 16.16, the ACC spoke of the “significance” of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and recommended that Anglicans should mark the anniversary by taking part in shared services, study, and mission activities with Lutherans and other ecumenical partners. The ACC also encouraged Anglicans to “engage with the Lutheran World Federation’s focus: Liberated by God’s Grace”.

In a separate resolution – 16.17 – the ACC said that it “welcomes and affirms the substance” of the joint Lutheran and Roman Catholic Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which the two churches signed in 1999.
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What has contributed to the idea of a “European identity?” And, within a broad-minded vision of secularism, how can churches and other religious communities contribute? In this context, what is the role of Switzerland?

A panel of religious leaders, policymakers and journalists met on 20 April at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva to discuss these questions and others. Thoughts were also fielded from the audience. The event was organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Focolare Movement, an international organization that promotes the ideas of unity and universal brotherhood.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, WCC general secretary, spoke about how the WCC’s pilgrimage of justice and peace links the work of churches with the roots of their faith. “We see the pilgrimage as an openness, a willingness to move,” he said.

Tveit recently returned from an ecumenical advocacy event in Washington, DC, where he met with Christians from a wide constituency of US churches to define racism in our time.

“Racism is tearing the United States apart,” he said, citing a conversation he had with Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and author of “America’s Original Sin,” a book about racism. Tveit then raised the question: “If you ask the same question of Europe — what is Europe’s original sin?”
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“With living hope, we invite our member churches to renew and strengthen our joint testimony and continue to raise their voices and working for abundant life,” said Rev. Milton Mejía, general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), as he announced a new structure for the region’s largest ecumenical body on 14 April.

The board of CLAI met from 9-14 April in Lima, Peru, where CLAI was founded 34 years ago, to evaluate and approve a new strategic plan and structure.

The core of the new structure is based on three main action areas: ecumenical formation; diakonia and advocacy; pastoral and social networks.

The CLAI board released a letter to its member churches and partner organizations highlighting the importance of the decision and the process of reflection that led to it.

“The restructuring will provide a new institutional logic that allows us to have greater impact and to promote processes of advocacy together with our churches in a more efficient way, using economic resources available in a responsible way and increasing the contribution of the member churches to support CLAI,” reads the letter.
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Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece met on the Greek island of Lesvos on 16 April to demonstrate their concern for the situation of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers who have come to Europe fleeing from situations of conflict and, in many cases, daily threats to their survival.

The three church leaders urged people not to ignore the humanitarian crisis created by the spread of violence and armed conflict, the persecution and displacement of religious and ethnic minorities, and the uprooting of families from their homes.

“The tragedy of forced migration and displacement affects millions, and is fundamentally a crisis of humanity, calling for a response of solidarity, compassion, generosity and an immediate practical commitment of resources,” reads their message. “From Lesvos, we appeal to the international community to respond with courage in facing this massive humanitarian crisis, and its underlying causes, through diplomatic, political and charitable initiatives and through cooperative efforts, both in the Middle East and in Europe.”

The three leaders said they are one in their desire for peace and in their readiness to promote the resolution of conflicts through dialogue and reconciliation.
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The archbishop and primate of Hong Kong, Rev. Dr Paul Kwong, has been elected as the new chair of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

He is the first serving primate to be elected to the role.

Kwong received 40 votes. The runner-up, Prof. Joanildo Burity from Brazil, received 25 votes. Kwong will succeed Bishop James Tengatenga.

The ACC facilitates the cooperative work of the churches of the Anglican Communion, fostering the exchange of information between the provinces and churches. It also helps coordinate common action, advises on the organization and structures of the communion, and seeks to develop common policies with respect to the world mission of the church, including ecumenical matters.

The ACC meets every two or three years in different parts of the world. ACC-16 is taking place in Lusaka, Zambia on 8-19 April.
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Canadian church leaders issued a joint statement endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and promising to implement its principles. Doreen Spence, an aboriginal Canadian who was one of the architects of the declaration, welcomes the move.

