The Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue in Canada (ARC) has met regularly since 1971. It works closely with the Anglican-Roman Catholic Bishops’ Dialogue (ARC-B), which was established in 1975. Supported by the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mandate of both Dialogues is to advance ecumenical understanding and cooperation between the churches in our country. In recent years, the Anglican contingent on ARC has also added members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) as an expression of the deepening full communion relationship between the ACC and ELCIC.
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Pope Francis has published an Apostolic Exhortation building on his 2015 encyclical. We’re not reacting enough, he says, we’re close to breaking point. He criticises climate change deniers, saying that the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt. And he describes how care for our common home flows from the Christian faith.

“’Praise God’ is the title of this letter.  For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”

That’s how Pope Francis ends his new Apostolic Exhortation, published on the 4th October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
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On 19 September 2023, the last day of the Thirteenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Krakow, Poland, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (DPCU), and Revd Dr Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the LWF, presented a “Common Word” [English and German] during an ecumenical prayer and baptismal commemoration.
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During an ecumenical prayer service at the assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist and the federation’s general secretary formally called for a joint reflection on the Augsburg Confession, a fundamental statement of Lutheran faith.
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The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church held its fifteenth plenary session from 1-7 June 2023 in Alexandria, Egypt, hosted by the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa.
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The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East agreed on a new document entitled The Images of the Church in the Syriac and Latin Patristic Traditions.

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In October 2022, members, consultants, and staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs met with members of the Anglican Church in North America’s (ACNA) Committee on Ecumenical Affairs in Chicago. The meeting marked the second theological exchange between the committees, and mutual affirmation by both organizations was expressed towards future meetings to explore ways to draw closer together and expand the Kingdom of God.

Following a time of fellowship and prayer, papers were presented for discussion on the Roman Catholic and Anglican understanding of the Episcopacy.
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The fifth meeting of Phase III of the international dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) and the Catholic Church took place 12-16 December 2022 in Rome, hosted by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (DPCU).
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Two parallel dialogues were established with the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Malankara (Jacobite) Syrian Orthodox Church, respectively in 1989 and 1990, and were maintained even after the foundation in 2003 of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches.
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada‘s (ELCIC) National Bishop Susan C. Johnson and the Anglican Church of Canada‘s Primate and Archbishop Linda Nicholls have written a joint statement encouraging members of both churches to learn more about the realities of housing needs in our communities, to pray for shelter for all, and to call on all levels of government to work together to identify solutions to our national housing crisis.
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As Christians we confess that “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it” (Ps 24). We acknowledge our responsibility as stewards and caretakers of God’s unique and abundant Creation of which we human beings are part. And yet we look around our world today, and see that due to our greed and negligence the entire living planet is threatened by accelerating climate change. “The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers…”, “The earth is defiled by its people…” (Isaiah 24:4-5).
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The commitment of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) to gender justice—with the ordination of women as a particular focus—was the topic of a workshop at the World Council of Churches 11th Assembly.

Dorcas Gordon, of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, introduced the WCRC’s Declaration of Faith on Women’s Ordination, adopted at the 2017 General Council, as “a definitive statement on women’s ordination, and not a decision the WCRC has taken lightly.”
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The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the World Methodist Council have announced in a communiqué their intention to begin a new round of dialogue in October of this year. The dialogue will focus on the inter-related themes of mission and unity. As the Church fulfils the Lord’s commission to take the good news of the Gospel “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1: 8) it moves into new contexts and cultures and encounters new questions. As demonstrated by the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) and the Council of Nicaea, whose 1,700th anniversary will be marked in 2025, synodal processes are therefore necessary in order for the church to come to a common mind in responding to these questions.
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At the request of Pope Francis, the virtual reproduction of a collection preserving the requests for help addressed to Pope Pius XII by Jews from all over Europe after the beginning of Nazi-Fascist persecution is now accessible to all. It consists of a total of 170 volumes, or nearly 40,000 files. Only 70% of the total material will be initially available, but will later be supplemented with the final volumes currently being prepared.

