WCC news: WCC general secretary opens convocation in Korea: “The Kingdom of God is peace”

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay offered the opening sermon on 9 September at the 2026 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Photo: NCCK 9 September 2026 Delivered in the Anglican Church of Korea, Seoul Cathedral, Pillay’s sermon was entitled "The Kingdom of God Has Come Near.” He acknowledged the 40th Anniversary of the Glion Consultation. “How wonderful it would have been if we gathered here to celebrate under different circumstances, a reunified Korea, but it seems that we are far from that today,” he said. “And so, my message to you today is to encourage you with the biblical message that assures us that the kingdom of God has come near even when we think it has not.” At Glion, Pillay noted, Christians from North and South Korea met during one of the most divided periods of modern history. “In a world shaped by the Cold War, they bore witness to a deeper allegiance: not first to competing political systems, but to the crucified and risen Christ,” he said. “Their meeting proclaimed that the Kingdom of God transcends every border, ideology, and human division.” Too many lives continue to be diminished by war, poverty, displacement, environmental destruction, and fear, Pillay continued. “Decades of division have left families separated, communities fractured, and generations shaped by memories of conflict,” he said. Even where open warfare has ceased, the wounds of history remain, Pillay reflected. “Without justice, peace becomes little more than the silence imposed by power,” he said. “For the Korean Peninsula, the pursuit of justice includes acknowledging suffering on all sides, honouring the dignity of every person, and creating conditions in which truth, accountability, compassion, and human flourishing can take root.” The Glion Consultation remains significant because it demonstrated that reconciliation begins with encounter, Pillay said. “People discovered one another not as enemies but as brothers and sisters in Christ,” he said. “As we remember the Glion Consultation, we honour those who believed that faith could build bridges where politics had built walls.” Read the full sermon Photo gallery 2026 International Peace Convocation to take place in Korea (WCC news release, 7 September 2026) See more

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. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland

WCC News: Faith groups carry a grants-not-loans demand toward COP31

Climate finance, the money that helps countries cut emissions and cope with impacts, should come as grants, not debt-creating loans, demanded faith-based organizations at the UN Human Rights Council as COP31 in Antalya, Turkey approaches. "Climate Finance for Human Rights, Resilience, and Justice", held in Geneva on 7 September, was convened by Franciscans International, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and six other partners. Speakers at the Climate Finance event at the 63rd Human Rights Council, Photo: Franciscans International 09 September 2026 "From a faith perspective, climate finance is not simply about finding more money for climate action," said Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development. "We also want to look at who pays and who benefits and who bears the risks." Private investment cannot close the gap, Peralta argued: it follows returns, not need. Public finance must move back to the centre: "we need to see climate finance, debt and tax as part of the same system." Public money could also come from military budgets, said Lindsey Fielder Cook of the Quaker United Nations Office. World military spending rose for an 11th consecutive year in 2025, she said, while states cut climate finance. "So while our forest burns, our crops die, our glaciers collapse, people die of heat and people die in war. We ask ourselves, what really makes us safe?"  Elena Cedillo, programme executive for climate justice at the Lutheran World Federation, put the weight on design: "the question is not only how much climate finance is available, but how it is designed, and who has a voice in deciding how it is used." Illari Aragon, global advocacy and policy lead at Christian Aid, said of COP31: "it's really an opportunity for countries to show that they care about adaptation." International public adaptation finance was 26 billion US dollars in 2023, against annual needs of 310 to 365 billion by 2035, the UN Environment Programme reports. Climate Finance for Human Rights, Resilience and Justice  Sustainability and Economy of Life (WCC) Churches to tackle war economies at Panama consultation (WCC) Adaptation Gap Report 2025 (UN Environment Programme, 29 October 2025) Climate Finance for Human Rights, Resilience and Justice | HRC63 Side Event See more

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. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland

EarthBeat Weekly: Catholics urge resolve with world set to miss key climate goal

Catholics urge resolve as the world is set to miss key 1.5 C climate goal   EarthBeat Weekly Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change September 11, 2026   Smoke rises from a wildfire progressing in Betxi, Spain, July 26, 2026. (OSV News photo/Pedro Nunes, Reuters) For more than a decade, discussions about how to address climate change have revolved around a central figure: 1.5 degrees Celsius.  That is the higher-ambition temperature limit that nearly 200 countries agreed to pursue through the phaseout of greenhouse gas emissions when they adopted the Paris Agreement in December 2015. Here's the full text, from Article 2(a) of the climate accord:  "Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change." That inclusion of 1.5 C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) was a hard-fought victory for island nations who rallied support around that target, as I reported from Paris at the time, including eventually from the Holy See. More than a figure, they said it represented a lifeline, as heating above that point significantly raised the risk that their homelands — and with it, their livelihoods, cultures and communities — could be totally lost beneath rising seas.  A 2018 United Nations report reinforced the difference between 1.5 C and 2 C warming, with the latter exposing hundreds of millions more people around the globe to catastrophic climate impacts like severe heatwaves and sea rise, and with it threatening food and water supplies along with coastal infrastructure and communities. Last year, the International Court of Justice issued a major advisory opinion affirming that 1.5 C was "the scientifically based consensus target" under international law, and that all countries — whether party to the Paris Agreement or not — held a legal obligation to limit climate pollution. Failing to do so, the judges said, could amount to a breach of international law.  Fast forward to last week, when the U.N. Environment Programme issued a new report that stated what many had suspected for some time: Countries have failed to cut emissions deeply and quickly enough to avoid 1.5 C warming, with the report saying it is now "inevitable" temperatures will exceed that threshold likely by the end of the 2020s.  The sobering conclusion means the focus must now shift, the scientists behind the report said, from trying to avoid 1.5 C to finding ways to limit and reverse warming "overshoot" from that point (including through untested carbon capture-and-storage technologies) and at the same time prepare for the climate impacts such levels of warming will bring to societies and ecosystems.  The new report makes clear that global warming of 1.5 C "is not considered safe for most nations, communities, ecosystems and sectors, and still poses significant risks to natural and human systems." Even temporarily exceeding that level of warming "will result in substantial and often irreversible impacts." Catholic officials who spoke with me about the U.N. overshoot report for this story at EarthBeat said while its findings are bleak, it cannot become grounds to give up efforts to limit global warming as much and as fast as possible. "The worst possible response would be to conclude that the battle is lost. The opposite is true: Every fraction of a degree, and every year spent above 1.5 degrees C, matters enormously for vulnerable communities and for the ecosystems on which we all depend," said Lorna Gold, executive director of the Laudato Si' Movement.  "We cannot allow 'overshoot' to become another language for surrender. From the Global South, our message must be clear: Every fraction of a degree still matters, because behind every fraction are people, communities, cultures and species," Rodne Galicha, executive director of Living Laudato Si' Philippines, told me.  The report comes as global attention to climate change has waned, though its impacts are increasingly visible with each passing season, including in this summer of extreme disasters highlighted by the flash floods in Nepal triggered by a glacier's collapse. "The tragic flooding in Nepal shows what happens when our common home fractures," Lisa Sullivan with the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, told me. "But an overshoot doesn't mean giving up; it means ramping up." Read more: Global warming set to surpass key 1.5 C climate limit by 2030, UN report finds What else is new on EarthBeat:   Nazareth sisters promote holistic healing with nature by Thomas Scaria More than 10,000 people have achieved holistic recovery at the Nazareth Nature Care Centre in Kunnoth, India, over the past nearly four decades.  Read more here »   Monday Starter: Nun leading Caritas Nepal calls for international aid after floods by Chris Herlinger, Stephan Uttom Rozario Plus, Sr. Jean Schmidt of Loyola fame is honored with a statue on campus, and the Adrian Dominicans issue criticism of Trump's trade war with Canada. Read more here »   German archbishop says US-Mexico border wall recalls Berlin Wall, warns against loss of humanity by Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News Quoting Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, the visiting prelate said, "In the church, there are no borders. That is how Catholicism is brought to life." Read more here » What's happening in other climate news: After 9/11, documents suggest, New Yorkers were misled about air quality —Sally Goldenberg and Nina Agrawal for The New York Times Cancer's toll on 9/11 survivors is accelerating 25 years later —Daniel Wu and Chris Hacker for the Washington Post Global heat is stuck on high. Scientists say August was Earth's hottest month they've measured —Seth Borenstein for the Associated Press Many people aren't connecting the dots between climate change and extreme weather —Kiley Price for Inside Climate News Nepal puts climate justice at centre of global pitch for flood aid —Saurabh Sharma, Sarita Chaganti Singh and Gopal Sharma for Reuters You don't have a right to safe drinking water, US court rules —Sophie Hurwitz for Mother Jones Studies link New Mexico drilling to radiation, air pollution, health risks —Jerry Redfern for Capital & Main Underserved communities again ask courts to restore justice grant funding —Amy Green for Inside Climate News Final Beat: EarthBeat Weekly in its full form will be taking a brief hiatus over the coming weeks, as I will be heading out on parental leave.  Rest assured, you will still receive a slimmed-down version of the newsletter every Friday in your inbox.  I'll see you in November. As always, thanks for reading (and continuing to read) EarthBeat.   Brian Roewe Environment Correspondent National Catholic Reporter broewe@ncronline.org     Featured Advertisers   Looking to Hire? Offering Retreats? Selling Books? Place an Ad in NCR's Online Classified Section for Only $75 per Month!   Advertisement

