Friday, May 29, 2026

WCC NEWS: WCC forges new connections at 79th World Health Assembly

The World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on Health and Healing sent a delegation to participate in the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva from 17-23 May.

Commission of the Churches on Health and Healing- Leadership meeting. Photo: Grégoire de Fombelle/WCC

28 May 2026

The five-person delegation, led by Rev. Dr Stavros Kofinas, moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on Health and Healing, pursued four core objectives: monitoring relevant plenary and committee sessions to track resolutions and decisions affecting the WCC’s health mandate; strengthening partnerships with global health actors, civil society networks, and faith-based organizations; cohosting side events that amplify the WCC’s advocacy positions; and gathering inputs to inform joint WCC commission and reference group meetings planned for October 2026.

Kofinas reflected that the WCC’s participation was rewarding in that the WCC was able to create a dialogue with many that shared common concerns. “There was a general agreement that we need to define the meaning of health as it is related to the various cultures we live in, and to form a better understanding of how the health systems in these cultures shape the health care that is provided,” he said.

“The WCC was in a very important space, facilitating the gathering of civil society, and we collaborated with various organizations,” said Dr Manoj Kurian, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on Health and Healing. “Our leadership had an opportunity to meet and give input into these different processes.”

The delegation engaged in 11 priority areas including the right to health, sustainable financing, equitable access to innovation, climate and health, conflict and displacement, reproductive health, aging and elder care, mental health, palliative care, pandemic preparedness, and decolonizing health systems.

“There is a great deficit in the finances and also in trust in the global health situation, and it is critical that civil society and faith communities actually step up and mobilize the agency and the capacities of communities to respond — and to make health a reality,” said Kurian. “We have strengthened old relationships and developed new relationships.”

The delegation also participated in and cohosted multiple events, including a session on civil society collaboration in health promotion, a webinar on digital health equity, a side event on economic policy and public health, and sessions addressing antimicrobial resistance and palliative care through an interfaith advocacy network.

“One very significant step was also to develop new relationships with world organizations: the Unite Parliamentarians for Global Health, World Federation of Public Health Associations, Global Mental Health Network—so there were many, many new relationships that we developed,” said Kurian, who urged governments and policymakers to ensure that communities are meaningfully involved in envisioning and implementing mental health as an integral component of universal healthcare.

“Civil society and faith communities are uniquely placed to mobilize the agency of societies to recover from today’s financial and trust deficits in mental health care,” he said, underscoring the importance of WCC contributing evidence-based perspectives to rights-grounded health policy.

New interfaith network on palliative care

The WCC is also involved in developing a new interfaith network on palliative care, along with the Catholic Church and other networks.

A working session of the Interfaith Advocacy Network for Palliative Care marked the beginning of a shared effort to bring faith communities, palliative care practitioners, caregivers, advocates and partners closer together in service of people facing serious illness, pain, loss, and suffering. The foundation of this network lies in the interfaith HIV initiatives initiated and sustained by the WCC, with participants acknowledging the WCC’s extensive experience in this area.

“At the heart of the conversation was the question: how can faith communities help ensure that palliative care is better understood, more widely accepted, and more fully recognized as an essential part of health, dignity, and universal health coverage?” explained Kurian.

Palliative care is an essential response to the growing crisis of spiritual distress and the epidemic of loneliness affecting both adolescents and older persons. “Our faith calls us to provide active, holistic care across the life course, ensuring dignity at the end of life,” said Gracia Violeta Ross, WCC programme executive for HIV, Reproductive Health, and Pandemics.

“Expanding access to palliative care is one way to address persistent inequalities in healthcare,” said Ross.

She noted that religious leaders are uniquely positioned to help bridge this gap, particularly given that only 14% of the global population currently has access to palliative care.

"The disparity is even more pronounced among children in need: 95% lack access to palliative care,” Ross said. “These include children living with serious and chronic conditions such as cancer, advanced HIV, congenital disorders, severe neurological conditions, organ failure, and genetic diseases.”

While several frameworks and documents on palliative care already exist, implementation remains insufficient, she added. “The Interfaith Advocacy Network for Palliative Care aims to address this gap by connecting and equipping religious leaders to provide compassionate service grounded in a patient-centred approach,” said Ross. “This work is not about asserting beliefs, but about responding to the needs, dignity, and wellbeing of each individual.”

Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network

The WCC also had substantive discussions with the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, which comprises hundreds of health institutions. These discussions focused on pandemic preparedness, especially in the light of the ongoing Ebola situation.

“We also looked at collaborating with the agencies across the board, using artificial intelligence and modern methodologies for developing early warning and response to support countries — and especially in the context of regions in the world where pandemics are breaking out in border areas,” said Dr Richard Neci Cizungu, executive director of the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network. “We, as faith communities, need to collaborate, because governments alone cannot solve these problems.”

