The great damage inflicted among Indigenous Peoples by the colonizing projects in North America/Turtle Island, including the far too frequent complicity of the churches with them, is something that can hardly be overstated. Most Canadian Christians are, I hope, relatively aware of the large-scale physical, cultural, and spiritual harms that were perpetrated by things like the reserve system, residential schools, and bans on traditional ceremonies and rites. Less widely considered, however, are the impacts that also came from the importing of inter-Christian hostilities from Europe to the Peoples of this land. Although less urgent than the direct and tangible abuses, here too there are harmful marks that must be reckoned with.
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Members of the CWL across the country have identified ecumenical and interfaith cooperation as a priority as we move the League into the future within our church and country. To that end, the Faith Organizations working group was created to identify organizations with whom we can partner. This video highlights some of the reasons why we engage in these activities, which flow from our baptism and our call to be disciples of Jesus, bringing his Good News to our world.
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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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The recently concluded World Youth Day in Portugal (August 1-6, 2023) included a number of ecumenical and interreligious experiences, opportunities, and lessons that garnered praise and criticism in Catholic and non-Catholic circles alike.

• In addition to visiting and participating in events held within Catholic venues, WYD pilgrims were invited to visit significant Protestant and Orthodox churches and other houses of worship (synagogues, mosques, temples) in Lisbon and throughout the country, to “observe” how each religious denomination has its own history, content, ritual, and societal outreach.
• With fellow Christians, WYD pilgrims were invited also to participate in prayers, lectures, and bible studies offered by Anglican, Protestant, Orthodox Church leaders, and ecumenical communities (such as Taizé and Chemin Neuf), and to “look for signs of unity” (of faith, sacrament, and mission) between these Christian communities.
• On the interfaith side, organizers highlighted that “leaders of other faiths will be present at various events of the WYD Lisbon 2023 presided over by the Pope,” and indeed Pope Francis met with a number of ecumenical and interreligious leaders at significant events held throughout the week.
• Groups from various religious backgrounds participated in a Youth Festival program that featured “music and singing as a universal language that facilitates encounters between religions, cultures and peoples.”

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Ecumenism and the search for Christian unity are no mere niche interest, the Anglican Church of Canada’s lead animator for ecumenical and interfaith relations Canon Scott Sharman says, but rather “an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus today”—and ecumenical agreements between churches in countries like Canada may soon become more common.
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Our Lord Jesus prays in His High Priestly prayer in John 17: “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one” (v. 17). Our Lord Jesus is praying for His disciples. He is praying for His Church. He is praying for you and me today.

Our Lord’s prayer can be understood in this way: that His Church would remain one—not that we would somehow achieve this oneness by our actions. Our Lord is praying that the oneness that we already have in Him would be preserved. That we would remain one. The Lutheran Reformers expressed this in the Augsburg Confession in saying that after coming to agreement on what we teach and confess we would live “in unity and concord in the one Christian Church” (AC Preface 4).
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As in previous years, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity L’Osservatore Romano published a series of articles prepared by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity on the ecumenical relations of the Holy See. The texts, which are published in Italian, offer an update on the ecumenical situation and on initiatives undertaken in 2022.
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It’s time to break up the log jam on ecumenism, said the featured speaker of the 2023 De Margerie Lectures on Christian Reconciliation and Unity.
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When Wiarton Willie or his furry cousins poke their heads out to see if spring has come, there is just one sign that counts. Does he see his shadow? Of course, it’s all just fun; there is no causal relationship between a cloudy sky on February 2nd and an early spring. It is a lot more complicated when it comes to the signs of an ecumenical springtime, but there is much more cause for hope.

