MWC requests prayer for Honduran church following murder of pastor
Mennonite World Conference has issued the following press release in the wake of the murder of Rafael Erasmo Arevalo, a Mennonite pastor in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras. Bridgefolk participant Joetta Schlabach has been traveling in Central America and had recently talked with other church workers in the Copán area. Motives for the murder are not known, but Schlabach reports that tensions are high in the area. In many parts of the country, gang and drug-related violence are exacerbating a repressive climate continuing in the wake of a 2009 coup in Honduras. Further tensions in the Copán area surround efforts to organize miners working for Canadian mining companies.
On Sunday, January 22, Rafael Erasmo Arevalo, a Mennonite pastor in Honduras, was attacked and killed after leading an evening worship service. Arevalo, from Santa Rosa de Copán, drove about 20 kilometres north to Veracruz, where he had led worship services for the past 10 years.
According to a report in a Honduran newspaper, La Prensa, Arevalo parked his car at the home of a Veracruz city councilor and then walked to the church. When he returned to his car after the worship service, he was attacked by “unknown persons.” His body was not discovered until the next morning, about five kilometers from the scene of the attack. Read more
Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee worker in Guatemala join to resist dam project threatening Maya Indian land
by Tobias Roberts
International Development Worker
(reposted from the Huffington Post)
Tension filled the cramped, block-wall room in the Guatemalan highlands as indigenous leaders sat across from negotiators for ENEL, an Italian-based energy company building a $228-million hydro-electric dam in the area. Local Mayan Ixhil leaders hoped the presence of a renowned Catholic archbishop, a prominent Presbyterian clergyman and a Mennonite development worker from the U.S. — me — would improve their chances in the high-stakes negotiations.
Community leaders in the heavily Catholic area first invited us to be part of the talks in May 2011, when ENEL agreed to sit down with indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands the Palo Viejo Dam is being built. Guatemalan Archbishop Ramazzini, an internationally recognized defender of human rights, and Dr. Vitalino Similox, head of the Christian Ecumenical Council of Guatemala, helped facilitate the talks. I sat in as an international observer, having been sent to the area by the North American-based Mennonite Central Committee. Read more
Catholic-Mennonite encuentro in Guatemala
COBAN, Guatemala – Local Catholics and Mennonites recently gathered in an unprecedented ecumenical meeting in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Among the participants were Rob and Tara Cahill, former workers with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Coban. Read more
Mennonite & Catholic theologians featured in Forum on Justice & Forgiveness in Colombia
The South American nation of Colombia continues to attract our attention as the place in Latin America where Mennonites and Catholics are cooperating most regularly in peacemaking projects. An event organized by the Colombian Bible Society recently turned to a Mennonite and a Catholic for two of its three major presentations. A news service associated with the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) reports:
Read more
Bridging a Divided Church in Colombia
The following news release from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) reports on a joint peacemaking project by Mennonites and Catholics in the South American nation of Colombia. CPT describes its mission as “Getting in the Way,” and asks: “What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?” CPT seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. For further information on CPT, visit http://www.cpt.org/.
Read more
Colombian Catholics and Mennonites strike new bonds at first dialogue
Bogotá, Colombia (MWC)- “I have been able to get to know a new world that I never knew before,” said Monsignor Fidel Cadavid, the bishop of Quibdo, Colombia. “Without knowing one another, it is impossible to practice ecumenism.”
Bishop Cadavid plans to connect with the Mennonite congregation in Quibdo on his return. “I see a great affinity [between our churches] in peace work. Working together, we will have more strength and be more effective in our advocacy.”
He was speaking of “Called Together to be Peacemakers,” an encounter for Catholic – Mennonite Dialogue which took place here August 15 and 16 at the Episcopal Conference of Colombia. Read more
Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America
A recent publication from the Mennonite Central Committee — the cooperative agency of Mennonite denominations in North America for relief, development and peacebuilding — surveys bridge-building efforts between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America. The April-June issue of the Peace Office Newsletter is available online at http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2007-02.pdf. Introducing the newsletter is the following article: Read more
Colombian Mennonites and Catholics Invite Dialogue
NEWS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
For Immediate Release
August 30, 2005
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – “Called Together to be Peacemakers,” a document issued after five years of dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity of the Catholic Church and representatives of Mennonite World Conference, was the topic of an ecumenical dialogue at the Colombian Catholic Bishops Conference here on May 20, 2005. Read more
Mennonite and Catholic Churches in Colombia meeting this week
Representatives of three Mennonite and Brethren in Christ denominations in Colombia, South America are meeting this week with the Department of Doctrine and Ecumenism of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Colombia, as a follow-up to the international dialogue between Mennonites and Catholics.
This news comes in a letter from Pedro Stucky of Colombia to church members living outside the country, forwarded by Larry Miller of Mennonite World Conference and requesting prayer. The text appears below, in English and Spanish.
Let us joining in prayer that this historic meeting will further “the healing of memories” in Colombia and throughout Latin America. Read more
