Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church.
In a 20 May 2025 editorial in Anabaptist World, editor Paul Schrag reflects on Pope Francis’s legacy of humility and ecumenical outreach. In it, he notes the groundbreaking work of Bridgefolk and interviews longtime leaders Marlene Kropf and former abbot John Klassen.
Francis Like every pope, Francis was the world’s leading Christian cleric, but the similarity ended there. Distancing himself from institutional power, he inspired by moral example. Francis championed a compassionate faith that stood in contrast to authoritarian forms of Christianity rising today.
Servant leadership? That was Francis. In an unprecedented gesture of humility in 2013, he washed and kissed the feet of four inmates, including two women and a Muslim, at a juvenile detention center in Rome. It was the first time a pope included women in this ritual.
A voice for migrants, the poor and marginalized? That was Francis. Addressing a joint session of Congress in 2015, he reminded U.S. lawmakers that America was built by immigrants. “We, the people of this continent,” he said, referencing his Argentinian roots, “are not fearful of foreigners, because most of us were once foreigners.”
An advocate for faith-based environmental care? That was Francis. In a landmark 2015 encyclical, he declared Christian values align with action to mitigate climate change. He emphasized the biblical basis for creation care and cited irresponsible lifestyles as a cause of the climate crisis.
For Mennonites, Francis was a kindred spirit, a model of peace, humility, simplicity and stewardship. …
Mennonite World Conference press release 21 April 2025
Mennonite World Conference joins Catholics and other faith communities across the world in mourning the loss of Pope Francis, who died on 21 April 2025, at the age of 88. He had been recovering at his residence Domus Sanctae Marthae after hospitalization for bilateral pneumonia.
“With gratitude, we remember the life of Pope Francis,” says César García, MWC general secretary.
“We reflect on how, through his life and teachings, he highlighted important issues for our Anabaptist communion: the imitation of Christ in his approach to power; his understanding of leadership as service; his commitment to peace; his focus on marginalized individuals, the poor, and immigrants; his concern for church unity as demonstrated in his relationships with other Christian communions and the practice of synodality; his respect for different faiths; and his care for God’s creation. These efforts, among others, endeared him to many of our brothers and sisters throughout his years of ministry.”
The first Argentine pope in the history of the church was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936. He was trained as a chemical technician, then joined the Jesuit novitiate in 1958. He was ordained a priest in 1969, was consecrated bishop in 1992, archbishop in 1998 and was named a cardinal in 2001. He was elected to the papacy in 2013 when he became the first pope to take the name Francis.
Over the course of his papacy, he followed his namesake who was associated with poverty, simplicity and the renunciation of power. One example was his refusal to live in the Apostolic Palace (the usual residence of popes), choosing to live in an apartment in Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse instead.
Pope Francis was an advocate for refugees, for the poor, and for peace, speaking out strongly against war in numerous conflicts. He released the first papal encyclical on the environment, called “Laudato Si” and a subsequent apostolic exhortation, “Laudate Deum.” He appealed for everyone to “cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.”
“Pope Francis worked to ensure that the Catholic Church became a church that reaches out to the margins, is not self-centred and shows deep concern for minorities (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013). He was determined to involve all the baptized in the decision-making and work of the church. He sought to reflect on synodality with Christians from other churches,” says Anne-Cathy Graber, MWC secretary for ecumenical relations. “His intentional choices of simplicity over ceremony signified a new, different way of being pope, a new way of approaching governance.
“It was necessary to take courage: it’s another world, another vocabulary, another way of thinking. How was I to bring my own questions and be respectfully present as a guest while being fully Mennonite?” Anne-Cathy Graber asked these questions as she received an invitation to attend the Vatican’s Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod in October 2024.
Having taken the role of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Secretary for Ecumenical Relations for MWC in 2023, Anne-Cathy Graber represented Mennonite World Conference at the month-long event, which had 16 “fraternal delegates” representing other Christian churches and communities, 8 Protestant and 8 Orthodox.
Anne-Cathy Graber is an itinerant Mennonite pastor and theologian and co-director of the Chair of Ecumenical Theology at the Faculties Loyola Paris. She serves on MWC’s Faith & Life Commission. Additionally, she has represented Anabaptists at the Global Christian Forum Committee, in the Faith & Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (2014-2022), in the bilateral dialogue between MWC and the Reformed Church. She is also a consecrated sister in Chemin Neuf, a Catholic community with an ecumenical vocation.
The second and final session of the Vatican Synod on Synodality will include a Mennonite representative and underline the Catholic Church’s plan to promote dialogue with other Christian denominations, enhance transparency and take responsibility for mistakes.
The number of representatives from other Christian denominations at the synod has grown from 12 to 16 to include Mennonite World Conference, the World Lutheran Federation, the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.
The Oct. 3-27 gathering at the Vatican will include MWC representative Anne-Cathy Graber of France, a member of MWC’s Faith nd Life Commission and MWC’s representative to the Global Christian Forum. She is a Mennonite but also a member of the Chemin Neuf Catholic community in Paris.