“Endorsement is a big step forward. I really commend them,” Spence says. “It has taken them a long time.”

Spence served as presiding elder to the core group of indigenous people who met in Geneva over a 20-year period to craft the declaration and guide it through the lengthy process that led to its adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2007. The World Council of Churches (WCC) supported the working group by offering meeting space at the Ecumenical Centre.

The Canadian churches’ statement, signed by seven church leaders, says they commit to implementing the principles, norms, and standards named in the UN declaration and “embrace the opportunity … to work for reconciliation and to fully respect the human rights and dignity of indigenous peoples in Canada.”

Canadian church leaders issued their endorsement on 30 March in response to a call-to-action by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into abuse of aboriginal students in church-run residential schools. In its report released in June 2015, the TRC called on churches, faith groups, and social justice groups in Canada to “formally adopt and comply with” the principles and standards of UNDRIP as a framework for reconciliation between the country’s aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.

Leaders of the Anglican Church of Canada, Christian Reformed Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Salvation Army, and United Church of Canada issued the statement in Ottawa, the country’s capital city. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Holy Cross Fathers also issued statements, as did several ecumenical and interfaith groups.
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The Anglican Communion needs to be “aware of the great crises of our times,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said in a presidential address to members of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka, Zambia.

“Because we are all over the world and because we are stretched and pulled by our differences, as we have looked at this week, the temptation is either to think only of internal questions, or of traditional issues, and not to realize that around us the world is shifting on its axis,” he said.

Sometimes the issues we face, even if they are not new, become acute in a new way and compel us to rethink how we work and how we apply the gifts given by God, Welby said in his 15 April address.

“Two actors dominate our world stage at present, I would argue,” said the archbishop.

“One is religiously motivated violence, and the other is climate change,” he said. “The world tends to forget, noted Welby, that “both characters can only be confronted with a theological and ideological approach and with a story, with a narrative, that is sufficiently powerful to overcome the natural selfishness of one generation, or the selfishness of countries which are more secure.”
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Question: What’s the fastest-growing Mennonite church in Winnipeg? Answer: Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church on Ethelbert Street. That old joke came back to me last week when I learned the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada and Mennonite Church Canada will be voting this summer to enter into a five-year bilateral dialogue. If passed, it would be the first time the Anglican Church of Canada has engaged in a bilateral dialogue with a denomination from the Anabaptist tradition.

In an interview with the Anglican Journal, Archdeacon Bruce Myers, formerly the Anglican Church of Canada’s co-ordinator for ecumenical and interfaith relations, specifically references Winnipeg as an inspiration for the dialogue. “There are all sorts of people who happily migrate” between Saint Margaret’s and Saint Benedict’s Table, another Anglican congregation in the city, he says, adding this “creates all sorts of interesting questions for ecumenism.”
Through the dialogue, the two church groups could learn a lot of from each other, Myers says.
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Father Tony Currer, officer responsibile for Anglican Relations at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), brought a message of greeting to all the participants of the 16th Anglican Consultative Council Meeting, in Lusaka (8 to 19 April) from His Eminence Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the PCPCU.
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“An ecological reformation of Christianity is a matter of repentance, conversion, and renewal for all Christian traditions,” reads the “Volos Call,” a statement issued after a meeting of church representatives from different traditions and all continents, held in Greece, between 10-13 March.

Gathering at the Academy of Volos for the international conference on Eco-Theology, Climate Justice and Food Security, participants stressed the concern that “an ecological reformation of Christianity (in all its traditions) is possible, but can remain authentic only if it stays in the Spirit and is expressed in the form of a humble prayer: Veni, Creator Spiritus! Come, Holy Spirit, renew your whole creation!”

According to the statement, an ecological reformation of Christianity “implies a twofold critique, namely both a deeper Christian critique of the root causes of ecological destruction and an ecological critique of forms of Christianity which have not recognized the ecological dimensions of the Gospel.”
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