Since the mid-1980s, it has become commonplace to forecast an ecumenical winter in contrast to the enthusiasm of the 1960s and 70s. After the early achievements of post-Vatican II ecumenism, with key agreements on the Eucharist, ministry, authority, and various other controverted questions, progress slowed as ecumenists took up questions of ecclesiology, authority, and ethics. Yet after every winter comes spring. This blog post will explore six signs of an ecumenical springtime.
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As in previous years, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity L’Osservatore Romano published a series of articles prepared by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on the ecumenical relations of the Holy See. The texts, which are published in Italian, offer an update on the ecumenical situation and on initiatives undertaken in 2021.
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Sometimes people ask me, “How did you become an ecumenist?” I try to answer their curiosity with some honesty, but like most people, my own vocational path was only apparent looking back. Once in a while, someone asks, “How can I become an ecumenist?” The simple answer is that all Christians are called to work for the unity of Christ’s church, so becoming an ecumenist is as simple as saying “Amen” to God’s call. Becoming an ecumenist does not require extensive education or credentials. It doesn’t require ordination or commissioning in a particular ministry. To be an ecumenist is to pray and work for the unity that Christ wills in his church.
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Introduced into religious language by the Apostle Paul, the Greek word charisma means free gift, favour. In everyday English usage, “gifted” people may be tempted to think of themselves as a cut above others. For Paul, however, this cannot be valid because “gifted” means receiving a gift. A charism is a gift that has its
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Introduction In some ways, dialogue, which is essentially talking, seems a very simple thing to do. Yet, we all know there are various ways of talking. There are words that hurt and words that heal. The Epistle of James (3:1-12) clearly names the challenge. The tongue, he says, is “like a fire” and no one
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It is quite common in ordinary Catholic parlance to hear someone refer to him or herself, or to another in the Church, as a “convert.” Typically, this word is used to signify a person initiated (baptized) in one tradition of the Christian family, which they subsequently left before being received into full communion in the Catholic Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The implication is that the person “converted” away from their old (erroneous/incomplete) way of living the Christian faith to a new (true/fuller) Christian life in our Church.
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“Doctrine divides, service unites!”

This was a slogan heard regularly in the early ecumenical movement of the 20th century. The polemics of the Reformation and intervening years had left their toll. For ecumenically-minded Christians, the way forward was not through doctrinal debate but working together in care for the poor, orphans, widows, and prisoners. The earliest ecumenical stirrings led to the World Conference on Evangelism in 1910 where the great mission agencies agreed to coordinate their work in world mission. In 1925, the same year that the United Church of Canada was formed as a union of the Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches in Canada as a commitment to the Social Gospel, the “World Conference on Life and Work” in Stockholm gathered churches to work towards further unity in both the life of the churches and in Christ’s work. This stood in some contrast to the 1927 “World Conference on Faith and Order” which was committed to the unity of the church based on a common faith and a reconciled church order.

The division within the ecumenical movement between these three streams – Evangelism, Life and Work, and Faith and Order – continually threatens the faithfulness of this enterprise. In 1952, the newly-formed World Council of Churches (WCC) asked the churches “whether they should not act together in all matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel them to act separately?”
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Quite often in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry, we are given glimpses into his prayer life. In many instances, we read simply that Jesus went away (by himself or with others) to pray. More rarely we discover the content of Jesus’ prayers, that is, the “what” of his prayers or the actual words that he used in prayer.

One place where the content of Jesus’ prayer is shared with us directly is in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. At the end of a rather lengthy section (typically called Jesus’ Farewell or Last Supper Discourse – beginning in chapter 14), Jesus turns his eyes toward heaven and offers his so-called “priestly prayer” for the protection, sanctification, and unity of his disciples. He prays first for those who are his followers at that time, and then he prays for those who will follow him in the future.
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I remember one year when the lectionary texts included 1 Corinthians 12, we sang a processional song by Canadian church composer Andrew Donaldson with the words: “the body is one with many parts, the parts are many the body is one.” The youth of the church had built huge papier-mâché bodies that danced on stilts at the front of the procession. The image of the whole church gathered to sing, worship, and even dance reflects the dynamic character of the church as a living body. This image of the church as a human body comes to us from the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians to help them overcome their own divisions. “Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many” (v. 14). We are one body because, in baptism, the Spirit has gathered us into the one body of Christ.
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The Department for Unity, Faith and Order in the Anglican Communion has at its core the search for deeper unity between Christians, be that within and between the churches of the Anglican Communion or between the Anglican Communion and other Christian churches and bodies.

Much of the work of Unity, Faith and Order (which goes by the extra-terrestrial acronym UFO) is taken up with encouraging Christians to talk together. Over the course of the last century much work has been done to break down mutual suspicion and division between churches by patient dialogue and the building up of relationships. This happens at the local level, where Christians find that when they come together to pray or get involved with mission and ministry that they have more in common than they first thought. It also happens at national and international level, when theologians from different churches and traditions talk together to come to agreement on issues that have previously divided them.
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Working for Christian unity and engaging in formal theological dialogues to promote it obviously raises questions about what the nature and mission of the church is. In a project that took two decades of work by Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Catholic and Pentecostal theologians, the World Council of Churches in 2013 published a document summarizing the points of greatest consensus. In late October, the Vatican gave the WCC its formal response to the document, which was called “The Church: Towards a Common Vision.”

