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World Council of Churches (WCC) acting general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca expressed deep shock at a recent attack on a church community during a Sunday morning mass at St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria.

In Nigeria’s northwest state of Kaduna, Christians are bearing the brunt of insecurity and violence, as bandits attack homes, villages and churches, killing Christians and kidnapping others for ransom.

At the centre of the communal violence is religious persecution, territorial ambition and ethnic cleansing in the region where communities have settled along religious lines, according to Rev. John Joseph Hayab, the country director for the Global Peace Foundation, Nigeria.

 

The primate of The Church of the Lord, Aladura, Worldwide, an African initiated church founded in 1925 talks with pride about how the founder had a calling from God to have women serving with men in pastoral work. Primate Rev. Dr Rufus Okikiolaolu Ositelu, metropolitan archbishop of the church visited Geneva and the WCC on 29-30 January.

When more than 100 religious leaders and other actors from around the world gathered at the UN in Vienna in mid-February, it was a manifestation of unity between religious and non-religious organizations, and a genuine commitment to cooperate in dealing with hate speech and incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes.

In many ways, the World Council of Churches (WCC) pilgrimage of justice and peace hinges on protecting, advocating, and educating people about human rights. In Nigeria, a series of workshops in November promoted human rights across a number of WCC programme areas, including the Churches’ Commitments to Children, preventing gender-based violence, and engaging with the United Nations human rights system.

The African continent bears witness to the tragic consequences of the manipulation of religion to incite violence. Yet it is also the home of untold instances of the power of religious leaders and actors to exert a positive influence, said panellists at an international meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, today.

WCC member churches in Nigeria, represented through the Christian Council of Nigeria, have been actively engaged in observing the recent Nigerian elections, continuing its stated conviction that effective participation of Nigerians in the processes of governance is very important in shaping the nation’s future.

After a concerted examination of the evidence presented at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and two earlier conferences, 44 of the states present called for a ban on nuclear weapons. The host government Austria added momentum with a specific, cooperative pledge to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition of nuclear weapons” and eliminate them.

Indigenous peoples have a role to play in the struggle against climate change, indigenous faith leaders said during a panel at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

After bombings on 21 May in the northern Nigerian city of Jos, in which more than one-hundred people have been killed, “heart-felt sorrow and condolences” have been expressed in a joint statement by the WCC general secretary and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan.