Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero hailed by ecumenical leaders

World Council of Churches, 28 May 2015

Leaders of churches and ecumenical organizations have expressed respect and appreciation following the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero on Sunday 24 May. In the Roman Catholic Church, beatification is a significant step in the process leading to canonization as a saint. Romero was murdered while presiding at Mass in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He had been archbishop of the capital of El Salvador for three years.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, Roman Catholic prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, has been widely quoted as saying, “Romero, from heaven, wants every Salvadoran to walk the path of peace and justice.”

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Ivan Kauffman: Pope Francis and peace

Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis

For the past half-century, ever since John XXIII and Vatican II, the popes have been strong advocates of peace. Since John Paul II they have been non-Italians. And beginning with John Paul they have been increasingly attractive to the evangelical community. If early indications endure, this trend will continue under Pope Francis—and if so it will be strengthened, and likely become permanent. This has profound and long-lasting significance for the Mennonite-Catholic reconciliation in which Bridgefolk has played an important role.

This is very good news, but it also comes with a price. A pope from Argentina inevitably brings the legacy of that nation’s “Dirty War” with him—and with it the Churches’ inaction during the reign of terror and state-sanctioned murder, which impacted all the Americas, including the United States in that period. Along with the gift of this attractive new papacy we must now confront our unwillingness and our inability to deal with this great mass of political evil.

In his final speech before being elected pope and choosing the name Francis, Cardinal Bergoglio told his fellow cardinals he heard Jesus knocking at the door, but that he heard Jesus knocking from inside the Church, asking to be let out into the world. It is widely believed this speech played a major role in his election. Belonging to a Church which goes out with Christ into the world’s evil and suffering will be a very different experience for most of us. It will require not only personal and political change, it will require some new institutions. But this is an opportunity, not a burden, and it is one that both Catholics and Mennonites can enthusiastically embrace. Let us do so.

Ivan J. Kaufman is a co-founder of the Bridgefolk movement.

Gerald Schlabach: A pope from the global South

Bridgefolk perspectives on Pope Francis

On some issue or another, any pope who takes seriously his responsibility to guide the discernment and to name the consensus of the global Church will probably disappoint every Catholic, along with other Christians who care about the witness of Catholicism in the world. The Church is simply too big, with a calling to express the gospel in so many cultures, for the pastoral judgments of the bishop of Rome to line up with one’s views and priorities across the board.

To be sure, every pope has been called to take seriously this global pastoral responsibility. But now we have a pope from the global South, and hopes run high. He is an experienced bishop from the streets and barrios of Argentina. He has named himself after Francis of Assisi, who is not only Catholicism’s most beloved saint but an exemplar of cross-class simplicity and cross-cultural peacemaking. He has de-vested himself of the most ostentatious trappings of clerical privilege. Disappointing traditionalists immediately, he has washed the feet of Muslims and women.

But sooner or later, on some issue or another, Francis will disappoint the rest of us too. And that is okay. Christians from the global South do this (not just Catholics). They are delightfully frustrating for North Americans and Europeans in their tendency to reshuffle our categories of left, right, progressive, orthodox, liberal, conservative. We deceive ourselves if we claim to champion just relationships between North and South yet disparage their voices.

So in fact this will be the opportunity we need. The first pope from the global South — along with likely successors who will soon come from Africa and Asia – will teach us truly to learn practices of global Christian solidarity, and to become the world Church of which the Second Vatican Council has been foretaste and guide. We now have no excuse.

Gerald W. Schlabach is a co-founder of the Bridgefolk movement. As professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas (MN) he teaches a class on Global Christianity.

MWC requests prayer for Honduran church following murder of pastor

Mennonite World Conference has issued the following press release in the wake of the murder of Rafael Erasmo Arevalo, a Mennonite pastor in Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras. Bridgefolk participant Joetta Schlabach has been traveling in Central America and had recently talked with other church workers in the Copán area. Motives for the murder are not known, but Schlabach reports that tensions are high in the area. In many parts of the country, gang and drug-related violence are exacerbating a repressive climate continuing in the wake of a 2009 coup in Honduras. Further tensions in the Copán area surround efforts to organize miners working for Canadian mining companies.

On Sunday, January 22, Rafael Erasmo Arevalo, a Mennonite pastor in Honduras, was attacked and killed after leading an evening worship service. Arevalo, from Santa Rosa de Copán, drove about 20 kilometres north to Veracruz, where he had led worship services for the past 10 years.

According to a report in a Honduran newspaper, La Prensa, Arevalo parked his car at the home of a Veracruz city councilor and then walked to the church. When he returned to his car after the worship service, he was attacked by “unknown persons.” His body was not discovered until the next morning, about five kilometers from the scene of the attack. Continue reading “MWC requests prayer for Honduran church following murder of pastor” →

Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee worker in Guatemala join to resist dam project threatening Maya Indian land

by Tobias Roberts
International Development Worker

(reposted from the Huffington Post)

Tension filled the cramped, block-wall room in the Guatemalan highlands as indigenous leaders sat across from negotiators for ENEL, an Italian-based energy company building a $228-million hydro-electric dam in the area. Local Mayan Ixhil leaders hoped the presence of a renowned Catholic archbishop, a prominent Presbyterian clergyman and a Mennonite development worker from the U.S. — me — would improve their chances in the high-stakes negotiations.

Community leaders in the heavily Catholic area first invited us to be part of the talks in May 2011, when ENEL agreed to sit down with indigenous peoples on whose ancestral lands the Palo Viejo Dam is being built. Guatemalan Archbishop Ramazzini, an internationally recognized defender of human rights, and Dr. Vitalino Similox, head of the Christian Ecumenical Council of Guatemala, helped facilitate the talks. I sat in as an international observer, having been sent to the area by the North American-based Mennonite Central Committee. Continue reading “Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee worker in Guatemala join to resist dam project threatening Maya Indian land” →

Bridging a Divided Church in Colombia

The following news release from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) reports on a joint peacemaking project by Mennonites and Catholics in the South American nation of Colombia. CPT describes its mission as “Getting in the Way,” and asks: “What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?” CPT seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. For further information on CPT, visit http://www.cpt.org/.
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Colombian Catholics and Mennonites strike new bonds at first dialogue

Bogotá, Colombia (MWC)- “I have been able to get to know a new world that I never knew before,” said Monsignor Fidel Cadavid, the bishop of Quibdo, Colombia. “Without knowing one another, it is impossible to practice ecumenism.”

Bishop Cadavid plans to connect with the Mennonite congregation in Quibdo on his return. “I see a great affinity [between our churches] in peace work. Working together, we will have more strength and be more effective in our advocacy.”

He was speaking of “Called Together to be Peacemakers,” an encounter for Catholic – Mennonite Dialogue which took place here August 15 and 16 at the Episcopal Conference of Colombia. Continue reading “Colombian Catholics and Mennonites strike new bonds at first dialogue” →