The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration on informally blessing same-sex couples or other non-married couples is a reminder that the Catholic Church and its pastors never close the door on people seeking God’s help, said a commentary published in Vatican media.
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Synods are ecclesial gatherings, intense moments of reflection on the Word of God symbolized by the presence of the Book of the Gospels enthroned in the midst of the assembly. The month-long General Assembly of the 16th Synod, which met in Rome from October 4 to 29, was an experience of prayerful listening. It began with an Ecumenical Prayer Vigil organized by the Taizé community on September 30, where young people from many countries led a series of meditations and intercessions for the world. Their words and gestures recalled the purpose of the synodal process: to help us become a church more responsive to the call to mission and service of the poor and those who suffer.
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We write as Jewish scholars, religious leaders, and long-time practitioners in Jewish-Christian dialogue, in Israel, America, and Europe, to remind our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church of “the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock” (Nostra Aetate #4) in a time of distress and anguish for Jews all over the world.
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The great damage inflicted among Indigenous Peoples by the colonizing projects in North America/Turtle Island, including the far too frequent complicity of the churches with them, is something that can hardly be overstated. Most Canadian Christians are, I hope, relatively aware of the large-scale physical, cultural, and spiritual harms that were perpetrated by things like the reserve system, residential schools, and bans on traditional ceremonies and rites. Less widely considered, however, are the impacts that also came from the importing of inter-Christian hostilities from Europe to the Peoples of this land. Although less urgent than the direct and tangible abuses, here too there are harmful marks that must be reckoned with.
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Members of the CWL across the country have identified ecumenical and interfaith cooperation as a priority as we move the League into the future within our church and country. To that end, the Faith Organizations working group was created to identify organizations with whom we can partner. This video highlights some of the reasons why we engage in these activities, which flow from our baptism and our call to be disciples of Jesus, bringing his Good News to our world.
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The Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue in Canada (ARC) has met regularly since 1971. It works closely with the Anglican-Roman Catholic Bishops’ Dialogue (ARC-B), which was established in 1975. Supported by the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mandate of both Dialogues is to advance ecumenical understanding and cooperation between the churches in our country. In recent years, the Anglican contingent on ARC has also added members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) as an expression of the deepening full communion relationship between the ACC and ELCIC.
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“There is no synodality without ecumenism and no ecumenism without synodality.” These words were spoken at the “Together: Gathering of the People of God” ecumenical service on Saturday, September 30, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. When I heard these words from the podium, I took notice. Ecumenism and synodality are both reform movements in the church. The integral connection between the two seemed self-evident to me, but it’s a good reminder.
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Pope Francis has published an Apostolic Exhortation building on his 2015 encyclical. We’re not reacting enough, he says, we’re close to breaking point. He criticises climate change deniers, saying that the human origin of global warming is now beyond doubt. And he describes how care for our common home flows from the Christian faith.

“’Praise God’ is the title of this letter.  For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.”

That’s how Pope Francis ends his new Apostolic Exhortation, published on the 4th October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
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Church leaders from Ireland have gathered in Rome to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

In a joint statement, the Irish and British Ambassadors to the Holy See, Frances Collins and Chris Tott, said that they were delighted to welcome the leaders from several denominations.

“For decades, the Churches have played an important role in supporting peace and reconciliation,” they said, expressing hope that visit would “serve to inspire other church and faith-based leaders as they work to support peace and reconciliation around the world.”
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On 19 September 2023, the last day of the Thirteenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Krakow, Poland, Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (DPCU), and Revd Dr Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the LWF, presented a “Common Word” [English and German] during an ecumenical prayer and baptismal commemoration.
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During an ecumenical prayer service at the assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist and the federation’s general secretary formally called for a joint reflection on the Augsburg Confession, a fundamental statement of Lutheran faith.
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The recently concluded World Youth Day in Portugal (August 1-6, 2023) included a number of ecumenical and interreligious experiences, opportunities, and lessons that garnered praise and criticism in Catholic and non-Catholic circles alike.

• In addition to visiting and participating in events held within Catholic venues, WYD pilgrims were invited to visit significant Protestant and Orthodox churches and other houses of worship (synagogues, mosques, temples) in Lisbon and throughout the country, to “observe” how each religious denomination has its own history, content, ritual, and societal outreach.
• With fellow Christians, WYD pilgrims were invited also to participate in prayers, lectures, and bible studies offered by Anglican, Protestant, Orthodox Church leaders, and ecumenical communities (such as Taizé and Chemin Neuf), and to “look for signs of unity” (of faith, sacrament, and mission) between these Christian communities.
• On the interfaith side, organizers highlighted that “leaders of other faiths will be present at various events of the WYD Lisbon 2023 presided over by the Pope,” and indeed Pope Francis met with a number of ecumenical and interreligious leaders at significant events held throughout the week.
• Groups from various religious backgrounds participated in a Youth Festival program that featured “music and singing as a universal language that facilitates encounters between religions, cultures and peoples.”