The response, coordinated by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and posted on its website, included input from Catholic theologians from around the world, bishops’ conferences and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What is meant by “church” is a key ecumenical question as Christians work and pray for the unity Jesus wanted his followers to have, the Catholic response said. Or, as the WCC document said, “agreement on ecclesiology has long been identified as the most elemental theological objective in the quest for Christian unity.”
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The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, joined in the celebrations with one of the oldest ecumenical global movements as it marks its 175th anniversary this year. The worldwide YMCA youth movement, which began as an evangelical young men’s Christian service organisation, celebrated its start this month with a thanksgiving service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

The Archbishop, who is the President of the YMCA, said: “It has been a great pleasure to join in the celebrations of 175 years of the YMCA. The work they have done and continue to do today to help and support young people is truly fantastic! My prayer is that the work continues for the next century!”

Denise Hatton, the Chief Executive of YMCA England & Wales, said: “what started with a concern for the welfare of his fellow workers and the formation of a prayer and Bible study group, grew into the YMCA which now reaches 60 million people worldwide.”
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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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Much of the work of the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) today is reflected in its two commissions: the Commission on Faith and Witness, and the Commission on Justice and Peace. Where the former promotes theological reflection to improve mutual understanding between denominations, the latter focuses on efforts to foster peace and social justice in Canada and around the world.

Certain issues, such as the ordination of women or same-sex marriage, may be of both theological and social importance, and can find very different views reflected within the council.

In such cases, CCC President Alyson Barnett-Cowan said, “We try two things. One is we will have exploratory sessions where we try to get the sense of where different people are coming on different issues, and that would be one of them … But then on other matters, where we think there might be a consensus, we work hard to articulate what that consensus might be. So for example, protection of refugees, that’s kind of a no-brainer for the members of the council.”
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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).
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The appointment has been announced today of the Revd Dr Will Adam as the Archbishop’s Ecumenical Adviser. As well as these duties, the role includes being Ecumenical Officer at the Council of Christian Unity (CCU).

This post will build on the creative joint working that has been established between Lambeth Palace and CCU to further the ecumenical ministry of the Archbishop.

Archbishop Justin Welby said: “I am delighted that Will Adam will be bringing his considerable experience and expertise to this post. His understanding of both national and international ecumenism will be a real asset to the work at Lambeth and at CCU. There are wonderful opportunities in ecumenism in these times, and we must always strive to be obedient to Jesus’ desire that his Church ‘may be one’.”
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A call for Anglicans to commemorate next year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the commendation of a number of new inter-denominational agreements and reports were amongst a raft of ecumenical resolutions adopted by the Anglican Consultative Council when they met in Lusaka, Zambia, earlier this month.

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

In a separate resolution – 16.17 – the ACC said that it “welcomes and affirms the substance” of the joint Lutheran and Roman Catholic Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which the two churches signed in 1999.
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Participants in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), and Lutheran Church-Canada’s (LCC) ongoing ecumenical dialogue have released an interim report on their work so far. Entitled “On Closer Acquaintance,” the document is the culmination of six years of regular discussions between the three church bodies, and highlights the discovery of significant doctrinal agreement between the Anglican and Lutheran participants.

The authors are clear that there is still much work to be done before altar and pulpit fellowship between the two sides would be possible. Nevertheless, they have found the discussions promising enough to publicly declare their prayer “that, in the time and manner of His choosing, our Lord would grant each side in our conversations to acknowledge our ‘first cousin’ to be in fact a true sister church, with the result that we would welcome each other wholeheartedly to our respective altars and enjoy the blessed situation in which our clergy and people would be interchangeable with each other as we stand under the grace of God and work for His kingdom.”

In the meantime, they encourage all three church bodies to “consider the ways in which we can cooperate and come together in ways that fall short of full communion but do allow the greatest measure of cooperation while maintaining full theological integrity.”
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“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor 13:13).