“If I am writing to You today, it is to ask you to help me from afar”. Thousands of archived files that give voice to desperate calls for help. Like this one, from a 23-year old German university student “with Israelite origins”, who was baptized in 1938, and who, on 17 January 1942, made a last effort to free himself from detention in a concentration camp in Miranda de Ebro, Spain. He finally had the opportunity to join his mother who had fled to America in 1939, “to prepare a new life for me”, he wrote. Everything was ready for departure from Lisbon. The only thing missing was the intervention “of someone from outside” so that the authorities would consent to his liberation. “There is little hope for those who have no outside help”, he explains with few, but eloquent words. He then writes to an old Italian friend, asking her to ask Pope Pius XII to have the Apostolic Nuncio in Madrid intervene in his favour, knowing that: “with this intervention from Rome, others had been able to leave the concentration camp”.
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As the World Council of Churches’ first substantial digital publication and its largest free collection, the Faith and Order Papers open a new frontier for scholars, ecumenists, and anyone interested in traversing the twists and turns of the path towards Christian unity.

“This is a digital library of more than one century of ecumenical theology,” explained Rev. Dr Odair Pedroso Mateus, WCC interim deputy general secretary and director of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order. “By ‘ecumenical theology,’ I mean theology focused on overcoming divisions among Christian churches.”

In fact, Pedroso Mateus added, it’s a library of ecumenical theology “in the making” because it documents not only the theological results of studies and conferences, but also the processes whereby studies of conferences were conceived, implemented and concluded.
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The Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue of Canada (ARC Canada) has been meeting regularly for 50 years, with a mandate to serve the cause of visible Christianity unity and common witness between the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. Having continued the Dialogue online from 2020-2021, members rejoiced to be able to convene in person on May 2-5 at the Manoir D’Youville in Châteauguay, QC.

These days were the source of a renewed beginning in several ways: ARC Canada welcomed a few new members into its ranks, continuing a long tradition of gifted and dedicated ecumenical leaders who have contributed to its work over the decades. A new proposed terms of reference was reviewed that would, among other things, expand the participation of representatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) from a role as observers to full membership, as full communion partners within the ACC delegation. There was also a chance to engage with recent discussions of synodality in the Roman Catholic Church, and to review aspects of some of the latest ecumenical study on the subject of Anglican ordinations.
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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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The final report on conversations between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the International Lutheran Council (ILC) has now been released.

The five-year informal dialogue began in 2014 when a working group was organized by the PCPCU and the ILC. In this final report, the results of the dialogue are presented to Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the PCPCU and Bishop Hans-Jörg Voigt, Chairman of the ILC.
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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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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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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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The World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order published two new volumes that collect responses received to The Church: Towards a Common Vision between 2013 and 2020.

The responses address the church’s mission, unity, and its being in the trinitarian life of God in order to encourage and advance the churches’ growth in communion with each other in apostolic faith, sacramental life, mission, and ministry for the sake of God’s world.
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During their meeting on July 30, 2020 via video conference, the members of The Episcopal Church-United Methodist Dialogue Committee agreed that the churches postpone taking action on the full communion proposal until their next General Convention/General Conference after 2021:

“Our churches and people are responding to unprecedented challenges in their local communities, conferences/dioceses, and at the denominational level. The United Methodist General Conference scheduled for May of 2020 has been postponed until Aug. 29-Sept. 7, of 2021. The Episcopal Church as well, is rethinking the format, timing, and range of issues that might be taken up by the next General Convention.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) have released a joint document, “Serving a Wounded World in Interreligious Solidarity: A Christian Call to Reflection and Action During COVID-19 and Beyond.” Its purpose is to encourage churches and Christian organizations to reflect on the importance of interreligious solidarity in a world wounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The document offers a Christian basis for interreligious solidarity that can inspire and confirm the impulse to serve a world wounded not only by COVID-19 but also by many other wounds.

The publication is also designed to be useful to practitioners of other religions, who have already responded to COVID-19 with similar thoughts based on their own traditions.

The document recognizes the current context of the pandemic as a time for discovering new forms of solidarity for rethinking the post-COVID-19 world. Comprised of five sections, the document reflects on the nature of a solidarity sustained by hope and offers a Christian basis for interreligious solidarity, a few key principles and a set of recommendations on how reflection on solidarity can be translated into concrete and credible action.
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The final report on the Lutheran-Mennonite-Roman Catholic Trilateral Conversation has been published. The report summarizes five years of theological consultations between the three communions on the understanding and practice of baptism in light of contemporary pastoral and missional challenges facing all three Christian communities.

