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Aa the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity opened on 18 January, the World Council of Churches staff and partners gathered in a spirit of unity to “Do good; seek justice,” the theme of this year’s special week.

Among the massive social dislocations caused by the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps none is as plaintive as those to churches. Around the world, church gatherings, liturgies, fellowship, and service projects have been canceled or postponed or migrated online, precisely when Christian communities and those who rely on them need them most.

Gun violence in the United States, which over the last weekend alone took three dozen lives, continues to pose stark challenges for US churches.

Maryland-based, Ghanaian-born Rev. Dr Casely Essamuah was in February selected as secretary of the Global Christian Forum. Originally ordained in the Methodist Church in Ghana, he began his work officially in July. This week he made a study visit to the WCC and the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva and the WCC was able to converse with him.

What else could your family, your parish, your community do to respond to the needs of migrants and refugees arriving in your country? Representatives of many different churches met in Rome in September to discuss that practical question, as well as respond to the broader challenge of how people of faith can combat the rising tide of racism, xenophobia and nationalist policies that increasingly target vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers.

Christians have a moral responsibility to speak out and teach people to say no to racism, xenophobia, exclusion and discrimination.

Faith-based organizations are at the heart of a special mission: issuing a call to action—to ensure that infants, children and adolescents around the world have access to HIV prevention, testing and treatment.

As the recent developments of nuclear weapons and increased tensions between United States and North Korea leaders can bring the world to the brink of war, churches around the world are calling for bilateral dialogue, expressing their commitment to peace and nonviolent resolution.

Leading religious scholars representing the major world religions have issued a declaration saying it is imperative that religions be a “positive resource for human rights”. The Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions was released 15 September in Montreal, Canada at the 3rd Global Conference on World’s Religions after September 11.

From Paris to Pakistan, Orlando to Myanmar, Iraq to Nigeria, each day witnesses conflict and violence perpetrated in the name of religion or committed against persons because of their religious identity.

The WCC has engaged with the Office for Genocide Prevention and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers to promote a regional meeting in the Americas discussing the role of religious leaders in preventing incitements to violence that may lead to infractions categorized in international law as “atrocity crimes”: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.

Canadian ecumenist Ralph C. Young, whose career led him from Christian youth work in his native maritime provinces to global ministries of inter-church dialogue and coordination, died in Geneva on 26 November.

The prospect of armed robots taking human lives, and whether to ban autonomous weapons before they are made, concentrated the minds of governmental and non-governmental delegates at a United Nations forum in Geneva in mid-April.