1. By God the Father’s will, from which all gifts come, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the help of the Holy Spirit Consolator, we, Pope Francis and Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, have met today in Havana. We give thanks to God, glorified in the Trinity, for this meeting, the first in history.

It is with joy that we have met like brothers in the Christian faith who encounter one another “to speak face to face” (2 Jn 12), from heart to heart, to discuss the mutual relations between the Churches, the crucial problems of our faithful, and the outlook for the progress of human civilization.

2. Our fraternal meeting has taken place in Cuba, at the crossroads of North and South, East and West. It is from this island, the symbol of the hopes of the “New World” and the dramatic events of the history of the twentieth century, that we address our words to all the peoples of Latin America and of the other continents.

It is a source of joy that the Christian faith is growing here in a dynamic way. The powerful religious potential of Latin America, its centuries–old Christian tradition, grounded in the personal experience of millions of people, are the pledge of a great future for this region.

3. By meeting far from the longstanding disputes of the “Old World”, we experience with a particular sense of urgency the need for the shared labour of Catholics and Orthodox, who are called, with gentleness and respect, to give an explanation to the world of the hope in us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).
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Anglican Bishop Kenneth Kearon used the image of constructing a barn to reflect upon the ecumenical movement during this year’s De Margerie Series on Christian Reconciliation and Unity, held in conjunction with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Saskatoon.

In addition to a public lecture “On Building an Ecumenical Barn,” held at St. Thomas More College Jan. 21, the 2016 De Margerie series also included two workshops – one for clergy and ministry leaders Jan. 22, and another on Jan. 23 for the general public, entitled “Being Church in the World Today.”

Dr. Terry Downey, president of St. Thomas More College opened the public lecture at STM with words of welcome. Held in conjunction with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the De Margerie series is jointly sponsored by STM, the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon. This year’s lecture was available for the first time on live-streamed video (and is now posted on the diocese’s YouTube channel).

Nicholas Jesson, ecumenical officer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, noted that the De Margerie series is named for local ecumenical pioneer, Rev. Bernard de Margerie, one of the founders of the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in Saskatoon and its first director. De Margerie is also the author of In God’s Reconciling Grace, a book of prayers about Christian unity, reflecting his conviction that prayer and conversion must be at the heart of the ecumenical movement.
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In 1975, five major Christian churches in Canada reached an agreement recognizing the validity of each other’s baptisms. Forty years later, the mutual recognition of baptism by the Presbyterian, Lutheran, United, Roman Catholic and Anglican (PLURA) churches stands as a historic milestone in the ongoing ecumenical movement.

A news release from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) on September 11, 1975 noted that the agreement followed an ecumenical study of baptism by the Joint Working Group of the Canadian Council of Churches and the CCCB. Responding to the report, each church agreed that “baptism would be recognized when conferred according to the norms of the churches, with flowing water, by pouring, sprinkling or immersion, accompanied by the Trinitarian formula [i.e. in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit].”

Archdeacon Bruce Myers, ecumenical and interfaith coordinator for the Anglican Church of Canada, underscored the role of mutual recognition of baptism in bringing members of different churches closer together.

“When each of us is baptized, it’s always into a particular church, a local community of faith that exists within a denomination,” Myers said. “But also you’re being baptized into the one holy catholic and apostolic church that is universal.”
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Yesterday afternoon the Holy Father met with the evangelical Lutheran community of Rome in the Christuskirche, where he was warmly welcomed by Pastor Jeans-Martin Kruse, who in his welcome discourse also recalled the visits to the same [church] by St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Francis then answered questions from three members of the community, a child and two women, and after the vespers prayer, with the reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew (25, 31, 46), he pronounced an off-the-cuff homily in which he emphasised that Lutherans and Catholics must ask mutual forgiveness for persecutions against each other and for the scandal of divisions.

The first question to which the Pope responded was from a child who wanted to know what he liked the most about being the Pope. “The thing I like best, sincerely, is being a pastor”, Francis replied. “I like being the Pope in the style of a parish priest. Service: I like it, in the sense that I feel good, when I visit the sick, when I speak with people who are desperate or sad. I like going to prisons … to speak with detainees… Every time I enter a prison I ask myself, ‘Why them and not me?’. And I am aware of the salvation of Jesus Christ, His love for me. Because He saved me. I am no less a sinner than they are, but the Lord took me by the hand. And when I go into a prison I am happy. Being a Pope is being a bishop, being a pastor. If a Pope is not also a bishop, if a Pope is not also a pastor, he may be a very intelligent person, very important and hold great influence in society, but I think that inside he will not be happy”.
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The 2015 World Conference of the International Lutheran Council (ILC) continued the afternoon of September 24 as delegates heard reports from the Executive Council and discussed ecumenical relations.