“The report shows that today these three churches agree that baptism is for discipleship,” says Mennonite delegation member Larry Miller. “It raises the question for each of these churches: are there ways of acknowledging our different practices of baptism that grow the unity for which Jesus prayed?”

Representatives of the Catholic Church (Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity), Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and Mennonite World Conference (MWC) met from 2012–2017 to discuss understanding and practice of baptism.
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The working group established in 2014 to conduct an informal dialogue between the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the International Lutheran Council (ILC) completed its task during a final session held September 23-26. 2019 on the campus of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Taking part from the Roman Catholic Church were Dr. Josef Freitag (Lantershofen, Germany), Dr. Wolfgang Thönissen (Paderborn, Germany), Dr. Burkhard Neumann (Paderborn), and Fr. Augustinus Sander O.S.B. (who has recently moved from Germany to Rome). Taking part on behalf of the churches of the ILC were Dr. Werner Klän (Lübeck, Germany), Dr. Gerson Linden (São Leopoldo, Brazil), Dr. John Stephenson (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada), and Dr. Roland Ziegler (Fort Wayne, Indiana). In addition, the chairman of the ILC, Bishop Hans-Jörg Voigt (Hanover, Germany) of Germany’s Independent Evangelical Lutheran, attended the sessions in a guest capacity.
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The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation has released a new agreed statement entitled, The Vocation and Mission of the People of God: “A Chosen Race, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation”. The document was finalized at the most recent meeting of the Consultation which took place in late May of this year at the Saint Methodios Faith and Heritage Center in Contoocook, New Hampshire. The Consultation is co-chaired by Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, the Catholic Archbishop of Newark, and by Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Methodios of Boston.
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General Synod passed a resolution July 15 to recognize full communion among the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), the U.S.-based Episcopal Church (TEC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Dean Peter Wall, co-chair of the Joint Anglican Lutheran Commission, introduced the resolution by reading excerpts from the Memorandum of Mutual Recognition of Relations of Full Communion, which was drafted at a meeting of the Joint Anglican Lutheran Commission and the Lutheran Episcopal Coordinating Committee in September 2018.
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There are hundreds of denominations within Christianity, and it can be easy to focus on the differences between them all. But a group of Mennonites and Anglicans is breaking through those walls. A group of 12 people from both denominations gathered from May 24 to 26 at the University of Manitoba’s St. John’s College in Winnipeg. They spent the weekend sharing the struggles each church experiences and the resources they offer, a practice they have labelled the “exchanging of gifts.”

“It seems that denominational affiliation is becoming less important, and Christianity is shrinking in many sectors in Canada,” says Melissa Miller, interim pastor at Home Street Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. “So it seems more important that Christians from different denominations engage with each other and learn from each other and lay down some of those divisions.” Miller is the Mennonite co-chair of the dialogue, and Christopher Trott, warden of St. John’s College, is the Anglican co-chair.
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At a conference with the theme “Promoting Peace Together” held in Geneva on 21 May, religious leaders focused on two historic documents related to peace-making. The first, “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” was jointly signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi in February. The second, “Education for Peace in a Multi-Religious World: A Christian Perspective,” jointly prepared by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Council of Churches (WCC), was officially launched at the conference.

Anne Glynn-Mackoul, moderator of the opening session and a WCC Executive Committee member who represents the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (USA), expressed her appreciation for those gathered who are inspired by a common vision to promote peace together. “Today we will explore together two documents which affirm, each with compelling fervor, the possibility of peace,” she said.

