It was a Valentine in the form of a covenant signed by a Roman Catholic bishop, a United Church Presbytery chair, two local pastors and members of their congregations on the eve of Feb. 14.

The covenant was the formalization of a long friendship between McClure United Church and Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Parish. The covenant was written, according to the document itself “in response to the call of Jesus, “that they may all be one and that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21-23).

“You must have been listening to the Spirit,” said Sister Anne Keffer, director of Saskatoon’s Centre for Ecumenism, where the official document signing took place.

“On behalf of the whole church, I thank you. I thank God.”

In total, some 40 members from the two congregations were present for the signing ceremony which involved joint prayer and reflections on healing and reconciliation.

Rev. Bernard de Margerie of Holy Spirit Parish, a past director of the Centre for Ecumenism, said the stages of the relationship between the churches were like any other. It first involved a courtship, which built into a relationship. The covenant itself was a gesture of solidarity, followed by the joint celebration of the formal covenant on Sunday. The last step will be ongoing faithfulness.
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It was more than 30 years in the making but on Sunday, parishioners from Holy Spirit Roman Catholic and McClure United parishes stood side by side.

Old and young sang beautifully together. They taught their children together, hugged, prayed and worshipped as brothers and sisters in Christ at Holy Spirit Parish. Afterward, they walked together through the streets of Saskatoon to break bread together at a community lunch at McClure United.

This was done to mark the signing of a new covenant between the parishes which has been discussed since 1966 and which both pastors hope will mark the beginning of an even better relationship.

“I believe this to be the will and the work of the Holy Spirit that has brought us to this moment. It is not merely our efforts or our decisions,” said McClure’s Rev. Ron McConnell.

Holy Spirit pastor, Rev. Bernard de Margerie, agreed. He said the covenant means that the two congregations pledge to grow together to “help create a more stable relationship that is more worthy of life within the Body of Christ.”

In his portion of the joint sermon, McConnell compared the covenant relationship to a marriage.

“The questions people most often ask about the covenant include: ‘Does this mean you’re exactly the same now? Do you now see everything the same way? There are no more differences?” The answer is — are you kidding? Does that sound like any marriage you have ever known?’ ” he said.
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Good neighbours: McClure United and Holy Spirit congregations have always been close; now they’ve put it in writing If Covenant 2000 were a play, Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church and McClure United Church would be well into the second act. The two churches recently signed a formal ecumenical covenant, committing themselves to breaking down barriers
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U.S. theology professors discuss its implications [HANOVER, Germany/GENEVA | LWI] Reformed, Anglican, Roman-Catholic and Lutheran church leaders and professors of theology in the United States have acknowledged the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification as a “groundbreaking document.” The theological implications of Joint Declaration was one of the major points discussed at a symposium
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CHICAGO (ELCA) – Representatives from most of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) 65 synods met here Feb. 11-12 to discuss ecumenism and its connection to the mission and identity of the church. Speakers addressed these issues from national and global perspectives. The representatives are part of the Lutheran Ecumenical Representatives Network (LERN). All
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Windows To The East, an annual public lecture series on Eastern Christianity, will take place Thursday and Friday at St. Thomas More College. Dr. Myroslaw Tataryn, associate professor of religious studies at University of Saskatchewan, is one of the organizers. As he explains, Windows To The East is part of an on-going lecture series that
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by Cameron Hoffman, Regina Leader Post Ken Cyr, pastor of Fort Qu’Appelle’s Valley Alliance Church, and his congregation will spend next week in churches other than their own, praying in the same pews as Lutherans, Anglicans, Catholics and United Church members, worshiping as a unified faith community. Christians in Fort Qu’Appelle will participate in the
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by John Goranson, Saskatchewan News Network Saskatoon’s largest-ever church service drew thousands of Christians intent on celebrating their faith together at Saskatchewan Place, despite -22 degree temperatures and a frustrating 45-minute traffic jam Sunday. “It’s so packed. I’ve never seen it this full for anything — and for a church thing that’s really great,” said
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What will you be doing on Jan. 2, 2000 — the first Sunday of the new millennium? Church leaders in Saskatoon hope you’ll be among the many thousands expected at SaskPlace to attend SONday 2000, a “city-wide day of celebration of Our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.” The 15-member task force organizing the event explains
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With our short ecclesiastical memories, we have almost forgotten that in the run-up to its dogmatic definition in 1854, Mary’s Immaculate Conception was often justified on the grounds of her being a priest. Tradition frequently applied the words found in Hebrews 7:26 to her: “It is fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” The Benedictine prior Jacques Biroat wrote in 1666 that “Paul’s reasoning” in Hebrews 7:26 “is relevant to Christ’s mother. She shares in the priesthood of her son and is the origin of our reconciliation to God. Therefore, she had to be entirely innocent and separate from sinners. She had to be preserved from original sin.” Mary was immaculately conceived because she had to be a priest without stain. Mary has captured the Catholic imagination more than any other person except Jesus. Generation after generation has seen in her the highest reflection of saintliness and love. Catholics have been fond of Mary because she is Jesus’ own mother. They also respected her as his closest associate in redemption, as his first “priest”.
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[WCC News] The Special Commission on Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches (WCC) will meet from 6 to 8 December in Morges, on Lac Léman, Switzerland. At its inaugural meeting the Commission will deal chiefly with matters of planning and procedure for the series of its Protestant-Orthodox discussions to be held over the
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Participants discuss homosexuality without apology or discomfort by John Filiatreau, PCUSA News Service [ATLANTA, Ga] Homosexuality, the seldom-mentioned “elephant in the living room” during previous meetings of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, emerged – came out, if you will – during the group’s national conference last week. Speakers and participants discussed homosexuality without apology and
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BALTIMORE (ELCA) — The Committee on Lutheran Cooperation, a group that includes top officials of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) met here Oct. 25. The officials discussed a variety of current concerns and issues. The meeting was held here to mark the dedication of the Lutheran Center
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) warmly welcomes the forthcoming signing of the Joint Declaration on the doctrine of justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. The signing will take place on 31 October, in Augsburg, Germany. According to the Rev. Dr Dagmar Heller, WCC Faith and Order, bilateral relations and
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Dear Cardinal Cassidy and Dr Noko,

The signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine Of Justification between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church is an event which encourages Christians of all traditions and is a cause of rejoicing for all who pray and work for the unity of Christ’s Church.

The significance of this agreement cannot be underestimated, dealing as it does with a question right at the heart of Christian faith and theology, the question of how we are saved. As we all are aware, this was a primary point of conflict during the Reformation period, which led not only to bitter theological disputes but even wars and Persecutions and created divisions that were exported beyond the shores of Europe through the missionary expansion of the Church.
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The Rev. H. George Anderson, 67, was appointed a Vice-President of the Lutheran Federation (LWF) in 1997. He has been the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 1995. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Yale, Anderson earned graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia,
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Anglican, United church dialogue goes one step further [Belleville, Ontario] Talks between the Anglican and United churches in Canada — the first formal dialogue since the collapse of a proposed Plan of Union in 1975 — are progressing slowly, but enough to warrant two meetings this month. A recent gathering of church representatives in eastern
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An effort to make an existing Protestant-Roman Catholic committee the top ecumenical body for Ireland has been stymied by a vote of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI).

The plan, which had been approved by the three other major denominations in both the Republic and in Northern Ireland – the Anglicans, the Methodists and the Roman Catholics – went down by a 224-144 vote during the Belfast General Assembly in June. Its opponents say it was defeated by the fact that an institutional identification with the Roman Catholic Church would imply approval of its doctrine.

And that is, in a word, apostasy.

If this all sounds like theological separatism, it is. But this is Northern Ireland, where politics and religion stay unintelligibly and painfully entangled – no matter how much distance Catholics and Protestants put between themselves, and no matter how many centuries go by.

The political stalemate isn’t so dissimilar.