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Ecumenism and the search for Christian unity are no mere niche interest, the Anglican Church of Canada’s lead animator for ecumenical and interfaith relations Canon Scott Sharman says, but rather “an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus today”—and ecumenical agreements between churches in countries like Canada may soon become more common.
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In 2024, The Canadian Council of Churches (CCC) celebrates the 80th anniversary of its founding. Anniversaries are an opportunity to review the past and look to the future, to celebrate what has been accomplished and to learn from past experience, with a view to developing a clearer self-understanding in the present and identifying a vision for the future.
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On Sunday, August 6, we in the Anglican Church of Canada will pause to acknowledge the 30th anniversary of the Apology offered by Archbishop and Primate Michael Geoffrey Peers. This moment is more pronounced, in light of his death on July 27.

I humbly ask that the moments we take on Sunday and throughout the week should also reflect a thanksgiving for the ministry of Archbishop Peers. He prayerfully stepped into that historic moment and stood before the people, apologizing for a wrong done and for trauma committed by our church. The willingness of the church to participate in the residential school experience has resulted in a legacy of trauma that’s been handed down and is lived daily by Indigenous survivors and their families.
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Late last week we learned of the death of Archbishop Michael Peers, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada from 1986 to 2004. Our deepest condolences are extended to his wife, Dorothy, and his extended family.

Although +Michael retired as primate nearly twenty years ago, the legacy of his leadership continues in so many aspects of our life as a church. He often told the story of how he came to be a member of the church as a non-church attending young adult through the simple invitation of someone else. ‘Come and see’ was the invitation that brought him into the doors where he found, in faith, what he was seeking. He reminded us not to underestimate the power of invitation!
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After nearly two years of parish listening sessions and consultations at the regional, national and continental levels, theologian Catherine Clifford said she thinks Catholics the world over are beginning to understand synodality.

“This is like a long kind of apprenticeship,” said Clifford, who teaches systematic and historical theology at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada.

Clifford is one of 10 non-bishop delegates from North America who will participate as members at the Oct. 4-29 Synod of Bishops on synodality in Rome. On July 7, the Vatican announced the full list of synod participants.
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The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) welcomed the news from the Holy See’s General Secretariat of the Synod of the delegates appointed for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to be held this October. The two episcopal conferences serve as the coordinating entities for the North American region for the Synod, which is themed, For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission. The first session of the Synod will be held at the Vatican on 4-29 October 2023, and the second session is scheduled to be held in October 2024.
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Racism has been identified as one of the most significant challenges facing the North American region in the United States and Canada, a World Council of Churches (WCC) meeting has heard. Members of the North American region of the WCC’s Central Committee, its highest governing body between Assemblies, met during its 21-27 June meeting in Geneva.

“North America or Turtle Island, which is the Indigenous name for North America, is one of three continents that make up ‘The New World.’ The continent was new to 15th-century European explorers but old to the Indigenous peoples already living there,” said Rev. Dr Angelique Walker-Smith, WCC president from North America.
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In recent years, the movement towards Christian unity, which had quickened after the Second Vatican Council, seemed to have become mired in a quagmire of insurmountable difficulties. The synodal process launched by Pope Francis has changed all that. The extraordinary synodal journey is not one that the Catholic Church is embarking on alone. The recently published Instrumentum Laboris – working document – for the forthcoming October assembly in Rome devotes a whole section to Christian unity and how the Catholic Church can learn from other traditions. This was the theme of a recent meeting that brought Church leaders and theologians from the Catholic Church and six other Christian denominations to Durham, in the northeast of England.
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The World Council of Churches (WCC) is planning a year of activities in 2025 to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, a key moment in the history of Christian faith and for the ecumenical journey today.

“The anniversary offers an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the outpouring mission of God’s triune love and the implications this has for the common witness and service of the churches, it gives us the opportunity to ask afresh with others what Nicaea means for us today.” said WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay.

The first Ecumenical Council was a gathering of Christian bishops in Nicaea, now İznik in present-day Türkiye, as the first attempt to reach consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.

“Then, as now, the call to unity was heard within the context of a troubled, unequal, and divided world,” recalled Pillay.
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“Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated: each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ” (Lumen Gentium, #10).