The two documents, Glynn-Mackoul added, “help us, each in its own way, to think of religions not as fortresses to be defended but as wellsprings for the flourishing of all life.”
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Participants at a historic gathering of church leaders from five Christian World Communions have issued a statement recommitting themselves to communicating the biblical message of salvation in new ways to contemporary society. We “wish to make more visible our common witness, in worship and service, on our journey together towards visible unity, walking together, praying together and working together.”
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The seventh international meeting of the Malines Conversations Group took place in York, UK, between Sunday 24th March and Thursday 28th March 2019. Under the patronage of The Right Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Williams of Oystermouth (former Archbishop of Canterbury), this informal group comprises Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians from seven different countries and meets with the blessing and support of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and Lambeth Palace. It includes members of both ARCIC and IARCCUM.
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Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved. Through faith in God, who has created the universe, creatures and all human beings (equal on account of his mercy), believers are called to express this human fraternity by safeguarding creation and the entire universe and supporting all persons, especially the poorest and those most in need.

This transcendental value served as the starting point for several meetings characterized by a friendly and fraternal atmosphere where we shared the joys, sorrows and problems of our contemporary world. We did this by considering scientific and technical progress, therapeutic achievements, the digital era, the mass media and communications. We reflected also on the level of poverty, conflict and suffering of so many brothers and sisters in different parts of the world as a consequence of the arms race, social injustice, corruption, inequality, moral decline, terrorism, discrimination, extremism and many other causes.
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The Anglican-Old Catholic International Coordinating Council has recently concluded its meetings, which were held at the Břevnov Monastery in Prague. This was the final meeting of the Council’s present mandate and much of the work was focussed on preparing the final report to the Anglican Consultative Council and the (Old Catholic) International Bishops’ Conference. The AOCICC is the official instrument serving the communion between Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Churches of the Anglican Communion which was brought about in 1931 through the Bonn Agreement.
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Ahead of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the JDDJ later this year, the LWF is launching a new publication, reaffirming its ecumenical commitments in light of these latest developments. These commitments were formally adopted by the LWF Council in 2018, putting into practice the Lutheran communion’s pledge to be more accountable to its ecumenical partners.

Entitled ‘The Lutheran World Federation‘s Commitments on the Ecumenical Way to Ecclesial Communion’, the publication was launched at a prayer service in the Geneva Ecumenical Center Chapel on 16 January. The user-friendly booklet summarises recent progress and lists six ways in which Lutherans pledge their commitment to the search for full and visible unity of all Christians.
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The fourth (and fifth) meeting of the International Lutheran Council (ILC) – Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) dialogue group took place September 17-21, 2018 at the facilities of Lutherische Kirchenmission in Bleckmar, Germany. The goal of this “informal dialogue is to find out whether an official dialogue between ILC and PCPCU on the world level is possible and might be fruitful.”

Four working groups submitted papers for plenary discussion; they were are established as follows: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Thönissen (Paderborn, Germany) and Prof. Dr. John Stephenson (St. Catharines, Canada) worked on the topic of Justification; PD Dr. Burkhard Neumann (Paderborn) and Prof. Dr. Roland Ziegler (Fort Wayne, USA) on Synérgeia and Sacrifice; Prof. Dr. Josef Freitag (Lantershofen, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Gerson Linden (São Leopoldo, Brazil) on Ministry and Ordination; Father Augustinus Sander (Erfurt, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Werner Klän (Lübeck, Germany) on Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass (ApolCA XXIV).
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The Roman Catholic‒United Church of Canada Dialogue has released a report on climate change entitled The Hope within Us. Since October 2012, the Roman Catholic‒United Church of Canada Dialogue has met eight times to explore our churches’ responses to the ecological crisis, with particular attention to climate change. The report explores the spiritual resources of our common tradition for addressing climate change and working for ecological justice. While not turning away from the real dangers of the ecological crises, the dialogue provides a vision of hope, based on our common Christian faith, that a new relationship between humanity and creation is possible.
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Le Dialogue de l’Église catholique romaine et de l’Église Unie a publié un rapport sur le changement climatique intitulé l’Espérance en nous. Depuis octobre 2012, le Dialogue de l’Église catholique romaine et de l’Église Unie du Canada s’est réuni huit fois pour examiner les réponses de nos Églises à la crise écologique, en portant une attention particulière au changement climatique. Le rapport explore les ressources spirituelles de notre tradition commune pour faire face au changement climatique et travailler pour la justice écologique. Sans fermer les yeux sur les dangers réels des crises écologiques, le dialogue offre une vision d’ espérance fondée sur notre foi chrétienne commune, voulant qu’une nouvelle relation entre l’humanité et la création soit possible.
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The Third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) has issued its first agreed statement with the title Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be the Church – Local, Regional, Universal. Since its first meeting in 1970, ARCIC has published thirteen agreed statements. The third phase of the dialogue began in 2011 with the dual mandate to explore “the Church as Communion, local and universal, and how in communion the local and universal Church come to discern right ethical teaching.” The current document completes the first part of this mandate.