ILC Chairman Hans-Jörg Voigt gave his report to the conference in the afternoon, highlighting various successes of the past triennium, including joint relief and aid following Typhoon Haiyan, the ILC’s 2013 World Seminaries Conference held in Lithuania, new contacts between ILC churches and other Lutheran churches, and the 2015 Wittenberg Conference on global confessional leadership.
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Rome’s new Piazza Martin Lutero is not only a sign that Lutherans are welcome in the cosmopolitan Italian city but a reminder of Luther’s call for Christians to proclaim the gospel together by serving the poor.

Rev. Jens-Martin Kruse, pastor of the German-speaking congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy (ELCI) made these remarks following the 16 September inauguration of a central square named after the Reformer Martin Luther. Civic and church dignitaries attended the ceremony to officially recognize the Piazza Martin Lutero, located near the historic Colosseum amphitheater.

“And at the same time this place is also a bit troubled. Here live many refugees, the homeless. For us, there is a reminder that we have an obligation to care for these people,” said Kruse, who serves about 500 Lutherans in Rome.

Piazza Martin Lutero is the result of five years of work by a group of Protestants, including Adventists, Baptists, Methodists, Waldensians and Lutherans, who collaborate in helping the city’s migrants, children and the unemployed.
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The South African Council of Churches (SACC) is all set to continue working for the unity of Christian witness and supporting communities in the country affected by poverty, unemployment, inequity and corruption.

These aspirations of the SACC were shared in a recent meeting on 16 September in Geneva, Switzerland, where Rev. Dr Frank Chikane, SACC’s senior vice president and Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, SACC’s acting general secretary, met with Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, and Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, the WCC’s associate general secretary.

The SACC leadership shared that the strategic plan for the renewal of their organization is in place, continuing a revival after the council closed down in 2011 due to financial difficulties. Since 2014, the organization has been re-established, with the re-opening of Khotso House in Johannesburg where the SACC offices are based.

The WCC general secretary expressed his appreciation that the SACC is “back on its feet”. He said that it is only through “working together” that challenges can be overcome. “Many regional and national councils of churches have gone through problems, but we are working together to strengthen the fellowship. We need a strong SACC to grow in the ecumenical movement.”
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During the week of 22 June 2015, the 50th anniversary of the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches will be celebrated by the church leaders. A public event to mark the anniversary will be held at the Centro Pro Unione in Rome, Italy on 23 June.

One of the ecumenical legacies of improved relations among churches growing from the Second Vatican Council, the JWG has been instrumental since 1965 in coordinating activities of the WCC, its member churches, related ecumenical bodies and the Catholic commissions and councils engaged in theological discourse and common action throughout the world.

The working group has met regularly over the past half-century and has published reports of its activities. The JWG is co-moderated by Metropolitan and Archbishop Nifon of Targoviste from the Romanian Orthodox Church, a member of the WCC central and executive committees, and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of the Catholic Church.

Over the past 50 years, Roman Catholics have become full members of the Faith and Order Commission coordinated by the WCC, provided staff in the WCC areas of evangelization and theological education and sent observer delegations to participate in WCC assemblies and other major conferences. Reciprocal arrangements have been implemented, with active Orthodox and Protestant participation in Catholic forums.