The reports issued during the diocesan and continental phases of the Synod on Synodality 2021-2024 offer a consistent call for a renewed understanding of the universal or baptismal priesthood. These reports frequently refer to the Vatican II quotation above, reminding us that 60 years ago, the church began to chart a new path in which the laity are not passive observers of the clergy’s active ministry. At times over the intervening years, lay ministry has been deemed a collaboration in what was typically understood as clerical ministry. The very word “ministry” has been frequently denied to lay people, who were instead meant to have an apostolate in the world. Pope Francis’ call to end clericalism has not meant an end to ordained ministry. He has cautioned against moves to clericalize lay ministry, pointing instead to the baptismal dignity of all. The Synod participants have noted the scriptural foundations for a baptismal priesthood.
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The Sacred Circle is a gathering of Indigenous Anglicans in Canada. This year, it took place between May 29th and June 2nd, and its journey of understanding and reconciliation has much to teach the Church’s understanding of God, spirituality, and the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The gathering took place around a fire.
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The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision today on the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) is a complex result that ultimately fails refugees.  The Supreme Court has allowed the appeal in part, sending the equality rights issue at stake back to the Federal Court,  and holding out for the possibility of the agreement being declared unconstitutional. But the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada, and the Canadian Council of Churches are disappointed that the Supreme Court of Canada failed to decisively rule that the Safe Third Country Agreement violates refugees’ rights, exposing refugee claimants to further harms while awaiting another legal challenge.
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Catholic-Orthodox relations took a step forward this month with the publication of the first joint statement in seven years.

The document said Pope Francis’ hope for a synodal Church promotes “a more effective synodality,” which could eventually bring the Catholic and Orthodox Churches closer together on the issue.
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The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church held its fifteenth plenary session from 1-7 June 2023 in Alexandria, Egypt, hosted by the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa.
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The texts for the Week of Prayer of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024 have been published. The theme of the 2024 Week of Prayer is based on a text from the Gospel of St Luke: “You shall love the Lord your God … and your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27). The preparation of the materials was entrusted to an ecumenical team from Burkina Faso facilitated by the local Chemin Neuf Community.
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At the root of Christian agreements and disagreements about Mary are matters that are at the same time biblical, doctrinal, historical, liturgical, theological, sociological, soteriological, ecclesiological, and so on. What does the Bible say or not say about Mary, and how is this to be interpreted? How much of what is professed about Mary belongs to the Tradition of the Church rather than directly found in Scripture? How much is from historical, cultural, or sentimental expressions developed within specific churches? Does Marian doctrine or devotion enhance or take away anything from the central focus on Christ? What is the relationship between God’s grace present and active in Mary’s life, and her own (and our own) human actions or belief? What is meant by the veneration of Mary (or of the saints) as distinct from worshipping God? When and by whose authority did Marian titles, feasts, and dogmas come to be assigned within the Christian Church? Are all such titles, feasts, and dogmas essential, obligatory, and/or intended to be marked with equal solemnity? How is Mary’s life and faith presented as a model for female Christian discipleship, or as exemplary for Christian life in general?
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Archbishop Christopher A. Harper was installed today as the National Indigenous Anglican Archbishop and Presiding Elder of Sacred Circle, with pastoral oversight over all Indigenous Anglicans. The installation took place at a meeting of Sacred Circle 11, the national gathering and decision-making body for Indigenous Anglicans in Canada.

The Archbishop previously served as the Diocesan Bishop of Saskatoon.
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A leading Asian theologian says Pope Francis’ decision to include non-ordained women and men as voting members of October’s synod assembly is a “giant step” that will irreversibly change the Church’s decision-making processes.

Last month, the synod secretariat announced the Pope had authorised a reform to allow at least 70 non-bishops to be members of the 4-29 October synod assembly in the Vatican. This move will see women given a vote in a synod for the first time.
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Cette semaine, les membres du Conseil de direction du Conseil Canadien des Églises se réuniront au Monastère des Augustines, à Québec, pour leur réunion du printemps 2023 (du 24 au 26 mai 2023).

