Ecumenical friendship calls for solidarity with ancient Christian communities in Middle East

Christians gather for Evening Prayer outside St. Joseph’s Church in Erbil. (photo: Don Duncan, CNEWA)

Ecumenical friendship is not only about theological dialogue and common causes–it is also about solidarity in suffering, our calling to “bear one another’s burdens” in the body of Christ so that we might “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). The Catholic Near East Welfare Agency (CNEWA) is a Vatican agency that provides humanitarian and pastoral support for the Eastern Catholic churches. CNEWA works in Eastern Europe, Northeast Africa and throughout the Middle East. A key area of CNEWAs work has been supporting seminaries and training catechists in some of the oldest Christian communities that are struggling to survive in challenging conditions.

This year the church marks Advent and Christmas while many thousands of Catholic Christians have been displaced by expanding war in northern Iraq. They are waiting and wondering whether they will ever be able to return home. Their story is told in an article titled “Exodus” in the magazine ONE, published by CNEWA. Here’s a brief sample:

At night, above this landscape of abjection reigns a scattering of glimmering crosses. On the feast of the Triumph of the Cross, celebrated on 14 September, Iraqi Christians erect illuminated crosses on top of their buildings and leave them there for several weeks. The crosses they left behind in Qaraqosh and Bartella have most likely been taken down or destroyed, but crosses seem to have redoubled across the recently overpopulated Christian enclaves of Iraqi Kurdistan.

While the presence of the crosses certainly brings hope to the faithful, the harsh reality grinds on: It has been months since their expulsion and they are still languishing in churches, tents, abandoned basements, unfinished buildings, repurposed schools and social centers.”

For the full story click here

Pope Francis: “War is never necessary, nor is it inevitable.”

Vatican City, 8 September 2014 (VIS) – This Sunday the Holy Father sent a video message to all the representatives of the Christian Churches, ecclesial communities and all heads of world religions who will meet in the Belgian city of Antwerp from 7 to 9 September for the International Meeting for Peace organised by the Sant’Egidio Community. This year’s theme, “Peace is the Future”, commemorates the dramatic outbreak of the First World War one hundred years ago, and evokes a future in which mutual respect, dialogue and cooperation will help banish the sinister phantom of armed conflict.

“In these days, in which many people throughout the world need help to find the way to peace, this anniversary teaches us that war is never a satisfactory means of redressing injustice or reaching balanced solutions to social and political discord. In the final analysis every war, as Pope Benedict XV stated in 1917, is a ‘useless massacre’. War drags populations into a spiral of violence that is then shown to be difficult to control; it demolishes what generations have worked to build and paves the way for injustice and even worse conflicts.”

Pope Francis stressed that “we cannot remain passive” when faced with “the innumerable conflicts and wars, declared and undeclared, that nowadays afflict the human family and ruin the lives of the youngest and of the elderly, poisoning long-standing relationships of co-existence between different ethnic groups and religions.” He remarked that with the power of prayer “our various religious traditions are able, in the spirit of Assisi, to offer a contribution to peace. … I hope that these days of prayer and dialogue will serve to remind us that the search for peace and understanding through prayer can create lasting bonds of unity and prevail over the passions of war. War is never necessary, nor is it inevitable. There is always an alternative: the path of dialogue, encounter and the sincere search for truth.”

“The moment has arrived for the heads of all religions to cooperate effectively in the task of healing wounds, of resolving conflicts and seeking peace. Peace is the sure sign of commitment to God’s cause.” The Pontiff concluded by encouraging all those present to be “builders of peace” and to convert communities into “schools of respect and dialogue with those of other ethnic or religious groups, places in which we learn to overcome tensions, promote equitable and peaceful relations among peoples and social groups, and build a better future for the generations to come.”

On the journey with Lutheran brothers and sisters: an interview with John D. Roth

By Andre Gingerich Stoner

At its most recent meeting, the Executive Board asked Ervin Stutzman, executive director, to send a letter of greeting and Christian friendship to Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The letter recounts with gratitude the remarkable developments in Mennonite-Lutheran relations in the past fifteen years. It acknowledges ways Anabaptists, too, have at times misrepresented Lutherans and Lutheran practices.

Further, the letter responds to occasional informal questions from Lutheran leaders as to whether Mennonites regard Lutherans as fully part of the body of Christ. Finally it affirms the current three-way dialogue on baptism between Mennonite World Conference, the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican.

John Roth, professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College, was part of the formal dialogue with Lutherans both on behalf of Mennonite Church USA and later Mennonite World Conference. We have asked him to reflect on the content and the significance of the recent letter sent on behalf of Mennonite Church USA to Presiding Bishop Eaton of the ELCA.

See the interview here.

Pope Francis apologizes for persecution of Pentecostals

by Josephine McKenna
Religious News Service

CASERTA, Italy (RNS) Pope Francis sought forgiveness for decades of persecution of Italian Pentecostals when he met with around 300 evangelicals from the U.S., Argentina and Italy in the southern town of Caserta on Monday (July 28).