Truth and Action Roundup 9.11.26

View this email in your browser Welcome to the Truth and Action Roundup, your reliable weekly source for information, inspiration, and opportunities for action during the second Trump administration.  Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to continue receiving it. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The attacks by al-Qaeda here in the United States created a sense of vulnerability and fear that comes as a natural response to seeing violence in the communities they love and live in. Our religious tradition asks us, as a matter of faith, to meet these moments of fear by trusting in the Lord and responding with love. The Global War on Terror, which was launched as a militaristic response to this fear and vulnerability, demonstrates the wisdom of the approach demanded from us as Christians. In the time since the beginning of the Global War on Terror, we’ve targeted our Muslim neighbors with surveillance, harassment, and the curtailment of their freedom of speech and association. These tactics and policies have since expanded to include activists organizing against mass deportation, churches and charities that seek to help asylum seekers and refugees, as well as reporters writing news stories the administration would like to suppress. We’ve launched three major conflicts in Western Asia which have led to the death of thousands of civilians, which continues to this day. The excess military equipment from these wars is now being seen on US streets not only through the transfer of material to police departments but in military deployments in cities like Memphis, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. At Guantanamo Bay, we saw the military establish a black site for torturing prisoners that is now being used to launch deportation flights, sending people to places they have never been. After 25 years, we must reflect on the choices we’ve made that have led us to this moment. As Christians, we must address the Islamophobia that has been used to foment these oppressive policies and deadly wars. With states like Texas continuing to target Muslim communities for attempting to do anodyne activities like building mosques and community housing, and the federal government targeting organizers and activists for speaking their minds, we must raise our voices in defense of our neighbors if we are to halt our slide towards authoritarianism. As we continue to see the military targeting Muslims not only in Iran but also in Yemen and Nigeria, we must demand a diplomatic approach that acknowledges the humanity of every person as made in the image of God. –– Rev. Moya Harris and Chad Stanton, Sojourners P.S. We are continuing to build an intentional community of people looking to live out their faith in our Sojourners Faith and Practice Forum on Mighty Networks. Please consider joining us. In the News Here’s a look at what happened this week: As we mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 today, the news reminds us that Islamophobia all too often still taints our public discourse. Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be in attendance at this week's 9/11 memorial ceremony in Lower Manhattan. “I’m proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” Mamdani said. “What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of Sept. 11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.” A small but growing contingent of people have called for Mamdani to skip the 25th anniversary on Friday, including Rudy Giuliani, who over the weekend delivered an Islamophobic rant on Newsmax. The former New York City mayor, who oversaw the city's response to the terror attacks 25 years ago, made baseless assertions about Mamdani: "All the Muslims he supports are murderers." Donald Trump often brings up September 11, the devastating al-Qaeda attack that struck his hometown, New York City, almost 25 years ago. His recollections of that day have repeatedly included exaggerations and falsehoods—from the claim that he helped with the cleanup to the lie that Muslims were celebrating in Jersey City.   Global affairs remained turbulent in many parts of the world, from Western Asia to Latin America. Oil prices rose to over $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after the US and Iran attacked tankers in the Gulf region and Yemen's Houthis hit oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Overnight, the US said it struck five Iranian tankers in retaliation for Iran's targeting of a warship, while Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they attacked eight tankers and two warships in response, as well as a US base in Jordan. The Iran-backed Houthis reported dozens of Saudi strikes in Yemen, a day after drone and missile attacks caused fires at several oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Before the US and Israel's war with Iran began in February, crude oil had been priced at about $70 a barrel.   The psychological toll of daily life in Cuba is pushing many to their breaking point on the island of nearly 10 million people, with no relief in sight as a U.S. energy embargo persists and longtime economic and financial troubles deepen. Cubans face significant challenges each day, including sweltering nights, water and power shortages, dwindling fuel, limited public transportation, weak cellphone signals, and much more. The Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, has described the U.S. embargo as genocidal. As the November midterm elections approach, battles over voting rights and election protection rage on. The idea of federal law enforcement seizing ballots in the middle of an active election should be shocking and unthinkable. But as President Trump continues to be obsessed with voter fraud and attempts to leverage the largely nonexistent issue for political gain, ballot seizures and search warrants are scenarios voting officials and the legal community are actively preparing for. One state election official, who did not have permission to speak publicly, told NPR their office has led three separate statewide trainings this year to prepare for the possibility of law enforcement seeking to take possession of ballots or election materials while the election is ongoing. The ongoing legal fight over a Postal Service plan for President Trump's attempt to exert control over federal elections is forcing millions of eligible voters to navigate the uncertainty as they