La décision de convoquer cette réunion dans une ville francophone a été prise par le Conseil de direction après une saison de discernement sur ce que le Conseil pouvait faire pour mieux comprendre la vie de l’Église et de ses membres au Québec et améliorer ses relations avec elle.
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The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr. Jerry Pillay, has led a delegation to Moscow to meet with leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, including Patriarch Kirill. The 24-hour visit, which was taking place on Wednesday and Thursday, followed a similar WCC trip from May 10-13 to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

“Consolidation and unity in Ukrainian society, including especially among the majority Christian Orthodox believers, is an obvious necessity in the current circumstances faced by the nation and people of Ukraine” observed Rev. Pillay. “We visited Moscow to discuss engagement also by the Russian Orthodox Church in dialogue on the war and its consequences, including with regard to the deep divisions in the Orthodox family in this context,” Pillay reported, “and I am grateful for HH Patriarch Kirill’s commitment to exploring this possibility.”
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New forms of spirituality, revival of traditional Indigenous beliefs, rising immigration, and debates on secularism are blurring the line between religion and non-religion in Canada, scholar David Seljak says — part of what he calls a “permanent revolution” and the latest development in how religion has shaped the country’s social order.

Seljak, a professor of religious studies at St. Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo, shared his views as the opening speaker at “Land, Law, Religion and Reconciliation,” a colloquium hosted by the University of Victoria’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society (CSRS) May 4-6. His livestreamed presentation was the latest of the John Albert Hall Lectures, a series hosted by the university in which notable speakers discuss the changing role of religion in modern society.
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“Your Holiness, we humbly ask you to bless our synodal journey and to accompany us with your prayers, yours personally and those of your Church, that we may know how to put ourselves in the Spirit’s hands!”, it was with this particular request that Cardinal Mario Grech concluded his address of greeting this morning to His Holiness Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, accompanied by an eminent delegation of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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Pope Francis has continued his predecessors’ serious commitment to ecumenical dialogue, but he also makes ecumenical gestures that underline that seriousness. Meeting Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria, Egypt, Pope Francis paid tribute to the 21 Coptic martyrs murdered by Islamic State in 2015, noting they were killed for being Christian, not for being Orthodox. And he announced that they would be added to the Roman Martyrology, the book-length calendar of saints and blessed remembered by Catholics at Mass.
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Pope Francis’ decision in late April to include lay persons as full participants with voting rights in the upcoming Synod of Bishops is a significant step towards making the synod a body that more adequately represents and embodies an act of discernment by the whole entire people of God.

In exhorting the pastors of the local churches to embark upon a synodal process with the whole community of the baptized and listen to the voices of the marginalized, the pope has been seeking to reawaken the muscle memory of the ecclesial body.
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Leaders from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity convened on 9 May to plan for the period 2023-2030.

The leaders met in a prayerful and collegial atmosphere to evaluate past collaboration between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church during the 2013-2022 strategic period. They then went on to share the 2023-2030 WCC strategic objectives, and to reaffirm and refine future ways of working, with particular reference to the work of the Joint Working Group, WCC commissions, and collaboration with other dicasteries and Catholic organisations with reference to the current ecumenical and global landscapes.
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When King Charles III and his wife, Queen Consort Camila, are crowned on Saturday, the event will mark a historic juncture in Catholic-Anglican relations, as it will be the first time a Catholic bishop has participated in the ceremony in four centuries.

In a May 5 statement, the Archdiocese of Westminster in the UK, overseen by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, called Saturday’s coronation “an historic occasion for the nation, and also for the Catholic community.”

“For the first time in over 400 years, a Catholic Archbishop will take part in a Coronation in this country,” the statement said, referring to the fact that Nichols has not only been invited to attend the ceremony, but he will also give a blessing.
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Pope Francis is getting personally involved in making sure sacred items and cultural artifacts held in the Vatican Museums are returned to Canadian Indigenous communities.

“The restitution of Indigenous things of Canada is underway, at least we agreed to do so,” Pope Francis told reporters during his news conference on the plane trip back to Rome April 30 following his papal visit to Hungary. “I will now ask how that’s going.”
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Have you ever greeted a neighbour with a “Happy Easter,” only to learn that they are still in the season of Lent and won’t be celebrating the Feast for another couple of weeks? In areas where Christians of different denominations live closely together, especially Eastern and Western churches, the search for a common date to celebrate Christ’s resurrection has become an urgent concern. As St. Paul makes clear (1 Corinthians 15:12-14), belief in the resurrection is a fundamental aspect of the apostolic faith. By celebrating this event on different days, Christians compromise their credibility and effectiveness in bringing the Gospel to an increasingly secular world.
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After the Vatican’s recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, I spent two hours speaking with three Indigenous people about the 500-year-old church doctrine that is as much the bedrock of Canada as the Canadian Shield.

I asked about its relevance, the potential of its undoing, and a question I had never asked before. Those discussions left me feeling both low-level dread and an almost irresistible sense of the possibility of grace. First, what is the Doctrine of Discovery?

