Category: News

Mennonites receive award from Catholic voluntary service organization

Network accepts on behalf of Mennonites in world service

(Editor’s note: This a joint release by Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Central Committee.)

TAKOMA PARK, Md. — On Nov. 13, Catholic Network of Volunteer Service

(CNVS) presented its Father George Mader Award to a group outside of the Catholic tradition for the first time in its 15-year history. Mennonite Mission Network accepted the award at the CNVS National Conference on behalf of Mennonites in mission across the world, including Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).

The Mission Network and MCC serve the church in more than 60 countries through direct relief, peacemaking and community development with resources of around $73 million U.S., engaging close to 2,000 personnel committed to terms of one year or more.

Del Hershberger, Mission Network director of Christian Service, accepted the award, which honors organizations and individuals that encourage Christian men and women to serve others in the U.S. and abroad. CNVS representatives singled out Mennonite Voluntary Service, a Mission Network program, for special acclaim.

“For six decades, Mennonite Voluntary Service of the Mennonite Mission Network has been a powerful influence serving the poor and marginalized in hundreds of communities throughout North America,” said Jim Lindsay, CNVS executive director. “MVS has been a powerful influence on the church.

Thousands of Mennonites (and increasingly people from other denominations) have served the marginalized people of North America in the past six decades. In the process, they themselves were served and transformed by the oppressed and hurting people among whom they lived and worked.”

Hershberger agreed that MVS, and service in general, has transformed the church over the last century. “We have become engaged with the needs and brokenness of the world. We have gone from being a rural people in close-knit communities, to being more urban and integrated into mainstream society. We have also become engaged in more ecumenical conversations and have built bridges to other Christian groups who are seeking to follow Jesus daily in life, and to be vessels of healing and hope in this broken world,” Hershberger said.

CNVS created the Father George Mader Award in 1989 to honor organizations and individuals that encourage lay men and women to serve others in the United States and abroad. The award is named after Father George Mader, of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., who, together with his sister, Patricia Mader Stalker, in 1963 founded the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, a non-profit association of more than 200 domestic and international volunteer and lay mission programs which currently has more than 12,000 volunteers and lay missioners serving in its member programs throughout the U.S. and in 115 countries worldwide.

———————————————————————-

Reprinting this article is encouraged.
Please send clippings to
MCC Communications
P.O. Box 500
Akron, PA  17501-0500

———————————————————————-

Mennonite Mission Network receives prestigious Mader Award on behalf of all Mennonites in service

TAKOMA PARK, Md. (Mennonite Mission Network/Mennonite Central Committee/CNVS) — On Nov. 13, Catholic Network of Volunteer Service (CNVS) presented its Father George Mader Award to a group outside of the Catholic tradition for the first time in its 15-year history. Mennonite Mission Network accepted the award at the CNVS National Conference on behalf of Mennonites in mission across the world, including Mennonite Central Committee.

Full story

Remembering the Cloud of Witnesses: 2nd Ecumenical Conference on 16th-century Martyrdom

PRESS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
August 12, 2004

COLLEGEVILLE, Minnesota — Mennonite and Catholic historians and theologians continued the study of 16th-century religious martyrdom that began last year. Discussions at Saint John’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Minnesota, July 26-28, included plans to form an ecumenical institute for on-going scholarly research on this topic.

The conference was entitled, “Sixteenth century martyrdom in ecumenical perspective.” Ivan Kauffman, a Washington, D.C.-based writer and one of the conference organizers, provided this framework: “The church today stands between a past marred by extensive violence and a future committed to peacemaking. We must somehow connect our historical past to our very different future.”

Sixteenth-century martyrdom became a topic of ecumenical discussion when, in 1998, the Mennonite World Conference entered into a five-year dialogue with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Two major contributors to the international dialogue, Drew Christiansen, S.J., and Helmut Harder, spoke at this year’s martyrs conference.