From 1968 through 1983, the WCC and Roman Catholic Church experimented with common social policies and service ministries within a commission on society, development and peace (SODEPAX). In 2011, the WCC, Roman Catholic Pontifical Council on Inter-religious Dialogue and the World Evangelical Alliance jointly published landmark recommendations on the writing of churches’ guidelines on mission and evangelization, Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World.
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Pope Francis met on Thursday with members of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, telling them that the cause of unity is not an optional undertaking. The 18 Anglican and Catholic members of the commission, known as ARCIC III, are holding their annual encounter this week at an ancient retreat house in the Alban hills, south of Rome.The original Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission was founded in the wake of a historic meeting in 1966 between a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury – the first since the Reformation and the Church of England’s breakaway from Rome. On that occasion, Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey inaugurated a dialogue “founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common traditions” which they hoped would lead to “unity in truth for which Christ prayed”. Meeting with the members of ARCIC III, Pope Francis noted the current session is studying the relationship between the universal Church and the local Church – a question central to his own reform programme – with particular reference to difficult decision-making over moral and ethical questions. These discussions, the Pope said, and the forthcoming publication of five jointly agreed statements from the previous phase of the dialogue, remind us that ecumenism is not a secondary element in the life of the Church and that the differences which divide us must not be seen as inevitable. Despite the seriousness of the challenges, he said we must trust even more in the power of the Spirit to heal and reconcile what may not seem possible to our human understanding. Finally Pope Francis highlighted the powerful testimony of Christians from different Churches and traditions who have been victims of violence and persecution. The blood of these martyrs, he said, will nourish a new era of ecumenical commitment to fulfill the last will and testament of the Lord: that all may be one.
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Kathryn L. Johnson has been named director of Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) effective September 2015.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton made the announcement during the ELCA Conference of Bishops meeting here March 5-10. The ELCA Conference of Bishops is an advisory body of this church that includes 65 synod bishops, the presiding bishop and secretary.

“Kathryn Johnson brings that rare and wonderful combination of keen intellect, academic excellence, international ecumenical experience, deep faith and a graceful and engaging presence. We are very excited to welcome her to our staff,” said Eaton.

Johnson is a professor of historical theology and is the Paul Tudor Jones Professor of Church History at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Johnson joins Kathryn M. Lohre, assistant to the presiding bishop and executive of ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations. The Rev. Donald J. McCoid will retire at the end of August after serving in the ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations office since 2007. Prior to that, McCoid served as bishop of the ELCA Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod since 1988.

“Working for Christian unity has been one of the deepest joys of my vocational life. This aspect of the church’s calling is inextricable from the other tasks of Christian discipleship; it strengthens their witness and is undergirded in turn by common work for justice, search for interfaith understanding, (and more),” said Johnson.
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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.”
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Connections between liturgical renewal and the ecumenical movement were explored in a public lecture Jan. 20 at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon.

The evening presentation during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was part of the third annual De Margerie Series on Christian Reconciliation and Unity, sponsored by STM, the Prairie Centre for Ecumenism and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, and named in honour of local ecumenical pioneer Rev. Bernard de Margerie. The 2014 series also included a public workshop about music and prayer (see related article) and a workshop for clergy and lay ministry leaders about baptism.

In the public lecture, speaker Dr. Karen Westerfield Tucker described connections between liturgy and dialogue as an “ecumenism of life.”

A presbyter in the United Methodist Church and professor of worship at Boston University who serves on the international Methodist-Roman Catholic dialogue, Westerfield Tucker began with a look at the impact of the Second Vatican Council on ecumenism and liturgy, for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

“Many non-Catholic communities engaged in their own bold ventures of liturgical reform in the years following the council,” said Westerfield Tucker.
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The sharing of prayer texts and hymns between Christian denominations is a grassroots ecumenical encounter that can lead to deeper reflection and understanding.

That was the message brought to life at a workshop held Jan. 17 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church to open this year’s De Margerie Series on Christian Reconciliation and Unity in Saskatoon, held in conjunction with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Jan. 18-25.

Guest speaker Dr. Karen Westerfield Tucker led participants through an exploration of a number of prayers and hymn lyrics through history, in various traditions and styles, to demonstrate how theology is expressed in our most basic tools of worship.

The simplicity and conciseness of prayer and song texts offer a “theological shorthand” that is easily and quickly shared and appropriated, said Westerfield Tucker.
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At the conclusion of the week of prayer for Christian Unity on Sunday, ministers and congregations from many different denominations gathered with Pope Francis in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls for Vespers marking the feast of the conversion of the Apostle of the Gentiles.

Among those taking part for the first time was Reverend Tara Curlewis, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia. An ordained minister of the Uniting Church in Australia, she’s also worked closely with the World Council of Churches and until recently co-chaired Australia’s National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims and Jews.

