Joetta Handrich Schlabach, pastor of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, recently spoke at the Third Way congregation in nearby Saint Paul about Mennonite-Catholic relationships. Click here or on screenshot below to listen or watch.
Tag: Mennonite Central Committee
Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee partner wins U.N. prize for peace work in South Sudan
AKRON, Pa. (MCC) – The peacebuilding efforts of Bishop Emeritus Paride Taban, a longstanding friend of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), were recognized at a March 1 ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Catholic bishop from South Sudan won the United Nations 2013 Sergio Vieira de Mello Peace Prize for his work with the Holy Trinity Peace Village in Kuron, where he helped to build peace and trust among people in conflict over cattle rustling. Continue reading “Catholic bishop and Mennonite Central Committee partner wins U.N. prize for peace work in South Sudan”
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”
Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America
A recent publication from the Mennonite Central Committee — the cooperative agency of Mennonite denominations in North America for relief, development and peacebuilding — surveys bridge-building efforts between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America. The April-June issue of the Peace Office Newsletter is available online at http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2007-02.pdf. Introducing the newsletter is the following article: Continue reading “Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America”
Colombian Mennonites and Catholics Invite Dialogue
NEWS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
For Immediate Release
August 30, 2005
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – “Called Together to be Peacemakers,” a document issued after five years of dialogue between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity of the Catholic Church and representatives of Mennonite World Conference, was the topic of an ecumenical dialogue at the Colombian Catholic Bishops Conference here on May 20, 2005. Continue reading “Colombian Mennonites and Catholics Invite Dialogue”
Mennonites receive award from Catholic voluntary service organization
Network accepts on behalf of Mennonites in world service
(Editor’s note: This a joint release by Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Central Committee.)
TAKOMA PARK, Md. — On Nov. 13, Catholic Network of Volunteer Service
(CNVS) presented its Father George Mader Award to a group outside of the Catholic tradition for the first time in its 15-year history. Mennonite Mission Network accepted the award at the CNVS National Conference on behalf of Mennonites in mission across the world, including Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).
The Mission Network and MCC serve the church in more than 60 countries through direct relief, peacemaking and community development with resources of around $73 million U.S., engaging close to 2,000 personnel committed to terms of one year or more.
Del Hershberger, Mission Network director of Christian Service, accepted the award, which honors organizations and individuals that encourage Christian men and women to serve others in the U.S. and abroad. CNVS representatives singled out Mennonite Voluntary Service, a Mission Network program, for special acclaim.
“For six decades, Mennonite Voluntary Service of the Mennonite Mission Network has been a powerful influence serving the poor and marginalized in hundreds of communities throughout North America,” said Jim Lindsay, CNVS executive director. “MVS has been a powerful influence on the church.
Thousands of Mennonites (and increasingly people from other denominations) have served the marginalized people of North America in the past six decades. In the process, they themselves were served and transformed by the oppressed and hurting people among whom they lived and worked.”
Hershberger agreed that MVS, and service in general, has transformed the church over the last century. “We have become engaged with the needs and brokenness of the world. We have gone from being a rural people in close-knit communities, to being more urban and integrated into mainstream society. We have also become engaged in more ecumenical conversations and have built bridges to other Christian groups who are seeking to follow Jesus daily in life, and to be vessels of healing and hope in this broken world,” Hershberger said.
CNVS created the Father George Mader Award in 1989 to honor organizations and individuals that encourage lay men and women to serve others in the United States and abroad. The award is named after Father George Mader, of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., who, together with his sister, Patricia Mader Stalker, in 1963 founded the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, a non-profit association of more than 200 domestic and international volunteer and lay mission programs which currently has more than 12,000 volunteers and lay missioners serving in its member programs throughout the U.S. and in 115 countries worldwide.
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