Full story

World Needs “The Spirit of Assisi,” Peace, Not Violence

VATICAN CITY, SEP 8, 2004 (VIS) – Made public today was a Message from Pope John Paul to Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, asking him to greet the representatives of Churches, ecclesial communities and the great religions of the world who met in Milan from September 5 to 7 on the theme “Religions and Cultures: The Courage of a New Humanism.” The Pope also saluted the organizers of this meeting, including Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Milan and the community of Sant’Egidio. Continue reading “World Needs “The Spirit of Assisi,” Peace, Not Violence” →

More coverage of Bridgefolk

In the last “Bridgefolk Brief” we promised to share a link to a article in the Mennonite Weekly Review on our recent gathering at Saint John’s Abbey, once it became available.  In fact, MWR editor Robert Rhodes has three articles in the new issue (or at least the on-line edition) plus a collection of photographs on the abbey.  Here are the links:

“Dialogue mirrors desire to seek more liturgical forms”
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-23-04/LITURGY08-23.html

“Encounter with Mennonites changed abbot’s outlook on peace”
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-23-04/TRAPPIST08-23.html

“Mennonites answer the call to become Benedictine oblates”
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-23-04/OBLATES08-23.html

Photo gallery:”
A place apart: St. John’s Abbey offers help in building a bridge between traditions”
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-23-04/SJUphotosA08-23.html

News reports on recent Mennonite-Catholic gatherings

Whether or not you were able to participate in the gatherings of Mennonites and Catholics in late July at Saint John’s Abbey, you may be interested in reading accounts of those events as they appear.  A news story on the Bridgefolk gathering is to appear next week in The Mennonite Weekly Review; I will send out a link to the story when it becomes available.  In the meantime here are two articles on the Martyrs Conference that took place in the days before, along with an editorial in the Mennonite Weekly Review that comments favorably on the state of Mennonite-Catholic dialogue.

“Mennonite, Catholic Scholars Consider Anabaptist Martyr Legacy,” by Robert Rhodes Mennonite Weekly Review,  16 August 2004
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-16-04/MARTYRS08-16.html

“Remembering the Cloud of Witnesses: Second Ecumenical Conference on 16th-century Martyrdom”  — Mennonite World Conference release from a report by Marilyn Stahl and Dirk Giseburt
http://www.mwc-cmm.org/News/MWC/040812rls3.html

“Faith’s Common Ground,” editorial by Robert Rhodes Mennonite Weekly Review, 16 August 2004
http://www.mennoweekly.org/AUGUST/08-16-04/EDIT08-16.html

Confession and Forgiveness Mark Anabaptist-Reformed Conference

NEWS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference

For Immediate Release
July 9, 2004

Zurich, Switzerland – Christians from the Zwinglian Reform tradition and the Anabaptist global church confessed sins that separated them 500 years ago and extended forgiveness to each other at an event called “remarkable and memorable.” Settings for the Reformed-Anabaptist Reconciliation Conference were the Grossmunster and nearby Limmat River in the city of Zurich on June 26.

Throughout the day, some 400 people, representing four continents and the two traditions, took steps toward new understanding of what drove them apart and new relationships as brothers and sisters with a common vision.

Full story

Sidebar

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.

Mennonite-Catholic International Dialogue Report Going to Churches

NEWS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference

For Immediate Release
April 7, 2004

At first thought, a small group of Mennonites and a Vatican delegation seem to be unlikely conversation partners. But maybe not. Five-plus years after they first met for a formal Dialogue, seven representatives from Mennonite World Conference (MWC) and seven from the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity have issued a Report of their conversations. Its title hints at the intention of the meetings, as well as their tone–“Called Together to Be Peacemakers.”

But the conversations and the Report are only one part of the process for MWC. Another part is just beginning. Mennonite World Conference is forwarding copies of the Report to all of its member churches for their “study and reaction.” The English document has been translated into French; a Spanish translation is underway.

“On the MWC side, we are now entering a broadening stage in the process,” explained MWC Executive Secretary Larry Miller, who was one of the participants in the conversations. “This Report is not a kind of Encyclical handed down from the MWC office. Instead, it is intended to be reviewed and explored by Mennonites and Brethren in Christ around the world–from the point of view of their own contexts and convictions.” Continue reading “Mennonite-Catholic International Dialogue Report Going to Churches” →