Category: Announcements

Invitation to 2005 Bridgefolk Conference: “Friendship on the Bridge”

Greetings in the name of our risen Savior!

I am writing to officially invite you to the 2005 gathering of Bridgefolk, to be held July 21-24 at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  Attached you will find a registration form, along with a tentative program.  These items are also available at the Bridgefolk website, www.bridgefolk.net, along with additional information and program highlights.  You will note that the arrangements and costs are very similar to previous years.

This year’s Bridgefolk conference will focus on the role of friendship in building the Mennonite Catholic bridge.  As we look back over the past few years it is clear that friendships of all kinds have played a major role in bringing us to this point. The advice we once received from leaders of the Sant’Egidio ecclesial community rings true: “Proceed through friendship.”  We want to give special attention this year to how friendships in various settings and locales are creating new bridges.

Speakers this year will talk about the role of friendship in peacemaking, in community building and in ecumenical relationships, especially at the local level.  The ‘haiku’ snapshots that were such a big success last year will focus on individual stories of friendship between Mennonites and Catholics. And as usual there will be plenty of free time for participants to renew old friendships and to make new ones.

Holding this summer’s conference at Eastern Mennonite University is a major step forward for Bridgefolk.  It anchors us more firmly on the Mennonite side, and we also expect that the new location will attract a considerable number of new people into our conversation.  For that reason it’s important for people who have attended in the past to return in order to help the new participants feel welcome.

Please register as early as possible.  And think about bringing someone with you. Remember that your presence at the Bridgefolk conferences is one of the most important contributions to the bridge you can make.

Gerald W. Schlabach
Bridgefolk Executive Director

 

New resources for theological reflection

As part of a new effort by Bridgefolk to revitalize something called the “Mennonite Catholic Theological Colloquium” (MCTC) we have now put up a new page on our website, http://bridgefolk.net.  You can find it by looking for the new “Theology” link on the yellow bar at the top of every page, or you can go directly to http://bridgefolk.net/theology.

Many of the links on this page have come elsewhere on our website and been reorganized.  But a number of new articles are available too, marked by our usual yellow “New!” star.

Of special importance is an article by Darrin Belousek that urges Mennonites to strengthen their peace tradition by drawing on what Catholics call a “Consistent Ethic of Life.”  The article appears with permission of The Mennonite Quarterly Review, where it is slated for formal publication.  Editor John D. Roth invites responses to Belousek, possibly for publication.  We hope this encourages the sort of conversation that the MCTC initiated a few years ago, and that we are looking to promote in new ways in the future.

Finally, an apology and a request:  The resources we provide at http://bridgefolk.net/theology have simply come together as they have come to our attention.  Unfortunately that results in a disproportionate number of pieces from two resources — myself and The Mennonite Quarterly Review, thanks its growing interest in ecumenical themes in the last few years.  The request, then, is that you let me know whenever you become aware of significant pieces on themes of interest to both Mennonites and Catholics.  I look forward to correcting any imbalance.

Gerald W. Schlabach
Bridgefolk Executive Director

Announcing change in location for 2005 conference

On behalf of the Bridgefolk Board, we are pleased to announce that we will be holding our 2005 conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia, at Eastern Mennonite University.  Dates for the conference remain the same:  Thursday evening July 21 through Sunday noon July 24.

Why the change?

The idea came from several participants–some Catholic, some Mennonite–not from anyone on the board.  These persons felt that after three years of Mennonites experiencing Catholic community at Saint John’s it was time for Catholics to have the opportunity to experience Mennonite life in a Mennonite community. Continue reading “Announcing change in location for 2005 conference” →

Mennonite ecumenical conference

The following conference announcement may be of interest to some Bridgefolk participants.

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Collaborative Ministries
April 18-21, 2005 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – Sheraton Cavalier Hotel

The Prairie Centre for Ecumenism in Saskatoon is planning the conference, with a team consisting of Mennonite, United Church, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic members. We are building on the strength of two highly successful national shared ministry events (Winnipeg 1993 and Edmonton 2002) and also on annual “ecumenical institutes”, the most recent one held in May 2004 in Winnipeg, which have been held across the prairies for the past several years, attracting participants from a wider number of denominations who are interested in learning about and promoting ecumenical sharing in their congregations and regions. Continue reading “Mennonite ecumenical conference” →

First books in Bridgefolk Series published

Catholic and Mennonite theologians have been discussing two of the most difficult issues dividing their traditions—baptism and the ethics of warfare.  Now their discussions have been published in a new Bridgefolk series.

On BaptismThe first two volumes in the new Bridgefolk Series are now off the press. They are the results of the Mennonite Catholic Theological Colloquium, which was convened four years ago by Bridgefolk leaders Gerald Schlabach and Ivan Kauffman to stimulate conversation between Mennonite and Catholic theologians on the major issues then being discussed by the International Mennonite Catholic Dialogue.

Fifteen theologians were invited to participate in an email exchange of papers and comments over a period of months. About one third of the participants were Mennonites, a third were Catholics, and a third were persons like the conveners who had commitments to both traditions.

The first two volumes make available to the public the discussions on baptism, which took place in 2001, and the discussions of the concept of Just Policing which took place in 2002.

