Every religion has its demonology. When Malcolm X made this observation to Alex Haley as they collaborated on what was to become his posthumous autobiography, his immediate target was the antisemitic teaching promoted by Elijah Muhammed, from whose sect he had recently broken. His refusal to exempt any faith from the tendency to demonize others in order to validate itself remains as painfully relevant today as it was in 1965. … Read more »… lire la suite »
The pandemic changed the complexion of society. At this point, can we talk constructively across the lingering divide? Can we find middle ground? Do we even want to? And what of the humble Beatitudes? … Read more »… lire la suite »
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither is Christ risen! But if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, your faith also empty “(1 Cor 15:13 ff). With these words, the apostle Paul affirms with absolute clarity that the Christian faith stands or falls with the paschal mystery. The early Church condensed this fundamental conviction in the formula: “Take away the resurrection and you will immediately destroy Christianity.” Given the central importance of the paschal mystery in the Christian faith, it is understandable that Christians wish to celebrate it on a common date. … Read more »… lire la suite »
Caleb Brown was a lead organizer of the Freedom Convoy protest outside the Manitoba legislative building last winter. I asked how he responds to people who dismiss all protesters as white nationalists. I asked how he felt about people who drove by and gave him the finger, as one of my friends did. … Read more »… lire la suite »
I knew I would eventually have to interview my neighbours who staunchly resisted COVID-19 mandates and proudly supported the Ottawa trucker convoy. Actually I have many such neighbours. But it took a year of working through my pandemic enmity until I was ready to listen to them. … Read more »… lire la suite »
Archbishop Justin today addressed the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The WCC Assembly is the highest governing body of the World Council of Churches, and normally meets every eight years. This year’s conference took place between 31st August – 8th September 2022. It is the only time when the entire fellowship of member churches come together in one place for prayer and celebration. The theme of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches is “Christ’s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity”. … Read more »… lire la suite »
For the first time in more than 50 years, the Assembly of the World Council of Churches is convening in Europe again. It is therefore both an honour and a delight for me as Federal President to extend a warm welcome, also on behalf of our country, to all of you who have travelled from all corners of the globe to come to Germany.
This is the first time that the World Council of Churches is meeting in Germany. We are most grateful that you have accepted the invitation to come here and hope that we will be good hosts. This event is intended to be a celebration of faith, of interaction, of exchange. It is rare for us to host guests who are so different but who are nonetheless connected by a deep sense of unity. A very warm welcome to you all! … Read more »… lire la suite »
As participants in the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) gathered at Amsterdam during August 1948, the Netherlands bore witness to the violence of the Second World War. The port of Rotterdam was rising from near destruction. Many other cities, towns and villages across Europe were struggling to recover. To the east, Germany and Austria were divided into zones of occupation administered by the Allied Powers. Two months earlier, tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western occupiers of the former German capital led to the start of the Berlin Airlift. Since 1945, publications had been increasing their use of the term “Cold War”. … Read more »… lire la suite »
In the days between March 28 and April 1 of this year, a delegation of representatives of the Indigenous peoples of Canada traveled to Rome with some of their bishops for several meetings with Pope Francis. He promised to travel personally to Canada later this summer to continue the dialogue in their “Indigenous territories.”
