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Our successful visit to Rome with various ecumenical deliberations itself testifies that ecumenical engagements can move forward despite the pandemic. The launch of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity document “Ecumenism in a Time of Pandemic: From Crisis to Opportunity,” followed by an ecumenical panel discussion, helped us to understand how different churches have approached the pandemic. 

COP26 is in full swing, and I manage to follow it from my desk at home, thanks to digital technology. This is one positive thing we learned from COVID-19: we don’t need to fly around the world anymore. That is…provided there is good internet connection, which is not always the case in all countries.

The same week Brazil reached half a million deaths by COVID-19, my parents got the first dose of the vaccine. On my way to work, I pass through a vaccination post full of people, and through a cemetery full of grief. The past year and few months were a mix of fear, indignation and anger for me. But also a time where I saw generosity and hope bloom.

476 million indigenous people live around the world, of which 11.5% live in our Latin American region. In these years that we are going from the COVID 19 pandemic in our territories (indigenous or tribal at the Latin American level), the presence of many extractive companies, mainly uranium and lithium, has increased, land traffickers and among other monoculture companies with fires for the cultivation of oil palm, logging, putting vulnerable peoples at greater risk than what is already experienced.

I pull down my sleeve and send a photo of the vaccination certificate to our family WhatsApp group. Proud and happy. The friendly doctor who gave me the vaccination on Monday at Palexpo, Geneva, said confidently: Covid is no longer a problem.  

I’m writing this text exactly one year after Brazil declared quarantine, on 16 March. Last year we went into quarantine thinking it would only be two weeks at home, and maybe a few months of wearing masks and sanitizing our hands. I’m the first to confess that I’ve underestimated the virus. However, we all know that is not how it went. Month after month went by - the internet joked about how could it possibly be August already, when last week was March?

While traveling from the border of South Sudan on a remote dirt road toward the Ugandan town of Kitgum, my companion and I were flagged down by two men. They were carrying their paralyzed friend to Kitgum Hospital and asked if we would give them a lift. Routine as the question may seem, the choice was not an easy one.  The year was 2007, and while the Lord’s Resistance Army had been mainly cleared out, sympathizers remained, and picking up travelers was risky. Pietro, the South Sudan country director who was traveling with me, turned and said, “You’re the logistics officer, what do we do?”

“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:17)

Many verses in scripture accurately portray some of the emotions around cancer: pain and suffering, mortality and loss, comfort and redemption, faith and eternity.

When our WCC Working Group on Climate Change met online a few days ago, we decided we needed to give this question more focus. This note tries to gather a few reflections.

How humans relate to nature has been a constant theme for many centuries now. Many throughout the world, especially indigenous peoples, have long respected, even honoured the relationship between nature and human beings. In recent years, various movements have risen, focused especially on the urgency of the climate change crises.

In just a couple of weeks an invisible virus got the world economy on its knees and made 2020 the year of postponement. Not only concerts and conferences, sports and theaters have been suspended or postponed. Even pivotal UN meetings have been postponed and among them the UNFCCC COP 26 in Glasgow. A meeting that should have at its best ramped up the ambitions to cut the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Incredible amounts of money have been thrown in by different governments of the world to keep the economy from a total collapse. And no one seems to be against it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the political, economic and social life of a troubled world, already suffering by the financial crisis and imposed neoliberal austerity measures. With this current crisis, a strange unity has risen; a unity in fear of illness and death, anxious uncertainty for the future and collective mourning for the tens of thousands of deaths.

Bishop Emeritus Munib Younan from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land:

It is Easter 2020.

This is the commemoration of both the crucifixion and the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is the source of our liberation but also of our praise and joy, especially in this time of the coronavirus crisis.

'I think it is the same for us now. It is enough that we are reflecting and praying, it is enough that we are listening to the voice of God, and the God of love will always be with us in our homes, in our churches, and our workplaces. The Risen Christ will bring us peace in our homes, and grants us hope in a hopeless situation, bringing us life and life abundantly.'

“Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1) said our Lord, but my heart is troubled. I read this morning that the Chaldean Patriarch ordered to close the Churches in Bagdad in order to protect his people from the virus, and my heart got troubled.

Statistics about TB in children make shocking reading, especially because TB is preventable and curable. Religious leaders and faith communities have an opportunity to speak out and demand action is taken by their governments and by the international community.

I recently attended the conference on ‘Interreligious dialogue for peace: Promoting Peaceful coexistence and common citizenship’ organized by KAICIID in Vienna on the 26 and 27 of February. The conference brought together some high profile religious leaders (predominantly but not exclusively from the Christian and Muslim faiths) who spoke with a united voice for social cohesion, peaceful coexistence and respect for religious diversity.