Writing in Anabaptist World, the denominational magazine of the Mennonite Church USA, leading Mennonite historian John D. Roth has called upon Mennonites to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement that birthed their church in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness. Ecumenical “steps toward reconciliation in the past two decades” with Lutherans, Catholics, and Reformed churches “make it clear that the commemorative events … will need to look different” from the way that Mennonites once presented themselves in ecumenical encounters.
For example, if earlier accounts of Anabaptist beginnings depicted the movement primarily in heroic, even triumphalist, language, the 2025 commemoration will need to include space for confession. For many Mennonites our impulse in ecumenical settings is to claim our distinctive theological themes — community, discipleship, nonresistance — as if they were talismans that secure our moral superiority. The principle of “right remembering” calls us to also recognize shadow sides of those distinctives — the way in which our focus on distinctives can blind us to other theological truths — or to the gaps that exist between our precepts and our practice.
Second, a focus on Anabaptist origins in 16th-century Europe can easily overshadow the global reality of the church today. History matters, but almost all of the growth in MWC-member churches during the past 50 years has been in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The renewal of the Anabaptist tradition today is happening in the Global South.
Finally, our commemorations in 2025 will need to acknowledge the significant ecumenical relationships forged since 2004. These have spiritual significance and call on Mennonites to revise how we tell the story of the 16th century.
Roth is professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College, director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism and editor of Mennonite Quarterly Review. His article is available in the March issue of Anabaptist World.
SOUTH BEND, Indiana (Mennonite Church USA) — Events in Stuttgart, Germany, in 2010 brought Lutherans and Mennonites to tears and embraces in northern Indiana this month.
More than 20 Mennonites participated in a choir that led participants in hymns on June 11 during the closing worship at the annual assembly of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Leslie French, Indiana-Kentucky Synod Communicator)
During the June 9–11 annual assembly of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in South Bend, Indiana, more than 500 synod members and 25 local Mennonites heard the story of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation that happened between Lutherans and Mennonites at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) assembly in 2010, regarding the historic persecution of Anabaptists by Lutherans.
“The drama and significance of this 30-year process of reconciliation moved the audience,” said André Gingerich Stoner, director of interchurch relations for Mennonite Church USA, who shared the story along with Kathryn Johnson, director of ecumenical and inter-religious relations for the ELCA, during a presentation to the assembly on Saturday morning, June 11. Continue reading “Reconciliation recounted at regional ELCA gathering”→
Ecumenical dialogue is not an end in itself. It serves as an indispensable instrument to overcome the divisive, mutual misinterpretations of the past. Ecumenical encounters pave the way toward healing painful memories and lead to a deeper understanding of the church’s given unity, thus becoming a more credible witness of that truth.
Edited by Fernando Enns and Jonathan Seiling, Mennonites in Dialogue is a collection of all conversation texts involving Mennonites on international and national levels, covering forty years of encounters with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Baptists, and Seventh-Day Adventists, among others. The texts illustrate growth in agreement as well as identify the remaining convictions that still divide. Continue reading “Major new resource documents Mennonite ecumenical dialogue”→
WASHINGTON — I’m sure I was the only Mennonite there.
It was a cool, clear morning, with stars visible even through the urban twilight, as I cruised the six-mile bicycle ride from northeast Washington to downtown at 5 a.m. Sept. 23. I had been to 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue dozens of times before, but this time felt different. My adrenaline was pumping. The combination of streetlights and flashlights created a mixture of illumination and shadow. Cutting through the darkness, bodies were moving, directions were being given, expectations were high.
When I covered President Obama as a senior at Goshen (Ind.) College during his visit in 2009 to Elkhart County, his first speech outside of Washington as president, I learned how political reporting can be memorable, and an honor, yet not especially dignifying. I was reminded of this recently while at the White House.
I.D., please, the Secret Service officer said. I showed it to him. He motioned for me to pass. It was really happening.
LAWRENCE JENNINGS of Infinity Mennonite Church in New York City has been involved in community and economic development for more than three decades. Since 2013, he has been affiliated with GreenFaith, first as a Fellow, and currently as a lead organizer of the new Restoration Nation faith communities/green jobs initiative. A member of the Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona College, he was one of the key organizers of the People’s Climate March faith contingent, and has ongoing involvement with the People’s Climate Movement, the organizing body that took shape after the March. In these involvements, as well as his work with The Groundswell Group and Moral Mondays, he works closely with faith communities and inner city and “frontline” groups that often are overlooked or excluded. He authored the Open Letter from African American clergy on Climate Change as part of the “Our Voices” campaign, and is on the Steering Committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, both of which aim to encourage people of to speak out about the moral and scientific urgency of the environmental crisis. Lawrence was asked by GreenFaith to write a response to the Pope’s newly released environmental teachings from the Anabaptist/Mennonite perspective. His article originally appeared in two parts on the Mennonite Church USA website (here and here). Continue reading “A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism”→