During the concluding meeting, the pope said, “it is my hope that our meetings during these days will point out new paths to be pursued together, will instill courage and strength, and lead to greater commitment on the local level. Any truly effective process of healing requires concrete actions. In a fraternal spirit, I encourage the Bishops and the Catholic community to continue taking steps toward the transparent search for truth and to foster healing and reconciliation. These steps are part of a journey that can favor the rediscovery and revitalization of your culture, while helping the Church to grow in love, respect and specific attention to your authentic traditions. I wish to tell you that the Church stands beside you and wants to continue journeying with you. Dialogue is the key to knowledge and sharing, and the Bishops of Canada have clearly stated their commitment to continue advancing together with you on a renewed, constructive, fruitful path, where encounters and shared projects will be of great help.”[1]
In these pages we will attempt to briefly outline the context of the journey of truth and reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Canada, in which the pope is intensely engaged, alongside the Canadian Church. … Read more »… lire la suite »
The visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva during the year of the 70th Anniversary of the foundation of the World Council of Churches (WCC), will be a sign of recognition of a unique contribution of the WCC to the modern ecumenical movement. It will be an expression of the personal commitment of the Holy Father to the goal of Christian unity as expressed in many occasions. In visiting the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Pope Francis will follow the steps of his two predecessors Paul VI, who visited the WCC in 1969 (10 June), and John Paul II who did the same in 1984 (l2 June). The visit will be an occasion to give thanks to God for a longstanding and rich collaboration which the Catholic Church maintains with the WCC for more than half a century. Indeed, our relations began during the preparation of the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II committed the Catholic Church to the modern ecumenical movement and opened a new page in the history of our relations with the World Council of Churches generating a spirit of rapprochement and mutual understanding. Although the Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC, various dicasteries of the Roman Curia and different Catholic organizations or religious communities collaborate closely with its different programmatic areas. There is a sustained collaboration in the field of justice and peace, human rights, works of charity and humanitarian aid, especially regarding migrants and refugees, protection of creation, the youth, interreligious dialogue, mission and evangelism. The most developed is the collaboration between the WCC and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), which also takes place through various channels. … Read more »… lire la suite »
You might have heard the story about the German friar who nailed 95 provocative statements to a church door a long time ago, triggering something we now call the Reformation.
If you’re looking for a modern interpretation, 500 years ago next Tuesday, Martin Luther posted a particularly incendiary series of tweets. He wanted to provoke debate about corruption in the Roman Catholic Church. He certainly achieved that.
Sadly, Luther couldn’t take advantage of Twitter — and it’s generally accepted that he didn’t actually hammer his arguments to a church door. Instead he used the then cutting-edge technology of printing. But the impact was no less dramatic. What Luther wrote went around Europe incredibly quickly; it was the viral content of its day.
Within two decades Europe was split between Protestants and Catholics in a process called the Reformation. The conflict that generated (which began in England in the early 1530s) continued for hundreds of years. The first century or so was especially bloody and violent. … Read more »… lire la suite »
When we think of Church teachings that are uncomfortable to discuss and difficult to live up to these days our minds tend to go to controversial issues like that of contraception, homosexuality, gender and so forth. Yet, in many ways, the Church’s views on ecumenism are for many even more uncomfortable. On this topic, however, it is all too easy to say yes, yes with one’s lips, while denying and undermining this teaching in practice.
Ecumenism is the attempt to strengthen unity between the diverse Christian Churches through dialogue about doctrine, prayer in common, cooperation in good works and other means that deepen mutual understanding and growth. In the case of the Catholic Church, these endeavours are also motivated by a desire that our Churches may unite in full communion, however remote that hope may seem to our eyes here and now.
A key to the possibility of any ecumenism lies in a few basic realizations. The first is that we are all genuinely Christians, baptized into the body of Christ. This entails that there is always more that unites us than what divides us. The important essentials of the faith: the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the role that baptism plays in drawing us into the participation of the divine life are all unifying features of Christian life. In this respect, we should be grateful for the profound unity that already does exist among the majority of Christian communities (Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 3). … Read more »… lire la suite »
Our Lord and his apostles used many figures of speech to describe the Church. From our beloved St. Paul: “We are God’s fellow labourers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9). “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27). Or Jesus’ words: “Fear not, little flock” (Luke 12:32a). “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5a).
Many of us have admired a well-ordered cathedral, such as St. Paul’s, London, or All Saints, Nairobi. We recognise — almost unconsciously — the beauty of the human person, of a pastoral scene or vineyard. No wonder they make fitting images for the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, a city “at unity with itself” (Ps. 122:3).
Our experience of the Church’s unity tends to fall short of these glorious figures. We see “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions” (see Gal. 5:19-21).