The lead paper in the volume on baptism is by the Catholic theologian, Frederick C. Bauerschmidt.  The Mennonite response is by Thomas Finger, and there are further comments by the Mennonite scholar Alan Kreider, and others. The lead paper in the volume on just policing is by Gerald Schlabach, with a response by the Catholic theologian Joseph Capizzi.  There is additional response from the Mennonite theologian J. Denny Weaver, and others.

The Bridgefolk Series is published by Pandora Press, whose director is Arnold Snyder.  Both volumes are available from Pandora via their website www.pandorapress.com.

Marlene Kropf, new Bridgefolk co-chair

We are pleased to announce that Marlene Kropf, one of our co-founders, has accepted the invitation of the Bridgefolk board to become our new co-chair.

Abbot John Klassen continues as our other co-chair.

Marlene Kropf is Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation and Worship at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart, Indiana) and Assistant Director of the Congregational and Ministerial Leadership Team for Mennonite Church USA.  As part of that assignment, she serves as Minister of Worship for the denomination.  She is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church.

Marlene and her husband Stanley are members of Belmont Mennonite Church (Elkhart).

Personal letter from Gerald Schlabach

May 20, 2004

Dear friends:

On May 29, at the Pentecost Vigil service at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church here in St. Paul, I plan to be received into the Catholic Church.

This moment has come through a long journey — five years, seven years, twenty years, depending how I count.  I can only barely begin to give an account of that journey in a letter such as this.  But I do want to say to all of you who have participated in Bridgefolk, or followed its development, what I believe this means for Bridgefolk — and more importantly, what it does not mean.

Four years ago, Joetta and I invited about a dozen friends and colleagues in Bluffton, Ohio, to accompany us through a process of discernment concerning my belief that God was calling me to enter formally into communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  The “word” that we heard through that very holy time was “not now.”  It especially seemed wise to hold off on any such move after the possibility opened up for another kind of move, to Minnesota and a teaching position at the University of St. Thomas.  This has allowed for slower testing and more organic development, as Joetta, the boys and I have found comfortable ways of participating in the life of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis even as I have regularly attended mass at a largely African-American Catholic parish not far from our home in St. Paul.

Meanwhile my work as a member of a Catholic theology department, new opportunities to participate in Mennonite Central Committee projects, and of course the development of Bridgefolk as a shared movement among Mennonites and Catholics, have all confirmed that to take Mennonite gifts and charisms into the Catholic communion is becoming thinkable and, for at least a few, a calling.

I understand myself, therefore, to be responding to that call.  I continue to understand Bridgefolk, however, to be a gathering place for people who are being called to bridge the Anabaptist-Mennonite and Roman Catholic traditions in a variety of ways.  I have often said in Bridgefolk circles, that in a broken and divided church there is no perfect way to embody links to both communities.  Nor is there one right way to work for reconciliation.

As Cardinal Walter Kasper has said, the proper goal of interchurch dialogue is not that we move closer to one another but rather that together we move closer to Jesus Christ

I hope it is clear, then, that my own journey should not be seen as somehow normative for Bridgefolk.  The one change that all this will mean for Bridgefolk is a change that should in fact confirm that Bridgefolk is a place for both “Catholic Mennonites” and “Mennonite Catholics.”  Though I will continue to provide volunteer staff support as Bridgefolk Coordinator, the steering committee will soon be naming one of our Mennonite leaders for the role of co-chair.  (Abbot John Klassen will continue as the Catholic co-chair.)

Looking from the outside this will no doubt seem to some to be a momentous decision; for me it feels like only a small move from “Catholic Mennonite”

to “Mennonite Catholic.”  Joetta is at peace and my sons have jokingly called me a Catholic for years.  I would be insensitive if I thought that this news could come painlessly to all of my Mennonite friends and family.

Yet for that reason I am especially grateful for the blessing of the deacons at Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis, who have agreed to my request to retain associate membership in the congregation.

As always, I am exceedingly grateful for your prayers, collaboration, and friendship.  I look forward to seeing many of you soon at our coming conference at Saint John’s Abbey.

Grace and peace,

 

Gerald W. Schlabach
Bridgefolk Coordinator

Report from Mennonite – Catholic Dialogue now available

“Called Together to Be Peacemakers,” the final report of the international dialogue that occurred from 1998-2003 between representatives of the Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Church Unity, was released in February.  Thanks to the gracious help of the MWC office in Strasburg, France, we have been able to make the report available on the web.  You will find a link to the document at http://www.bridgefolk.net/theology/dialogue.

The release of any such document would be a major event in Mennonite – Catholic relations, but the document makes major substantive contributions on many points.  Chapter 1 endeavors to narrate the history that separated Mennonites from Catholics in a way that both can accept.  Chapter 2 takes up three key theological concerns: the nature of the church, understandings of sacraments/ordinances, and the call to peacemaking.  Chapter 3 closes with confessions of past sin that invite Mennonites and Catholics to move forward through a “healing of memories.”

While reading and reflecting on the document, begin thinking about how you might use it to encourage local dialogues between Mennonites and Catholics in your own setting.