WCC will participate in 79th World Health Assembly

WCC shares input at two gatherings for exploring equitable global health

Side event to 79th World Health Assembly explores “Economics of Health For All—Taking Action”

World Health Assembly side event focuses on bridging the antimicrobial resistance divide

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.

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WCC news: WCC webinar challenges faith communities on period poverty

Every 28 May, International Menstrual Hygiene Day draws global attention to what many institutions still decline to name. On 4 June, the World Council of Churches (WCC) goes further – hosting “Breaking the Blood Taboo,” a 90-minute online webinar, now in its fifth year, that moves from acknowledgement to accountability. Church leaders, youth leaders, and menstrual health advocates are invited to ask what they actually provide—and what they do not.

29 May 2026

“In the United Kingdom, 20% of the menstruating population cannot afford hygiene products. That rises to 25% and 33% among US teens and adults. Lack of access to water and basic sanitation morphs into a global crisis fuelled by the stigma imposed on the vulnerable,” said Rev. Nicole Ashwood, WCC programme executive for a Just Community of Women and Men. “The church must take a stand for the sake of our women and girls, whose reproductive, hygiene, and mental health are at risk.”

The programme covers hygiene, theology, and ecology. Speakers address what the body costs to sustain, what faith traditions say it is worth, and what the planet pays for disposable hygiene products. Faith leaders will share what has worked – low-cost disposal units, free dispensers in church restrooms – and a new WCC advocacy briefing will offer a checklist for communities prepared to follow its example.

Three themes will anchor the discussion: the global reach of period poverty; sustainable menstrual products as a creation care imperative; and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) commitments for faith-based facilities.

The webinar is organised by four WCC programmes – the Ecumenical Water Network, Health and Healing, Just Community of Women and Men, and Young People in the Ecumenical Movement – together with the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development and Norwegian Church Aid.

The webinar runs online on 4 June, from 15:00 to 16:30. Registration details are below.

International Menstrual Hygiene Day

UN Women – Period poverty

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WCC NEWS: Christian Council of Norway: “We cry out for the people of Sudan”

Christian Council of Norway: “We cry out for the people of Sudan”

The Christian Council of Norway published a statement expressing deep concern over the severe underreporting of the situation in Sudan in the Norwegian media. "We cannot accept that this is happening on our watch,” the statement reads. “Every human being is created in the image of God and has inviolable worth.”

Sunrise over thatched huts in Kubum, a village in Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region. Photo: Paul Jeffrey/Life on Earth

29 May 2026

The Norwegian churches underscored that no war justifies attacks on civilians or the destruction of livelihoods.

“As church leaders in Norway, we call for an immediate end to the destructive and senseless conflict that continues to destroy lives and livelihoods across Sudan,” reads the text. “Silence kills, and we are deeply concerned by the severe underreporting of this situation in the Norwegian media.”

The Norwegian churches joined with Sudanese brothers and sisters in praying for a just peace for the whole of Sudan, and that internally displaced people and refugees around the world may be able to return home.

The churches pledged to “together with the World Council of Churches, reaffirm our commitment to accompanying the churches and people of Sudan in their pursuit of a just and lasting peace.”

The statement also urges all parties to the conflict to cease hostilities, prioritise dialogue, and take concrete steps towards reconciliation and the rebuilding of the nation.

The churches called on Norwegian media to take seriously their public responsibility and report more fully on the atrocities taking place in Sudan. The churches also called upon their own government and the international community “to intensify diplomatic efforts and humanitarian support, engage actively in peacemaking, and support diaconal initiatives.”

The statement calls upon churches and fellow believers “to pray for an immediate end to this tragic violence and for a sustainable peace to prevail,” and urges all people of good will to "raise Sudan in conversations, on social media, and through every available channel.”

Statement of the Christian Council of Norway: "We, the churches together, cry out for the people of Sudan"

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EarthBeat Weekly: Pope Leo's AI encyclical takes on data center's ecological toll

Pope Leo's AI encyclical takes on data centers' ecological toll

EarthBeat Weekly
Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change

May 29, 2026

An aerial view shows an Amazon Web Services Data Center known as US East 1 in Ashburn, Va., Oct. 20, 2025. (OSV News/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical penned by Pope Leo XIV, made its public debut on Monday.

The expansive treatise on artificial intelligence — counting more than 200 pages and 42,000 words — delves into the technological revolution of our time that poses both immense potential and calamitous dangers to humanity as well as all of creation.