She talked to Philippa Hitchen about her own ministry and about the goal of the wider ecumenical movement today…
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In the light of current global realities, representatives of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) met from 20 to 21 January at the Chateau of Bossey, Switzerland to explore and discuss possible areas of future cooperation. The meeting featured introductions to the work of the WEA and the WCC, and participants reflected together on current developments in society and churches, and in evangelical and ecumenical movements. They shared current plans and discussed possibilities for closer collaboration. Stressing the significance of being Christian witnesses, the meeting participants also identified various ways of responding together to the needs of communities around the world. Together the participants read the Scriptures and reflected on similar and different understandings of mission and evangelism. They prayed together and shared stories of faith. Recognizing the importance of a joint response to a suffering world, the participants agreed to continue to meet in order to identify further areas of possible cooperation.
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Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recently articulated his understanding of the status of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), formed in 2009 by a coalition of a dozen groups that chose to break communion with the Anglican Church of Canada and, in the United States, with The Episcopal Church. ACNA, said the archbishop in an October interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette, “is a separate church. It is not part of the Anglican Communion.” Instead, he described ACNA as “an ecumenical partner.” The Anglican Church of Canada has a number of ecumenical partners. One, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, has become a full communion partner with which we enjoy a full and mutual recognition of ministry and sacraments. With others, like the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, we’re still on that journey—an admittedly longer one. To be an ecumenical partner means to repent of our divisions and to understand them as a scandalous contradiction of the will of Christ. It means to fervently desire reconciliation with the churches from which we are separated, and to manifest this desire in prayer, dialogue and action. To be an ecumenical partner also means recognizing that the other with whom you are seeking to reconcile demonstrates signs of the Holy Spirit at work, even if you are in disagreement about some significant issues.
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On the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, Pope Francis celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving for two new Canadian saints: St. François de Laval and St. Marie de l’Incarnation. The two were made saints in April when Pope Francis set aside the normal process. The two were significant in spreading Catholicism in New France, both among the French settlers and the indigenous peoples. Laval (1623-1708) was the first bishop of Québec. Marie de l’Incarnation (1599-1672), an Ursuline sister, was responsible for establishing the first schools in the fledgling colony at Québec and for extending education to girls and natives. Pope Francis has described the new saints as models of spreading the faith. “Missionaries have gone out to call everyone, in the highways and byways of the world,” Francis said in his homily. “In this way they have done immense good for the Church, for once the Church stops moving, once she becomes closed in on herself, she falls ill, she can be corrupted, whether by sins or by that false knowledge cut off from God which is worldly secularism.”
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Fifty years on, it’s time for the ecumenical movement to take on a more pastoral mission and worry less about trying to untie the knots of history and theology, Saint Paul University theology professor Catherine Clifford told a small gathering of bishops, clergy and lay people in Toronto commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism. Clifford and Anglican ecumenist Archdeacon Bruce Myers were the featured speakers at a prayer service marking the anniversary sponsored by the Ontario Diocesan Directors for Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs and the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario. “We’ve lost sight of the pastoral importance of ecumenism,” Clifford said. From interchurch marriages to dwindling communities that can’t survive in isolation, the Church’s ecumenical mission is urgent, she said. “A perception that it (ecumenism) has been the domain of professional ecumenists” must be overcome, said Myers.
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To promote Christian Unity and Dialogue among World Religions

The October launching of the 1st Irénée Beaubien, s.j. Ecumenical Institute by the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism will assemble noted experts in ecumenism (Christian unity) and interreligious dialogue. Fifty years after the foundation of the Centre and the publication of the Vatican Council II decree on ecumenism, this event will create a space where the theory and the practice of ecumenism can intersect and serve as a platform for future action. Pioneers who laboured to establish dialogue when this was not the popular thing to do will pass on their experience and the knowledge gleaned from their efforts to a younger generation passionate about overcoming differences and working together. Society will reap the benefits.

