When Dr Ulysses Burley III visited Palestine and Israel six months ago, he came away with an even stronger determination to work for social justice, wherever and however he can.
Churches in the United States, including member churches of the WCC, have called on the Obama administration to open up a high-level dialogue with Cuba aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries.
A reflection on the recent United Nations meeting on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, by Jonathan Frerichs, WCC programme executive for peace building and disarmament, and member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The WCC Executive Committee has condemned the use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles saying that they pose “serious threats to humanity” and the “right to life” while setting “dangerous precedents in inter-state relations”.
World leaders at the United Nations last week backed two steps in relation to the Arms Trade Treaty, promoted by churches, to make people safer through new laws to control deadly weapons.
The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has expressed condolences following the death of Brother Jeffrey Gros, recalling his significant contributions to Christian unity and ecumenical dialogue as a Catholic theologian.
Events in Northeast Asia this year “dramatize how much the region and the world still live in the shadow of mass destruction”, the WCC general secretary said in a comment on the 68th anniversary this week of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. “The God of life calls all of us to take up [the survivors’] tireless cry and make certain that a Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombing can never happen again.”