Ulster’s major unionist (and largely Protestant) party is refusing to form a four-party administration to govern Northern Ireland – including Sinn Fein, the radical republican party – because the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) has refused to disarm, and because of apparent breaches of the outlawed group’s 1997 cease-fire.
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by Stephen Brown, Ecumenical News Service [GENEVA] A special commission set up by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in a bid to resolve complaints by its Orthodox member churches is scheduled to hold its first meeting in December. The scheduling of the meeting follows a series of delays and apparent unwillingness by some Orthodox
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The founding director of “No More Violence” will reveal the numerous community factors that influence youth violence at a special conference, 8:15 a.m. – 2:15 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 9 at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville. The event will preview the Dec. 1 -8 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Cape Town, South Africa.
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GENEVA – The ecumenical movement of the 21st century must focus less on church institutions and more on the church as “the whole people of God,” the moderator of the World Council of Churches‘ (WCC) central committee said on August 26. At a press conference following his report to the 158 members of the central
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DENVER (ELCA) — The 1999 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Churchwide Assembly received greetings from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) and three Reformed churches that are in full communion with the ELCA the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America, and United Church of Christ. The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority
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Catholics are permitted to support attempts to limit the evil aspects of an abortion law, says Pope John Paul in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. In Germany, however, the moral complexities have made the Church draw back, which threatens to reduce its influence in society. A journalist on the weekly Rheinischer Merkur highlights the German bishops’ dilemma.
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by Jonathan Luxmoore, Ecumenical News International [WARSAW] Minority churches in Poland plan to celebrate the new millennium by joining Roman Catholics in a mutual recognition of baptism. The churches are also considering a joint acknowledgment – with the Roman Catholic Church – of “guilt and forgiveness” for past wrongs. “Many people have warmed to these
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In a very Anglican way, the Church of England sought to solve its internal crisis over women in the priesthood by legislation which made concessions to opponents. These provisions were remarkable — and, some would say, indefensible. One of them, the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, allowing for alternative episcopal oversight, is now up for review, and under attack from the supporters of women priests, some of whom are campaigning for its repeal by 2002. But opponents, who believe their Catholic doctrine of the Church to be, if anything, more compromised by the concessions than by the ordinations themselves, are also looking for new solutions. Why are they still not satisfied, despite having been given so-called flying bishops and parochial autonomy? What are the issues at stake?

Let us not (for the moment) rake over the embers of the arguments that were carried on before the General Synod voted in 1992. Let women’s ordination be known, not by its roots but by its fruits. And by fruits I do not mean that experience of women’s ministry which it was confidently claimed would win every heart — no one has ever doubted the pastoral skills and sensitivity of women. I mean its theological and doctrinal consequences.
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CHICAGO (ELCA) — A vote on a proposed Lutheran-Episcopal full communion agreement is “an enormously momentous decision,” said five leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), who this month sent informational statements and endorsements of the proposal to voting members of the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. The assembly will be asked to approve
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A 20-member panel of participants from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) met for the first in a series of three two-day discussion sessions on topics of mutual concern to the two church bodies. The first discussion session was held June 14-15 at the Lutheran Center in Chicago,
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by Jason Warick, Saskatoon Star Phoenix More than 37,000 Saskatchewan residents have joined 20 million people worldwide in signing a petition calling for Third World debt relief. The petition will be presented to the leaders of the world’s seven wealthiest countries at their meeting this weekend in Germany. Nick Jesson, director for the Saskatoon Centre
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When theologians from nearly all Christian traditions – Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic – and more than 20 nations gather in Toronto this month, they hope to shed some light on some of the oldest and most difficult issues facing the church of Jesus Christ.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Standing Commission will meet June 15-24 on the campus of Emmanuel College to explore such issues as the nature of the church, different understandings of baptism, how ethnic and national identities relate to the universal Christian faith, and who may be ordained to the ministry of the church.