Walking Together on the Way employs the method of Receptive Ecumenism to examine the structures by which Catholics and Anglicans order and maintain communion at the local, regional and universal level. It examines common theological principles that Anglicans and Catholics share, and the differentiated structures, based on these principles, by which they make decisions. This method invites both traditions to repentance and conversion, by looking at what is underdeveloped or wounded in themselves. It is also predicated on the belief that in our dialogue partner we meet a community in which the Holy Spirit is alive and active. We can therefore ask firstly, where our communities are in need of reform, and, secondly, what we can learn from the our dialogue partner to help us in this growth. The Commission described this process as “receptive learning.”
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Immigration and minorities were chief topics of discussion at a meeting of the Anglican-Jewish Commission last month in Jerusalem. One particular focus was the situation facing Christians in the Middle East. They agreed that any responses to the situation must be grounded in an understanding and affirmation of human life and freedom.

This was the first time the group had met since 2014. Speaking afterwards members said they had been encouraged and hopeful about gathering more often in the future. The Commission expects to reconvene again in 2019.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Programmes Coordinator for Inter Religious Affairs, Katie Hodkinson, said the meeting was very significant.

“It was something that the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel whilst on his two-week visit to the Holy Land last May, ” she said. “This renewed energy and commitment was warmly welcomed by both the Christian and Jewish communities.”
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A Message from the Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran Bishops of Saskatchewan

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The events surrounding the tragic shooting death of Colten Boushie in August 2016, and the subsequent trial of Gerald Stanley and recent jury decision, have re-surfaced profound pain to families and communities. They have also raised enormously important questions and challenges for our province and our country.

As bishops who serve Christian communities in our province, we join all those who are longing to escape the slavery of prejudice, racism, anger, frustration, violence and bitterness. We wish to join all those who are re-dedicating themselves to work for reconciliation and peace among all people in our communities and in our nation.
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A dialogue document on Church, Eucharist and Ministry published by Lutherans and Roman Catholics in Finland in 2017 could pave the way for an international declaration between the two Christian churches, church leaders in the Nordic nation say.

Communion in Growth, a report from the Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue Commission of Finland, found that despite differences of emphasis between the Roman Catholic Church in Finland and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, Eucharist and (ordained) Ministry, they don’t need to be church dividing issues in the light of the achieved consensus on the basic truths of faith regarding these themes.
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We the undersigned leaders of diverse faith communities and organizations in Canada, call on the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to amend the Canada Summer Jobs guidelines and application process so that it does not compel agreement or belief, and allows religious organizations to stay true to their communal identity and beliefs. The new application requires each organization to give non-negotiable and unqualified affirmation of certain beliefs held by the current government.

Canada has a long history of cooperation and collaboration between religious organizations and governments in our health care and social welfare systems, and in many other areas of life.

Faith-based organizations wish to continue to partner with the federal government in delivering programming and services to vulnerable members of their local communities, including children and youth, newcomers to Canada, and people experiencing poverty and homelessness.
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The Episcopal Church-United Methodist Dialogue met in Washington, D.C. at the United Methodist Building on October 2-4, 2017. Episcopalians present were the Right Reverend C. Franklin Brookhart (co-chair); the Reverend Dr. Thomas Ferguson; Dr. Deirdre Good; Mr. Richard J. Mammana, Jr. (staff); the Reverend Mariclair Partee Carlsen; the Right Reverend David Rice; and the Reverend Margaret Rose (staff). United Methodists present were the Reverend Patricia Farris; the Reverend Dr. James Howell; the Reverend Dr. Pamela Lightsey; Bishop Gregory Palmer (co-chair); the Reverend Dr. Kyle Tau (staff); Bishop B. Michael Watson; and the Reverend Dr. Robert Williams. The Reverend Dr. Jonathan Linman was an invited observer from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
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Anglicans and Roman Catholics should see in each other “a community in which the Holy Spirit is alive and active,” the latest communiqué from the official ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church says.

