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During an Africa-Europe Ecumenical Forum on Migration, held 15-19 March In Hamburg, Germany, nearly 60 people gathered to discuss, among many other issues, the negative effects of “irregular” migration, caused in part by the growth of inequality within and between countries.

World Council of Churches (WCC) interim general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca offered reflections on the newest encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti. Subtitled “On fraternity and social friendship,” the document is the Pope’s third encyclical.

An ongoing webinar series convened this week by the World Council of Churches (WCC) continues to offer theological reflections on “Hate Speech and Whiteness.”

The rescue ship Sea-Watch 4, purchased by a crowdfund led by the Evangelical Church in Germany, is ready to start operating in the Mediterranean Sea to help migrants attempting to reach Europe from North Africa.

A German delegation comprised of representatives of municipalities, church leaders and prominent civil society organizations recently visited the Greek island of Lesbos, already hosting tens of thousands of migrants and displaced people, and was on site when the news of the opening of the Turkish border was announced and the first new arrivals were appearing.

Citing an “appalling record” of failure to rescue refugees at sea, the Evangelical Church in Germany, along with other faith-based and civil society groups, are calling for better solutions.

The Protestant Church in Germany and Palermo (Italy) Mayor Leoluca Orlando have issued a joint declaration calling for a European distribution mechanism for boat refugees.

Currently there is no Europe-wide distribution mechanism to accommodate refugees rescued in the Mediterranean in the European Union. The declaration calls for a political emergency solution this summer, and urges a group of European Union member states to act as a “coalition of the willing” and develop a sustainable migration policy.

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) was featured in the DW Global Media Forum held 27-28 May in Bonn, Germany. More than 2,000 media professionals, policymakers, and movers from politics and civil society, culture and education, business and science – representing 140 countries – attended the conference.

The Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI) and others involved in support for migrants on land, at sea and in the skies are strengthening their collaboration.

The humanitarian corridors programme, an ecumenical project developed by the FCEI’s Mediterranean Hope team with the Comunità di Sant’Egidio in 2015 is now in its second phase.

At a time of increased divisions within churches and within rapidly changing societies, Christians are called, more urgently than ever before, to model the values of reconciliation, justice and peace. That’s why a group of theologians and church leaders from different denominations have been meeting near the German city of Augsburg to work together on two documents calling for much closer collaboration in the tasks of peace-building and the care of migrants and refugees.

Funeral services are scheduled for Thursday, 13 September, for Loïs Meyhoffer, longtime staff member of the World Council of Churches, who died this week at nearly 100 years. A Geneva native, Meyhoffer joined the fledgling organization’s refugee assistance efforts in 1949 and moved to Germany to oversee its efforts there, returning to Geneva in 1955 and working on staff until her retirement.

Ten weeks after Pope Francis visited the WCC in Geneva as “a pilgrim in quest of unity and peace,” church leaders of different churches representing the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church are meeting in Germany this week to continue their task of “walking, praying and working together.”

The leaders of the Joint Working Group (JWG) between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches met 24-27 May in Targoviste, Romania, to discuss cooperation in peace building and the ecumenical challenge and opportunity posed by migrants and refugees.

To mark the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, sport demonstrations, cultural activities, and a #whitecard torch relay, with which the WCC and some of its partner organizations are linked, will be held in Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan on 6 April.

The worldwide agenda for sustainable development is intended to resolve inequalities but fails to address the unjust distribution of power in the global system, former World Council of Churches general secretary Konrad Raiser told a panel in Berlin.

There are indications of a “pattern of invisibility” of refugees and migrants themselves in news reports on asylum and migration in European media, according to a new report presented in Brussels on 16 November.

Friday evening when the leaders of the G20 states will be meeting in Hamburg and discussing global economic, social, environmental and political issues, the churches in Germany are inviting people in Germany and all over the world to a common peace prayer.

Baden-Württemberg minister-president, Winfried Kretschmann, has expressed gratitude to the churches for putting Christian service and neighbourly love into practice, and not only at Sunday sermons. The German state’s governor Kretschmann gave his message in a meeting with the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, in Stuttgart last Thursday.

From social and diaconal action, to liturgical life, pastoral care, and theological reflection, churches are responding and adapting to the movement of migrants within Europe and beyond its borders. A recent consultation convened by the Conference of European Churches, Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe and WCC took place in Copenhagen from 8 to 10 December 2016.