The WCC’s 336 member churches confess a common faith in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour, and testify together to the Holy Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are united in their commitment to proclaim Christ’s gospel to all, and to work for God’s justice and reconciliation in the world.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) has strongly criticised the G8 proposals for solving the debt crisis in a statement released during a press conference here on Wednesday, June 9. In the statement, WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser with Sam Kobia, director of the WCC cluster “Issues and Themes” called on G8 leaders to adopt a more radical approach at their meeting beginning in Cologne, Germany, on June 18.
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As Alice through the looking glass, when we enter the world of ecumenism everything seems to be a little bit different. Through the looking glass, everything looks different, we look at it differently and we experience it differently. The Saskatoon Centre for Ecumenism is hosting a national Summer Ecumenical Institute that will assist us to
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (ELCA) — The Lutheran Ecumenical Representatives Network (LERN) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) began an identity-building transition at its annual meeting here May 3-6 during the National Workshop on Christian Unity. The Rev. Robert A. Kriesat, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Chatham, N.J., was elected to a one-year term as LERN’s
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (ELCA) — Many of the speakers here May 3-6 for the 36th annual National Workshop on Christian Unity discussed various ecumenical relationships in which the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) finds itself. About 50 ELCA members were among the 400 ecumenical officers and representatives from a number of Christian denominations in attendance.
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So women deacons in the early Church had no part in the sacramental ministry, according to Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos (The Tablet, 3/10 April, p. 500). His statement must have made the thousands of women deacons who faithfully served the Church in the past turn in their graves. For they were formidable women, if we are to go by the 28 tombstones on which some of them are commemorated. One was Athanasia in Delphi in the fifth century AD, who was ordained by Bishop Pantamianos. The stone carries a curse: May anyone who disturbs the tomb in which this honoured and blameless deaconess lies buried, receive the fate of Judas who betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fifty years ago, church historians and theologians alike routinely dismissed the women’s diaconate as obviously a historical sop to women, a blessing of some sort or just a minor order, for the simple reason that a sacramental ordination of women seemed a priori excluded. But the historical facts are becoming clearer by the day, and this position is now untenable.

From the outset we should realise what is at stake. If, as the records show, women were for many centuries admitted to the full diaconate which is now only imparted to men, then they did receive the sacrament of holy orders. For this sacrament has three levels: episcopacy, priesthood and diaconate. Anyone who receives any of the three is consecrated to the ministerial priesthood, as the Council of Trent defined it.

But were women ordained as real deacons — into a sacramental diaconate tied theologically to the Holy Spirit, to borrow Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos’s words?
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Protestants and Catholics are working together more and more these days in Canada. Each believes it is the best expression of Christian faith, and each has often condemned the other’s teachings. Now some are trying to move beyond these criticisms and to forge limited new forms of cooperation, according to a series of articles in the May/June issue of Faith Today.

Gary Walsh, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), visited the offices of the Catholic Bishops in Ottawa and found himself “thanking the Lord for the things we share in common.” Despite doctrinal differences between the two organizations, EFC is having regular contact and working closely with Catholics on public policy issues such as abortion, family life and euthanasia, according to the lead article by Harold Jantz, a consultant and project manager of church-related projects in Winnipeg.

Sr. Donna Geernaert, who speaks for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Ottawa, observes that not only have Catholics and the EFC joined with one another for presentations to government, they’ve also coordinated their efforts so they could prepare complementary briefs.

George Vandervelde of Toronto, convener of the World Evangelical Fellowship‘s task force on ecumenical issues, believes that dialogue between evangelicals and Catholics is important “simply to understand one another and clarify how we are different and how we are similar.” He says we shouldn’t be bearing false witness against each other. “If in evangelicalism we say this or that against Roman Catholicism, we should know that we are speaking truth, and you can find that out only by speaking to one another.”
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[CHICAGO | ELCA News] Talks between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas have arrived at “A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity.” The 13-paragraph communique explains the emphasis of both traditions on the Nicene Creed and draws attention to a
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While the Roman Catholic Church and Rome itself have been busy with massive campaigns of refurbishment of their great shrines, including St Peters, so too has the Anglican Centre in Rome been totally transformed.

Fund-raising and awareness building programmes have been a huge success and the Centre now finds itself in the midst of the splendour of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in the heart of the Eternal City. Rome is expecting millions of visitors in 2000, marking the Jubilee and the Holy Year and now Anglicans can be even more proud of their presence in Rome.
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MAHTOMEDI, Minn. (ELCA) — While expressing support for a relationship of “full communion” between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Episcopal Church, almost 200 Lutherans gathered here at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church and resolved that the current Lutheran proposal, “Called to Common Mission,” is not the way to accomplish it. Speakers addressed
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In 1954, four years after the solemn definition of the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven, Pope Pius XII declared a Marian Year. With greater or lesser enthusiasm, Catholic Europe responded, and in my home town, on the east coast of Ireland, the response took spectacular form. The women were invited to donate jewellery, the men money, towards the creation of a solid-gold crown for the statue of the Blessed Virgin in our parish church. It was a poor community, yet the response to the appeal for the Virgin’s crown was remarkable, many of the women even donating their wedding rings. The statue, an insipid, life-sized plaster replica of Our Lady of Lourdes, white-robed, blue-sashed, smallbusted, neither a recognisably maternal nor even a very convincingly human image, was duly decorated with a crown which would have paid several times over for any one of the houses in which most of the donors lived.
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by United Methodist News Service As the World Council of Churches heads into a new millennium, it does so with a little less Love than it has had for the last two decades. For Jan Love, the WCC‘s December meeting in Zimbabwe marked the end of 23 years of heavy involvement in the ecumenical organization.
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[ACNS 1843] At a press briefing in Westminster Abbey, London, today, the co-chairmen of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), the Rt Revd Mark Santer (Anglican) and the Rt Revd Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (Roman Catholic), launched the document “The Gift of Authority,” the latest in study documents issued by 18 members of the Commission. This
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by United Methodist News Service United Methodists will meet in conversation with representatives of some churches within the Wesleyan Holiness tradition Feb. 18-20 in Dallas. Organized by the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the meeting will take place on the Perkins School of Theology campus and at Highland Park United Methodist
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For five days in October, seven Mennonites sat face-to-face with six Roman Catholics to discuss reasons for the centuries-long separation between the two churches. The meeting here on October 14-18 was held to promote better understanding of each others’ faith and to overcome long-standing prejudices.