The pope made his second visit in as many days to the Mafia stronghold near Naples, this time to meet evangelical pastor Giovanni Traettino, whom he befriended while he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

During the visit, Francis apologized for the persecution suffered by Pentecostals under Italy’s fascist regime in the 1920s and 1930s and urged Christians to celebrate their diversity and unity. Continue reading “Pope Francis apologizes for persecution of Pentecostals” →

Resisting an evil spirit: persecuted Nigerians uphold the gospel of peace

May 8, 2014 by Paul Schrag, Mennonite World Review

While Christians in North America debate theology and church rules, those in Nigeria face far greater challenges. The threat of death, fleeing one’s home or seeing one’s place of worship attacked and destroyed will put other problems in perspective.

Victims of persecution include members of the Church of the Brethren, whose Anabaptist peace beliefs are being tested.

How can Brethren leaders tell their members not to defend their homes and families? asks Samuel Dante Dali, president of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, in the Brethren Messenger magazine. Dali describes a “struggle to face a virtually impossible situation and yet maintain a voice for peace.”

Continue reading “Resisting an evil spirit: persecuted Nigerians uphold the gospel of peace” →

Greek Catholics in Ukraine restore former Mennonite church building

Release date:

Monday, 5 May 2014

Kitchener, Ontario (Mennonite World Conference) – In Ukraine a former Mennonite church building is being restored and transformed – with the help of Canadian Mennonites – into a Greek Catholic church.

This development, according to observers, is an example of Mennonite-Catholic collaboration in the spirit of other exchanges over the past decade or so. Continue reading “Greek Catholics in Ukraine restore former Mennonite church building” →

A dialogue gets renewed

Brenda Suderman, a writer for the Winnipeg Free Press, describes ongoing ecumenical initiatives between Mennonites and Catholics in Winnipeg, including Bridgefolk participant Helmut Harder.

More than just friends, not quite a family, a dozen Christians who gather regularly to share their faith over a meal are quietly setting an example for new ecclesiastical relationships.

After 14 years of meeting in parish halls and church basements, the members of Winnipeg’s Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue have no plans to end this long-running liaison between their two faith traditions.

“I’ve tried now and then to shut it down, but then people remind me they see value in this,” explains Helmut Harder, a retired Mennonite theologian who has participated from the beginning.

“It (the dialogue) keeps me abreast of what is going on in the Catholic Church.”

Whether in basement gatherings or meetings between high level faith leaders, Christians should expect more initiatives of this type under Pope Francis, says Catholic theologian Catherine E. Clifford of St. Paul University in Ottawa.

Suderman goes on to quote Clifford on how ecumenism has evolved since Vatican II and the continued importance of working toward unity, and Harder on the renewed interest in ecumenism that he observes in Winnipeg. The full article from the Winnipeg Free Press website is available here.

Pope Francis reaches out to Pentecostals, says all share blame for church divisions

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In an unusual video message, recorded on an iPhone by a Pentecostal pastor Pope Francis knew in Argentina, the pope says all Christians share blame for their divisions, speaks of his “longing” for their unity and insists that God will bring the miracle of Christian unity to completion.

“Pray to the Lord that he will unite us all,” the pope tells a group of Pentecostals meeting in the United States. “Let’s move forward, we are brothers; let us give each other that spiritual embrace and allow the Lord to complete the work he has begun. Because this is a miracle; the miracle of unity has begun.”

In the video, posted on YouTube and never released by the Vatican, the pope quotes a character from a novel by Alessandro Manzoni; the character says, “‘I have never found that the Lord began a miracle without finishing it well.’ He will finish well this miracle of unity,” the pope added. Continue reading “Pope Francis reaches out to Pentecostals, says all share blame for church divisions” →

Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans hold second round of dialogue on baptism

Co-chairs of the commission (from left): Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga, Friederike Nüssel, Alfred Neufeld. Photo by Eleanor Miller

Release date: Sunday, 9 March 2014

Strasbourg, France – “I continue to be inspired by the mutuality of our work,” commented John Rempel of Toronto, Ontario, one of the Mennonite participants in the 26-31 January 2014 second meeting of the Trilateral (Catholic, Lutheran, Mennonite) Dialogue Commission on Baptism.

The general topic of the dialogue, which is to extend over four years, is “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church.” The theme for this year was “Baptism: God’s Grace in Christ and Human Sin”.

“Everyone is treated equally even though we are by far the smallest confession,” noted Rempel. “We are all trying to rethink the issues in terms of the 21st century, not only the 16th century.”

He commented further, “I find myself grappling especially with two aspects of this year’s meeting. I’m discovering how important sacraments are to Lutherans and Catholics as expressions of God’s initiative: God is mysteriously at work by means of prayer and water, whether we respond to it or not. And yet I can’t understand God’s initiative in the New Testament without the human response to grace.”

“At the same time our partners fear that we put so much weight on the human decision to believe that God’s initiative is pushed to the background. The participants are aware that only through the work of the Holy Spirit will this dialogue lead us closer to the mind of Christ.”

Continue reading “Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans hold second round of dialogue on baptism” →