The Irénée Beaubien Ecumenical Institute will bring together people from different churches and different religions for two days of conferences, October 24-25, in the Anglican diocese’s Fulford Hall in Montréal located at 1444 Union Avenue. Participants will learn from some fourteen church leaders and specialists in the fields of inter-church and interfaith dialogue as these speakers explore the understanding and the practice of ecumenism from different angles. Question periods following each talk will provide the opportunity for clarification and exchange.
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In the name of the Triune God, and with the blessing and guidance of our Churches, the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue (ICAOTD) met at St George’s Anglican Cathedral, Jerusalem, from 17 to 24 September 2014. The Commission is grateful for the generous hospitality extended by Bishop Suheil Dawani and the Diocese of Jerusalem. The Commission was presented with resources both Anglican and Orthodox on issues concerning the beginning and end of life, and it was agreed that these matters will be discussed in the next phase of its work. The Commission discussed at length the draft of an agreed statement on the theological presuppositions of the Christian understanding of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God. At its next meeting it intends to consider the practical implications and the ethical questions, of pressing concern in today’s world, that follow from these presuppositions.
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The centenary celebration Sept. 24 of what is now known as the Montreal School of Theology will probably pass almost unnoticed, at a time when religion is often a topic of strife. But in its quiet way, the anniversary is also a reminder that religious strife and debate in Montreal, Quebec and the rest of Canada have been around for a while. The three theological seminaries on the McGill University campus — Presbyterian, United Church and Anglican — will be celebrating 100 years of what is now known as ecumenism, a word hardly anyone used in that sense a century ago. The celebration will be a modest affair. Presbyterian College, the (United Church) United Theological College and the (Anglican) Montreal Diocesan Theological College will have open house at their respective quarters on University St. between 3:15 and 4:15 p.m. And there will be worship at 4:30 down the street in the Heritage Chapel of what was known until 1972 as Divinity Hall, but is now McGill’s Birks Building. On Friday, a select group will ponder the future of theological education in Montreal.
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The Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue in Saskatoon has recently issued a draft “Common Statement of Faith” after three years of study. The text is offered to our sponsoring churches for study and discernment, with the prayer that this text might be adopted as a sufficient statement for further dialogue and common mission.

The dialogue is sponsored by the Saskatoon Evangelical Ministers’ Fellowship (SEMF) and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon. The group was established in 2011 to build upon earlier efforts to draw our churches together. The twenty members of the dialogue are drawn from across the Evangelical and Catholic communities with both clergy and lay people well represented. The dialogue spent two years exploring issues that have historically divided Catholics and Evangelicals before concluding that a statement of the faith we share in common would assist in promoting the growing relationship between our churches. Over a year in drafting and revision, the statement offered to our church at this time is not intended to be a final or complete exposition of these doctrinal matters or of all of the matters essential to Christian faith. We intend to give an account of the hope that we share for the visible witness of Jesus Christ by his followers in Saskatoon.
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Pope Francis has given his blessing to the Vatican’s international cricket team as it prepares to take on the Church of England. The side of Catholic priests are preparing for their first tour to England, which will include a match with the Church of England XI in Canterbury. Pope Francis, who is a supporter of Buenos Aires football side San Lorenzo, put on a cricket cap and signed a bat that the team will take with them during their tour of England, which begins on Friday. After the tour the bat will be auctioned in order to raise money for a joint Catholic and Anglican campaign against modern-day slavery and indentured labour, the Global Freedom Network, the Vatican said. The papal XI will play matches against chaplains of the British armed forces at Aldershot and the Royal Household Cricket Club at Windsor Castle, as well as two other games. Then in Canterbury on September 19 the team will take on the Anglican XI.
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Pope Francis’ friend Bishop Tony Palmer of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC) died in England July 20 after his motorcycle collided with another vehicle.

According to e-mail reports obtained from The Ark Community he founded, three teams of surgeons tried to save Bishop Palmer’s life but he passed away in the evening, leaving behind his wife Emiliana and two teenaged children. Bishop Palmer was in his early 50s, and grew up in South Africa, though recently he had been living in England.

The bishop recently facilitated an historic private meeting of evangelical and charismatic leaders June 24 with Pope Francis at the Holy Father’s residence inside the Vatican. The two had become friends when Palmer was doing ecumenical work with charismatic Catholics in Buenos Aires.

World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) global ambassador Brian Stiller was among the leaders present at the June meeting with Pope Francis.

“Tony was a most remarkable young man,” he said in an e-mail. “I so well remember his gracious and active leadership in bringing members of the World Evangelical Alliance together in conversation with Pope Francis late June.

“However, with his life and witness still fresh in our memory, I believe it is important that we carry on, as he would have desired, finding ways for our major Christian bodies to have friendship and to understand our respective communions,” said Stiller, who headed the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada for 16 years.
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