In recognition of this, Anglicans have turned to other images over the past 14 years: among them, “walking together in synodality,” “walking apart,” or even “walking at a distance.” This language proves useful, vividly illustrating different degrees or intensities of communion: some choose to be close; some go their own way; some wander onto the wrong path.
Through such images, we see how harmony, order, and unity are gifts received, but also unwrapped and used. A field must be cultivated, a building maintained, a vine pruned. … Read more »… lire la suite »
In Jesus’ times, no one among the poor was poorer than a widow, a woman without a man, hence without either rights or protection. The world and the society in which Jesus lived and moved were basically structured on a patriarchal model; women were invisible in society with the kind of invisibility typical of a legal status of minority, indeed of exclusion. The originality of Christ’s behaviour must be integrated into this historical truth. In fact, Jesus saw, looked, noted and connected his life with the lives of the women who followed him, loved him and accompanied him even to his death.
Whereas the gaze of Simon the Pharisee (cf. Lk 7:36) – as Maria dell’Orto wrote – saw and judged, scrutinized and condemned, excluding people, Christ’s gaze set people on their feet, identified and recognized them. In so doing he invited all, both women and men, to discernment, to asking themselves questions and to communion. In this perspective a panoramic view of Christian history leads one to consider those prophetic and charismatic female figures who, by their personal authority, in turbulent centuries, contributed to evangelizing a still pagan world and/or a Church which was hostile and divided: Saints Genevieve, Clotilda, Joan of Arc, Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena… … Read more »… lire la suite »
It would help if we had a single, clear story we could believe about violence – it’s getting worse because of this or that factor in our world, so we know whom to blame; it’s getting better as we all become more educated and secular, so we don’t have to worry in the long term. But the evidence is profoundly confusing.
Richard Bessel begins his lucid and well-documented book with a round-up of contemporary views, from those who think first of the astronomical statistics of humanly devised injury and death in the 20th century to those (like Steven Pinker in a much-discussed recent book) for whom what matters is the gradual change in sensibility that has made us simply more sensitive to the suffering of others – as well as the relative absence of major international conflict in the past half-century or so. As Bessel observes, Pinker’s statistics will seem a little academic if you happen to live in South Sudan or Syria (or Baltimore or Johannesburg).
The paradox of our era in the modern North Atlantic world is that while we are probably objectively more secure against the casual daily risk of violence than our ancestors, we are more anxious and more outraged by the prospect as well as the reality of violence, and more prone to extend its meaning to forms of offensive or menacing speech and action that would not have registered for those ancestors. We are, in a word, more preoccupied with violence; hence the subtitle, A Modern Obsession. … Read more »… lire la suite »
On Thursday, Pope Francis issued a powerful and timely encyclical on the environment, urging humanity to come to its senses and cease its reckless onslaught against God’s creation. He addressed this letter not only to his fellow Catholics, but to all people of the world, asking people of different religious traditions to unite in common purpose to save our planet.
As religious figures, we too accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming comes from human activity, as we see no conflict between faith and reason.
And, coming from the three great Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – we stand together on the need to be good stewards of the earth. All of our traditions affirm the inherent goodness of all creation, and the binding obligation on human beings to protect our common home, the planet that sustains us. The Hebrew Scriptures state clearly that the Earth belongs to God alone, and that we are merely sojourners – we do not have ownership on a permanent basis: the fruits of the earth belong to all, including the poor. This ancient teaching is affirmed by both Christianity and Islam. Christians also view the world through a sacramental lenses, believing that the redemption of Christ has in turn redeemed all of creation. And Islam can be thought of as a religion of nature, with 750 verses in the holy Qur’an speaking about our responsibility to the environment and our relationship with all creatures. Islam too recognizes that everything in the heavens and the earth belong to God, and that we are mere trustees and vice-regents. … Read more »… lire la suite »
The “ultimate aim” of the ecumenical journey, “is obviously the unity of the churches in the one Church”. “This does not mean uniformity” but “unity in pluriformity”. The “Orthodox Churches should not change much in their internal structure, almost nothing in fact, if they unite themselves with Rome”. The then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger pronounced these words on 29 January 1993 during a public conversation with Waldesian professor Paolo Ricca held at the evangelical cultural centre.