“The story of the Doctrine is the story of how you can obtain other people’s land by magic,” retired judge Harry LaForme told the Globe and Mail in 2022. “You just sprinkle these papal bulls and you get it.”
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By the time the Catholic Book of Worship III hits its 30th birthday in 2024, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops hopes to have its replacement sitting in the pews.

Music for Catholic Worship (it is not to be called CBW IV) “will soon be entering the layout stage, which will be followed in due course by printing and marketing,” National Liturgy Office director Christina Ronzio told The Catholic Register  by email. “The CCCB will announce a publication date when the manuscript goes to the printer, as there are many variables to consider when deriving that date.”
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The Cross of Wales, a new processional cross presented by King Charles III as a centenary gift to the Church in Wales, will lead the Coronation procession at Westminster Abbey on 6 May. In a significant ecumenical gesture, the Cross of Wales incorporates a relic of the True Cross, the personal gift of Pope Francis to the King to mark the Coronation. The relics, set into the silver cross, are two small wooden splinters from the cross on which Christ was crucified.
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With sadness at the loss, and with joy for a life filled with love and justice, we share with you that Janet Somerville, past General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches (1997-2002), breathed her last on Sunday morning, April 16, 2023. We have lost a giant in the Canadian ecumenical movement. The first woman and the first Roman Catholic General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, she embodied and pointed the way to the new pathway of faith, witness, justice, and peace grounded in the broader ecumenical movement of Anglican-Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions.
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The final document for the North American phase of the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality was released April 12, capturing a process of dialogue and discernment that two participants described as ‘messy,’ ‘joyful’ and unifying — like the synod itself.

“It’s amazing what comes about when … you invoke the Holy Spirit in the conversation,” Julia McStravog, a theologian and co-coordinator of the North American team for the synod’s continental phase, told OSV News.
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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) have issued the North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.

Begun in late 2022, the Continental Stage of the Synod was the second stage of the three-year process initiated by Pope Francis in October 2021. For the North American Continental Stage, the United States and Canada held twelve virtual assemblies: seven in English, three in Spanish, and two in French between December 2022 and January 2023. In total, 931 delegates and 146 bishops from Canada and the United States were appointed to participate in one of these twelve assemblies to share their reflections and responses to the Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) issued by the Holy See’s General Secretariat of the Synod in October 2022. Those reflections were brought together by the North American Writing Team to create the Final Document.
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I was recently asked how we know if a dialogue is successful. Even in the church, there is a temptation to assess projects and ministries by worldly standards. How much did it cost? How many people attended? How many people watched the video? These practical concerns should be considered, but other questions might be more critical. Did the experience transform people? Did this deepen or strengthen relationships between people or between the churches? What were the fruits of this project? What is the Spirit saying to the churches?
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The Catholic Church formally “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery,'” a Vatican statement said.

Issued March 30 by the dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development, the statement said papal texts that seemed to support the idea that Christian colonizers could claim the land of non-Christian Indigenous people “have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.”
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In 1891, the same year Pope Leo XIII responded to revolutionary economic and industrial upheaval with the encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” the first car powered by electricity made its debut in America. More than 130 years later, dozens of Tesla employees in Buffalo, New York — a still heavily Catholic area — are alleging the electric auto manufacturer fired them in retaliation for attempting to form a union.

Tesla faces a complaint before the National Labor Relations Board over accusations the company fired more than 30 employees at its Buffalo facility within two days of workers launching their campaign Feb. 14 to unionize the Autopilot division at the Tesla plant. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has vocally opposed unions, but the company claimed the firings were unrelated to the union push.
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In September 2022, I traveled to Oberammergau, Germany, to attend the village’s world-famous, once-a-decade Passion play. I’m working on a book about how local communities reinterpret the Stations of the Cross to claim divine solidarity in the face of injustice, a project that has led me to Passion rituals of many kinds. Last Good Friday, students invited me to join an ecumenical Atlanta congregation composed predominantly of people living on the street as they carried a cross down a gentrified stretch of busy Ponce de Leon Avenue to lament the racialized displacement wrought by recent urban redevelopment. The next day, a community in Atlanta’s Peoplestown neighborhood memorialized Jesus’ Crucifixion beside the burned-out Wendy’s parking lot where police officers killed Rayshard Brooks in 2020. I’ve become captivated by the question of what it is about the Stations of the Cross—this quintessentially traditional, medieval devotion and its fourteen-station template—that makes it such a rich site of theological agency for communities on the margins.
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