While environmental issues posed by AI make up but a portion of the encyclical (an authoritative papal teaching document), Leo engages some of the main ecological questions the explosion of artificial intelligence raises, including the massive natural resources needed for data centers to train and operate generative AI models and exploitation in the extraction of tech-critical minerals.

He also cites past popes, including Pope Francis and his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', and builds off the church's expansive teaching on creation and ecology. During a May 25 event at the Vatican unveiling Magnifica Humanitas, Leo said he felt entrusted to examine the "huge transformation" AI presents for the world "with eyes of faith, with lucidity of reason, with openness to mystery, and with cries of the poor and the earth resounding in my heart."

In earlier remarks, Cardinal Michael Czerny, head of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said Magnifica Humanitas "stands in profound continuity" with Laudato Si' and its follow-up apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum "on the climate crisis."

Here are a few of the environmental excerpts from Magnifica Humanitas:

Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice. [Paragraph 9]

Care for our common home and our responsibility toward the poor and future generations require that the use of the goods of creation and the new possibilities offered by technology be regulated in such a way as to respect the environment, avoid waste and prevent new forms of exploitation. [Paragraph 67]

To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. … Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home. AI is already an environment in which we are immersed, as well as a force with which we must engage. For this reason, merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible. [Paragraph 110]

Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources. As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows too, which requires an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers and energy-intensive infrastructure. For this reason, it is essential to develop more sustainable technological solutions that reduce environmental impact and help protect our common home. [Paragraph 101]

Today, the concept of integral human development is a benchmark for the evaluation of integral ecology, which has become an indispensable dimension of the Church's Social Doctrine. Indeed, the quality of development is measured by the ability to integrate justice toward people and the care of our common home, and to promote dignified living conditions, access to necessary goods, just social relations, care of creation and consideration for future generations. It follows that true progress is not what increases the wellbeing of some by degrading ecosystems, shifting costs onto the most disadvantaged communities, or compromising the living conditions of those who will follow us. [Paragraph 84]

Added to this invisible labor [of training AI models] is the even harsher work of extracting the resources required for the production of the devices and microprocessors on which AI depends. In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted. The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly. [Paragraph 173]

What else is new on EarthBeat:

Pope Leo meets families of youth lost to illegal toxic waste dumping in Italy's 'Land of Fires'

by Silvia Stellacci, Associated Press

"Convert, change your ways, because what you are doing is not only a crime, it is a sin that cries out to God for vengeance," said Bishop Antonio Di Donna.

What's happening in other climate news:

Another first for renewables: Wind and solar outgenerate gas in April —Dan McCarthy for Canary Media

India records over 300 suspected heatstroke cases as summer temperatures spike —Rishika Sadam and Hritam Mukherjee for Reuters

An unusually early heat wave breaks temperature records across Western Europe —Kiley Price for Inside Climate News

Water shortages worsen across Cuba as oil supplies dwindle —Andrea Rodríguez for the Associated Press

6 victims recovered from site of Longview chemical tank failure —Jake Goldstein-Street for the Washington State Standard

Environmentalists turn out in force to oppose Trump coal ash rollbacks —Arcelia Martin for Inside Climate News

National Park entrance fees are funding Trump's D.C. projects —Maxine Joselow and Andrea Fuller for The New York Times

Could new tech help save some very rare whales? —Catrin Einhorn for The New York Times

Hajj pilgrims perform rituals in soaring heat as Eid al-Adha celebrations begin —Baraa Anwer and Mariam Fam for the Associated Press

Trump officials, billionaires and the quiet reshaping of America's public lands —Evan Simon and Ames Alexander for Floodlight News and High Country News

Final Beat:

Beyond Magnifica Humanitas' examination of AI's impacts on the physical world, Pope Leo also addressed the digital ecosystem rapidly emerging.

"Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home. AI is already an environment in which we are immersed, as well as a force with which we must engage," he wrote.

That observation struck Paulist Fr. Ricky Manalo, author of the forthcoming book The Catholic Handbook on Artificial Intelligence.

"He doesn't see AI just as a tool of possible ecological harm, but it becomes a habitat. … It becomes the actual environment about how we live," Manalo told me this week.

"Laudato Si' clearly talked about this natural ecology, like what kind of physical world that we're leaving to the future generation, and what responsibilities do nations have, right? [Pope Leo's] talking about digital ecology, more like what kind of informational, relational, emotional world are we building for our future generations, and how is that affecting us today."

Manalo said that Leo is sounding a warning about the blurring of lines between physical and virtual spaces and the power of AI to shape humanity's perception of their environment and reality.

"The question then is, are we becoming more human inside this environment, this new [digital] ecology?" he said.

As always, thanks for reading EarthBeat.

Brian Roewe
Environment Correspondent
National Catholic Reporter
broewe@ncronline.org