This international consultation was sponsored by the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Vatican City). Helmut Harder (Canada) and Joseph Martino (United States) chaired the meeting.
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I remember, as an MA student, reading one of Margaret O’Gara’s essays in Grail on petrine ministry and what she called “the ecumenical gift exchange.” Drawing a comparison to the exchange of gifts in a large family at Christmas, O’Gara says that “in ecumenical dialogue, each Christian communion brings one or many gifts to the dialogue table, and each receives riches from their dialogue partners as well. But in the ecumenical gift exchange, the gift-giving enriches all of the partners, since we do not lose our gifts by sharing them with others.” Throughout my own research and the past four years of ecumenical ministry I have kept this concept close at hand.

O’Gara’s new book The Ecumenical Gift Exchange collects her own essays exploring issues of contemporary ecumenical dialogue, particularly: petrine ministry; infallibility; authority and dissent; feminism, and of utmost importance: the process of reception itself. How does one church receive the gifts of another? What level of agreement is necessary? When does the dialogue move from talking to acting? How does dialogue lead to repentance and then to reception?

She points out, “In a sense, the entire ecumenical movement rests on the recognition of the need for repentance, a willingness to ask whether we have a beam in our own eye before we concern ourselves with the mote in the eye of the other.”
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NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS BRINGS FORMAL GREETINGS TO NCC BISHOP GIVEN NCC’S RESPONSE TO PAPAL ENCYCLICAL ON ECUMENISM [CHICAGO] For the second year running, a representative from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops brought formal greetings to the National Council of Churches’ annual General Assembly, where he was given a copy of the NCC’s
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CHICAGO (ELCA) — “The ecumenical question is often posed as a vote for or against ‘Lutheran identity.’ We cite our confessional tradition as the reason for our continued separation from other Christian bodies,” said the Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). “I believe that it is precisely
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When Bernie and Shirley Karstad were considering marriage, they had an added twist to consider. While both were dedicated, devoted and active church members, the catch was that they belonged to different churches. Neither had any interest in switching to another church tradition. Adding further complication, each was bringing children from a previous marriage into
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Canada’s largest Protestant church, the United Church of Canada (UCC), has launched a challenge to the nation’s multi-billion dollar gambling industry, and to the federal and provincial governments which receive massive revenue by taxing gambling. The Canadian Council of Churches and other faith groups are being approached to support the campaign for an inquiry into gambling.
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Dr. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has renewed his call for the main Christian churches to start, in the year 2000, a process to lead to a universal Christian council uniting all churches and Christians. He requested the bodies of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Pentecostal churches to make a solemn promise not to rest until such a council has been achieved.
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In his address on “Nation and Identity” to the Anglican General Synod, the Rt. Rev. Andrew Hutchison, Bishop of Montreal said that his vision of the church in Quebec would see it stay out of partisan politics while pursuing goals of reconciliation, justice and peace. Bishop Hutchison told the Synod that the church has no mandate to advocate one form of government over another. “How we choose to organize ourselves for collective security and well being is a political question that must be settled by voters at the ballot box, be they Christian or not,” he said.  But he added: “We do, on the other hand, have a mandate … to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.”
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