Members of the third-phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) met in the central German city of Erfurt early this month for their seventh meeting. They chose to meet in the city to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation – it is here that Martin Luther was ordained and lived as a monk.

During their meeting, the members of ARCIC agreed the text of a new statement looking at Anglican and Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Walking Together on the Way: Learning to be Church – Local, Regional, Universal, to be known as The Erfurt Document, will be published next year.
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Un groupe d’épiscopaliens et de méthodistes a rendu publique sa proposition visant à une pleine communion entre les deux confessions.

La mise en œuvre intégrale de la proposition prendra au moins trois ans. La Convention générale de l’Église épiscopale et la Conférence générale de l’Église méthodiste unie doivent approuver l’accord qui est l’aboutissement de 15 années d’exploration et de plus de 50 ans de dialogue officiel entre les deux églises. La prochaine Convention générale de l’Église épiscopale se tiendra en juillet 2018 à Austin (État du Texas). La Conférence générale de l’Église méthodiste aura lieu en 2020.
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A group of Episcopalians and Methodists has released its proposal for full communion between the two denominations.

Full implementation of the proposal will take at least three years. The Episcopal Church General Convention and the United Methodist Church General Conference must approve the agreement, which culminates 15 years of exploration and more than 50 years of formal dialogue between the two churches. General Convention next meets in July 2018 in Austin, Texas. The General Conference’s next meeting is in 2020.
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Third Meeting of the Informal Dialogue Group between the International Lutheran Council and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. On October 14-15, the Informal Dialogue Group between the International Lutheran Council (ILC) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity met. This time the gathering took place at the Johann-Adam-Möhler-Institute for Ecumenism in Paderborn, Germany.

The conversations centered on the Lutheran perception of the Roman Catholic liturgy. They focused particularly on the Roman Catholic understanding of the presence of Christ’s sacrifice and the sacrifice of the Church in the Lord’s Supper. It became apparent that there were different ways of thinking—not only between Lutheran and Roman Catholic approaches to the topic, but also in the various Roman Catholic Eucharistic prayers themselves. The debate centered in particular on the problem whether and to what extent the Church might play a distinct, or “active”, role in the performance of the liturgy.

The next meeting is scheduled for June 2017 in St. Louis, Missouri. In preparing for this meeting, cross-confessional pairings were formed. They are meant to engage with the following topics: the understanding of co-operation of the Church (“synergeia”) and sacrifice; the theological understanding of “time”, that is to say the relationship between the history of salvation and the “event” of salvation, or the issue of the realization of salvation in the liturgy; the understanding of sacrifice against the background of article 24 of the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, and in The Examination of the Council of Trent by Martin Chemnitz, looking also at the document “The Eucharist” (1978); and questions concerning the office of the ministry and ordination. Moreover, they plan to identify and describe areas of major agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches in the International Lutheran Council. The resulting texts will serve to steer the further debates in the year to come, and secure the results of this informal dialogue.
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For the first time in its history, the Anglican Church of Canada will enter into a bilateral ecumenical dialogue with Mennonite Church Canada (MC-Canada) following a motion passed at General Synod, July 12.

The motion’s mover, Bruce Myers, coadjutor bishop of the diocese of Quebec and former coordinator of ecumenical relations for the national church, explained that as the Anglican church’s relationship to mainstream society changes, it could benefit from talking to a church that has always had a fraught relationship with the mainstream.

“Mennonites have often existed as a church on the margins, both historically and in the contemporary Canadian context,” he noted. “As the Anglican Church of Canada enters a new stage of its life, some of us have been asking if there is something we can learn from our Mennonite sisters and brothers, about living faithfully as disciples of Jesus on the margins of society.”

Myers said the bilateral dialogue would be based on a new approach to ecumenism based not on an attempt to minimize differences, but to receive it as a “gift.”

This “receptive ecumenism” is a way for churches to learn from the differences in each other’s theology and lived experience, without feeling the need to push toward reunion or a full communion relationship.
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