Bridgefolk is a movement of sacramentally-minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's traditions, explore each other's practices, and honor each other's contribution to the mission of Christ's Church.
Kitchener, Ontario (Mennonite World Conference) – In Ukraine a former Mennonite church building is being restored and transformed – with the help of Canadian Mennonites – into a Greek Catholic church.
This development, according to observers, is an example of Mennonite-Catholic collaboration in the spirit of other exchanges over the past decade or so. Continue reading “Greek Catholics in Ukraine restore former Mennonite church building”
Dear Monks,
I arrived at Saint John’s on New Year’s Day 2009, as “wife of” a scholar at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, afraid I would either freeze to death or die of boredom! I came not knowing what “the Hours” were and not knowing much about monks or why monks exist. But soon I was walking to the abbey church in minus-20-degree weather to pray with you. I returned day after day, not knowing why, but I simply could not stay away. You were always there in the choir stalls; I came and you took me in. You gave me hope.
At daily Mass I listened to homilies that were from the heart. Some were inside the box, some outside—but they were homilies that have and are changing my life. I prayed prayers that were no longer just words, but truths that caused me to question and to make commitments.
After five months at the Collegeville Institute, my husband and I returned to our home in Washington, D.C., but you were still with me. I trusted that my heart, the one you helped to heal, the one that is learning to listen, would be a heart that gives to others and helps bring healing and love to the wider world. If and when that happens, it is because of you.
In a March 28 article in National Catholic Reporter, Melissa Musick Nussbaum compares the lepers healed by Jesus, previously ostracized as “unclean,” to patients of mental health facilities today. She writes:
I serve on the board of my local Catholic Charities. Our Marian House Soup Kitchen and drop-in center is located downtown, just across the street from the cathedral. Many of those we serve are mentally ill. Every year the cry goes up to move the facility to some place far away from downtown shops and restaurants. Every year the cry goes up to relocate our Lazaruses so that our way is unhindered, our view is unspoiled, and our fantasies remain intact.
So I’ve been interested in Dr. [Abraham] Nussbaum’s work, a work he does with many others of like mind, to find a different way to treat and live with the mentally ill. His attention is drawn to the many Mennonites, who, as conscientious objectors during World War II, worked as attendants in American mental asylums.
Menno Simons, the Anabaptist father of the Mennonites, was a Norbertine priest before he left the order and the Catholic church. But Nussbaum believes that Simons, and his followers, may help lead the church back into right relationship with our brothers and sisters who suffer from mental illness.
Nussbaum goes on to outline a history of the Mennonite conscientious objectors who completed their Civilian Public Service in psychiatric hospitals, refusing to use any force against patients. She concludes with a vision for what service to the mentally ill could look like in a Catholic context. The full article is available here.
The following interview was first published on the blog of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, “On Our Minds.” To see the original post go to http://collegevilleinstitute.org/blog/mennonite-catholics-catholic-mennonites-part-two.
In Part One of our interview with Gerald Schlabach, Ivan Kauffman, and Weldon Nisly, all of whom are leaders in Bridgefolk (the North American Mennonite-Catholic dialogue), we discussed the origins of contemporary Mennonite-Catholic exchange as well as the gifts the two traditions offer to each other. Though sources of attraction between the Catholic and Mennonite traditions vary, Schlabach, Kauffman, and Nisly identified Mennonite strengths in service and lay participation, and Catholic strengths in sacramental life. Participants in Mennonite-Catholic dialogue are often united by their shared commitment to peace and justice as well as their desire to build understanding and a sense of common purpose across the two traditions. In Part Two of the interview, we discuss how those involved in Mennonite-Catholic dialogue navigate painful divisions and cultural trends hostile to community and tradition.
The following interview was first published on the blog of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, “On Our Minds.” To see the original post go to http://collegevilleinstitute.org/blog/mennonite-catholics-catholic-mennonites-bridging-splitting-difference.
In one sense, Stearns County, Minnesota is no hub for Mennonite Christians. Heavily German and Catholic, with a smattering of Lutherans, evangelicals, and Somali Muslims, the county is home to nary a Mennonite congregation or Anabaptist community to speak of. But in another sense, because of what has been happening at the Collegeville Institute and Saint John’s Abbey, Stearns County has become a Mennonite landmark. Bridgefolk, the North American Mennonite-Catholic dialogue, meets regularly at Saint John’s Abbey, and the Collegeville Institute has attracted a number of Mennonite scholars and workshop participants over the years. Terms like “Mennonite Catholic” and “Catholic Mennonite” are commonly spoken on our campuses. In conjunction with a recent Bridgefolk gathering, we prompted a conversation among several leaders of the Mennonite-Catholic dialogue—each of whom has been affiliated with the Collegeville Institute and somehow claims the dual identity of Mennonite and Catholic.
