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.
Document issued 21 May 2019 by Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue and the World Council of Churches.
The purpose of this 13-page document is to encourage churches and Christian organizations to reflect on the structural roots of what has led to the disruption of peace in the world, and on their own current practices and priorities in relation to education and peacemaking. At the same time, it is hoped that the document, issued 21 May 2019, may assist a wider conversation on education for peace involving followers of other religions, as well as social and political actors in our multi-religious world, taking into consideration specific historical and cultural contexts.
“Toward a Just Peace: Eradicating the Evil of Racism”
The 17th annual Bridgefolk conference was held at Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN, 26-29 July 2018.
Rev. William Skudlarek OSB, Bridgefolk Interim Coordinator, makes the 2018 Conference Report available online as a PDF document.
Anne McCarthy, OSB, Mount Saint Benedict Monastery, “Overturning Temple Tables: Toward Repairing a Racist Legacy”
Felipe Hinojosa, Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. Teaching specialty in Latina/o – Chicana/o, Religion. Author of Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). Keynote title to come.
Homily for Bridgefolk footwashing service, 30 July 2016
Joetta Handrich Schlabach, pastor, Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis
From The Mennonite, 15 August 2016
Joetta Handrich Schlabach
Highways can be dangerous places. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where highways were snow- and sometime ice-covered-for up to five months of the year. I have memories of being in cars that landed in a snow bank in both clear and stormy weather. During the five years that my husband and I lived in Central America, we had our share of breathtaking moments when the bus we were riding in decided to pass on a curve along a mountain road or when we were riding in the back of a pick-up at high speed.
But I’ve never been fearful that a highway encounter with the police might be dangerous. Thankfully, those encounters have been few in my life, but I am increasingly coming to understand that my sense of safety is not simply a matter of always following the speed limit, but also has to do with the color of my skin. I’ve also come to know that the highway that I get on each day, I-94, which many of you may have driven on to come to this gathering, endangered a whole neighborhood in its very creation, as it bored through the heart of St. Paul’s African-American Rondo neighborhood in the 1960’s.
Last month the nation—and many parts of the world—have become familiar with the name of Philando Castile. Philando was the young man shot by a policeman during a “routine” traffic stop in Falcon Heights, just north of St. Paul, Minnesota. Continue reading “Mercy in the borderlands”→
Christian theology and ethics have wrestled with the challenge to apply Jesus’s central message of nonviolence to the injustices of this world. Is it not right to defend the persecuted by using violence? Is it unjust if the oppressed defend themselves—if necessary by the use of violence—in order to liberate themselves and to create a more just society? Can we leave the doctrine of the just war behind and shift all our attention toward the way of a just peace?
In 2011 the World Council of Churches brought to a close the Decade to Overcome Violence, to which the churches committed themselves at the beginning of the century. Just peace has evolved as the new ecumenical paradigm for contemporary Christian ethics. Just peace signals a realistic vision of holistic peace, with justice, which in the concept of shalom is central in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the gospel message of the New Testament. Continue reading “New resource: Just Peace: Ecumenical, Intercultural, and Interdisciplinary Perspectives“→
Sharing Peace brings together leading Mennonite and Catholic theologians and ecclesial leaders to reflect on the recent, first-ever international dialogue between the Mennonite World Conference and the Vatican. The search for a shared reading of history, theology of the church and its sacraments or ordinances, and understandings of Christ’s call to be peacemakers are its most prominent themes. Continue reading “Sharing Peace: Mennonites and Catholics in Conversation now available”→
In releasing his 2013 World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict XVI has called for for “communitarian” not individualistic development, and insisted that true religion fosters reconciliation not fundamentalism:
It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated financial capitalism. In addition to the varied forms of terrorism and international crime, peace is also endangered by those forms of fundamentalism and fanaticism which distort the true nature of religion, which is called to foster fellowship and reconciliation among people.
All the same, the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift.
All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9).