Pope Francis took these considerations further during his visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople last November, when he said that in its efforts to achieve full unity with Orthodox Christians, the Catholic Church “does not intend to impose any conditions except that of the shared profession of faith”.
Speaking about ecumenism during his meeting with the Waldesian community, Ratzinger wished to distinguish between “two phases”: the final aim and the “models” for the in-between waiting period before unity is achieved. The future Pope saw the former as “the real force and the main motivating factor behind our ecumenism”. He explained that “the unity of churches within the Church” does not imply “uniformity”, but “unity in pluriformity”. “It seems to me,” the then cardinal added, “that the ancient Church can be taken as something of a model. The ancient Church was united on three fundamental elements: Holy Scripture, regula fidei, the sacramental structure of the Church. But, for the rest, it was a Church of very many forms, as we all know. There were the churches of Semitic regions or language, the Egyptian Coptic Church, and here were the Greek Churches of the Byzantine empire, the other Greek Churches, the Latin Churches featuring great diversities between the Church in Ireland, for example, and the Church of Rome.” … Read more »… lire la suite »
I am writing today as the spiritual leader of Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, The United Church of Canada. I am also writing as an openly gay man, married to another United Church minister. This introduction may come as a surprise, seeing that so often it is religious leaders who condemn homosexuality, quoting scripture to justify their prejudice.
And so, as we approach this year’s International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, I want to deliver a different sort of message from a religious leader to all members of the LGBTQ community, whether they are people of faith or not.
It is a message that states unequivocally that not all Christians think the same way; that the hatred, condemnation, and judgment inflicted upon LGBTQ people by some within the Christian church is wrong and does not reflect the sum total of all Christian understanding of gender identity and sexual orientation.
For too long LGBTQ persons have been ostracized because of who they are, and the cost has been tremendous suffering, oppression, and diminishment of their humanity. For this I grieve.
I believe that we are all made in the image of God, wholly good and wholly loved by the Creator. This is why I feel such sadness when I see religious leaders and organizations failing to recognize that reality in every member of the LGBTQ community. … Read more »… lire la suite »
My grandmother and my great-grandmother, both Quebecers, both died on Good Friday. They were Protestant anglophones in a majority Catholic francophone world. In my grandmother’s day, Catholics would cross the street to avoid passing in front of a Protestant church for fear of damnation. As for my great-grandmother, who lived in La Baie on the Saguenay, her Catholic maid was famously heard to say what a kind person my great-grandmother was, and what a pity she was going to hell.
I hope all of them, including the maid, can see what their descendants were doing this Good Friday in Quebec. Four different Christian denominations in Quebec City got together to walk with a huge cross through the streets. In total silence we walked from church to church, United Church, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic, stopping in each one to pray and sing and read some more of the Passion story.
It was a warm evening, and people stopped on the street to stare. Teenagers giggled together with embarrassment, militant atheists muttered with contempt, old women smiled happily. Some quietly joined us, mostly immigrants from countries where people still go to church. Would-be anthropologists took pictures of us, with our Catholic cardinal in red and our white-robed Anglican bishop, to put on their Facebook pages, the way they might post pictures of Amazonian tribes: “Didn’t know there were any left! Didn’t even have to take malaria pills to see this!” … Read more »… lire la suite »
Ecumenism is the word that describes the historical movement for global church unity. I used to think of it as either a boring academic exercise in doctrinal compromise, or a winner-takes-all struggle to forge one monolithic superchurch.
After five years in the field (I work for a Lutheran ecumenical organization), I’m no longer dismissive. The quest for church unity is a wild, wondrous, and strange act of penitence for Christians’ often callous disregard of that little word one in John 17 and the Nicene Creed. We confess that the Holy Spirit has called one church into being. But almost all the evidence points in the opposite direction. What does this mean? And how should we respond to it? … Read more »… lire la suite »