“Climate changes can only be addressed in a fair and sustainable way if it is proper dynamic between the care for the environment and the need for more justice,” said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit at an event in Colombia. “Neither in the North nor in the South can the challenges for the globe and the one humanity be seen primarily only from one of these perspectives,” he added.
Interview with the WCC general secretary, who is currently in Brasilia, about violence committed in the name of religion, human rights and climate justice in Brazil.
A worship service on 30 August at the Pentecostal Cathedral of Curico, Chile, featured participation from the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit and the WCC president for Latin America and the Caribbean Rev. Gloria Ulloa. Christian unity and ecumenical aspirations remained in focus at the service attended by more than 1,300 people.
“The effects of climate change today and tomorrow will affect basic human rights,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, during an audience with the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, at the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago on 29 August.
“Join the pilgrimage of justice and peace! Stand up for the creation that is threatened, for justice and peace, so that people may gain hope so that life will flourish. The most severe threat to basic human rights here in the next decades will be the dramatic effects of climate change. This is what eco-justice means.” This was a message the WCC general secretary conveyed at a public event of the Argentina Chancellery.
WCC support for churches’ struggles during the years of dictatorship in Argentina was praised by Aldo M. Etchegoyen, bishop emeritus of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina.
To strengthen relationships and support churches in Latin America in their struggles for justice and peace, a pilgrimage of church leaders organized by the WCC will visit Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Colombia from 24 August to 7 September.
With the forthcoming 1st Conference of States Parties, “the international community has an opportunity – and duty – to ensure effective and comprehensive implementation of the treaty; to make this document work to save lives in practice,” says a WCC statement issued from its international affairs.
When Rev. Rex Reyes leaves as Christian Conference of Asia president of clergy after two general assemblies and one term as president, the organization loses a humble and very articulate man firmly rooted in the faith.
“From the very beginning, women in the ecumenical movement have been raising the question of who is missing around the table and why,” said Dr Fulata Mbano-Moyo, speaking at the Latin American Congress on Gender and Religion.
Announcement of the Rev. Milton Mejía as the new general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) was greeted by the WCC general secretary as “an expressive gesture of care for the treasure of ecumenical witness.”
In a letter issued from Bogota, Colombia, local and international Christian leaders have demanded a bilateral ceasefire between the Colombian government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), urging that peace talks be resumed.
Strengthening their common indigenous identity and involvement in church life, young leaders from the Sami community of the Church of Sweden, a member church of the WCC, met recently with indigenous counterparts in Brazil.
Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church interacted with the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC on 22 June during their week-long meeting at the Caraiman Monastery in the southern Carpathian Mountains of Romania.
The WCC says it is grateful that the churches of the Union of Utrecht, the Philippine Independent Church, and the Episcopal Church have embarked on a study about Globalization and Catholicity.
Filipina church emergency programme manager Minnie Anne M. Calub looks to the prophet Isaiah for inspiration in rebuilding her country after the worst recorded typhoon smote her nation of islands in November 2013.
Rev. Dr Odair Pedroso Mateus, professor of ecumenical theology at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland and acting director of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, has been confirmed as the new Faith and Order director.
Young ecumenical leaders from Asia have met in Siam Reap, Cambodia to examine how religious traditions can offer resources to overcome religious violence in a changing Asian context.
The WCC general secretary has sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Indonesia H. E. Joko Widodo appealing for clemency for the 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution in Indonesia.