Brenda Suderman, a writer for the Winnipeg Free Press, describes ongoing ecumenical initiatives between Mennonites and Catholics in Winnipeg, including Bridgefolk participant Helmut Harder.
More than just friends, not quite a family, a dozen Christians who gather regularly to share their faith over a meal are quietly setting an example for new ecclesiastical relationships.
After 14 years of meeting in parish halls and church basements, the members of Winnipeg’s Catholic-Mennonite Dialogue have no plans to end this long-running liaison between their two faith traditions.
“I’ve tried now and then to shut it down, but then people remind me they see value in this,” explains Helmut Harder, a retired Mennonite theologian who has participated from the beginning.
“It (the dialogue) keeps me abreast of what is going on in the Catholic Church.”
Whether in basement gatherings or meetings between high level faith leaders, Christians should expect more initiatives of this type under Pope Francis, says Catholic theologian Catherine E. Clifford of St. Paul University in Ottawa.
Suderman goes on to quote Clifford on how ecumenism has evolved since Vatican II and the continued importance of working toward unity, and Harder on the renewed interest in ecumenism that he observes in Winnipeg. The full article from the Winnipeg Free Press website is available here.
Mennonite church planter Timothy Colegrove, in a recent entry on Patheos’ Slow Church blog, reflects on Pope Francis’ engaging and relational approach to spreading the gospel, and how this meshes with the “Slow Church” concept. Giving particular attention to Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Colegrove muses:
As Alice and I move forward in our mission to plant a church with the Conservative Mennonite Conference in Boston, I find myself in strange unity with the Pope. Who would have imagined that a Mennonite would find such agreement with the head of the Catholic Church, an institution that viciously oppressed early Anabaptist disciples? Yet while reading the Evangelii, I could feel my heart breaking out in applause and spirit-filled agreement at his call to greater connection with other disciples and with the communities around us. Undoubtedly this is the Church that a relationally starved culture needs so badly.
The full article is available here.
Release date: Sunday, 9 March 2014
Strasbourg, France – “I continue to be inspired by the mutuality of our work,” commented John Rempel of Toronto, Ontario, one of the Mennonite participants in the 26-31 January 2014 second meeting of the Trilateral (Catholic, Lutheran, Mennonite) Dialogue Commission on Baptism.
The general topic of the dialogue, which is to extend over four years, is “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church.” The theme for this year was “Baptism: God’s Grace in Christ and Human Sin”.
“Everyone is treated equally even though we are by far the smallest confession,” noted Rempel. “We are all trying to rethink the issues in terms of the 21st century, not only the 16th century.”
He commented further, “I find myself grappling especially with two aspects of this year’s meeting. I’m discovering how important sacraments are to Lutherans and Catholics as expressions of God’s initiative: God is mysteriously at work by means of prayer and water, whether we respond to it or not. And yet I can’t understand God’s initiative in the New Testament without the human response to grace.”
“At the same time our partners fear that we put so much weight on the human decision to believe that God’s initiative is pushed to the background. The participants are aware that only through the work of the Holy Spirit will this dialogue lead us closer to the mind of Christ.”
Continue reading “Mennonites, Catholics and Lutherans hold second round of dialogue on baptism”
The thirteenth annual Bridgefolk Conference is slated for July 24-27, 2014 at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN. Our conference theme this year is Service–An Overflow of Christ’s Love. The Catholic keynote speaker will be Vincent Guider, director of the North Lawndale Kinship Initiative at Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago’s West Side. The Mennonite keynote speaker will be Elizabeth Soto Albrecht, moderator of Mennonite Church USA. In addition to keynote addresses, the conference will include times and spaces for worship, discussion, reflection, story-sharing, and fellowship as well as participation in service projects. Please look for conference registration information to be posted in the near future on the Bridgefolk website (www.bridgefolk.net). As a grassroots movement of Catholics and Mennonites “proceeding through friendship,” Bridgefolk welcomes all those interested to join us at the conference. We hope to see you there!