vote by mail in the midterms. For now, the U.S. Postal Service is expected to handle election mail as usual. That's because U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has blocked USPS from refusing to deliver ballots to voters in states where election officials do not turn over voter lists to the mailing agency and do not have certain specific barcodes on their ballot envelopes. But the Trump administration has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit and the Supreme Court to allow those new federal mail ballot requirements for the midterms. Those courts may issue rulings as soon as this week. The Trump administration’s deportation regime continued its cruel work, but pushback to that work continued as well. The Trump administration no longer plans to convert massive warehouses in Georgia and Utah into immigration detention centers, recent court filings show – the latest reversals in an ambitious effort to reshape the nation’s detention system. ICE’s recent warehouse purchases, often completed before local officials or residents learned what ICE intended to do with the properties, have generated backlash across the country. Residents, including in Republican strongholds in Mississippi and Georgia, staged protests at the proposed sites and packed city council meetings to express outrage. Private developers in at least 11 communities withdrew from prospective deals with DHS. The resistance often crossed party lines. A police officer aimed a loaded assault rifle at unarmed immigrants expelled to Equatorial Guinea by the Trump administration in a chaotic incident on September 3, in which the officer’s supervisor ordered him to shoot, multiple cellphone videos show. It was the latest in a string of abusive incidents against the immigrants, none of whom had any previous ties to Equatorial Guinea and are now imprisoned in a hotel in the country’s isolated island of Malabo. The immigrants, whose birth countries span from Honduras to Eritrea, have endured beatings, death threats, and denial of food; are afraid for their lives and desperately want to leave, one of them told the American Prospect the day after the incident, but because Immigration and Customs Enforcement flew them to Equatorial Guinea without any identification, they have no idea when, how, or even if they’ll ever be released. A coalition of advocacy groups and a Democratic-led city on Thursday filed a preemptive lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from deploying armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling sites ahead of November's midterm elections. The lawsuit asks the federal district court in Washington, D.C., to declare unlawful any plans to have armed agents at polling places and to prohibit federal officers from carrying weapons near voting locations or other sites where votes are collected. Take Action Sojo Action is currently calling for an end to the war in Iran. Power the Polls is an ongoing effort to recruit people to staff at their local polls this fall. What We’re Reading “'Never Forget' Is Easy. Remembering Well Is Hard” | “What does it mean, in this place and moment, to remember rightly?” (By Amar D. Peterman) “Wendell Berry Comforted Me Through My Gender Transition” | “Wendell Berry’s words were exactly what I needed to hear when I wanted to wish myself away.” (By Georgia Coley) Deep Breaths The weekend before September 11, 2001, I was at the World Trade Center, enjoying New York before starting my sophomore year of college in central New Jersey. A few days later, I was asleep in my dorm room when my older brother called and told me to quickly wake up and turn on the news. A plane had struck the North Tower. Twenty-five years later, I still hold the people who died that day, their families, and everyone who continues to mourn with deep tenderness. Too many were folk I knew, and all of them were folk who deserved more than that day offered them. It is possible a part of all of us died that day. In the hours, weeks, and years that followed, folk raised the American flag in front of their homes and on their cars. Folk made their way to Ground Zero in homage. We built a memorial and a museum, alongside commercial properties, and convened a commission to investigate what happened that day. These decades later, I remain curious about what we chose to do with our grief, and what the memorial we eventually built to September 11 asks of us. We spent billions constructing a place to remember those we lost, yet have never made a commensurate national investment in memorializing the millions killed and displaced through the Middle Passage, or the Native people who endured attempted genocide as this nation was formed and expanded. The disparity is not merely about monuments. It is about the divine witness we have and have not demonstrated as a people, the histories we codify, the stories we hold sacred, and the futures those stories make possible. What does our remembrance require of us? Take a breath here with me. There is more. The days after 9/11, we were told to wake up to terrorism, to threats real and imagined. And yet we also needed to wake up to our own harmful systems, the machinery of white Christian nationalism, militarism, unchecked capitalism, and concentrated power that have created pathways to destruction here and abroad. We followed the money, and in many ways we followed it toward war rather than peace and healing, toward punishment rather than repair, toward barriers rather than bridges. Grief has a way of moving from the public into the private, and I think about my brother, too. We were not particularly close even then. Two years before the attacks, he lost his partner and their business to an arson fire, and in the years that followed he struggled with drug use, encountered the criminal legal system, and endured strokes, heart attacks, and other profound health crises, until his death three years ago. By the time I understood how much help he needed, it was too late. I still wonder what I might have seen sooner, what I might have asked, whether any intervention could have reached him in time. His suffering was not his alone. And in this political and social environment we find ourselves in today, neither is ours. Today, perhaps that is the deeper wake-up call. We need more than a deep breath. We need the courage to tell the truth about what is making us sick, to hold one another with tenderness, and to hold ourselves accountable for what we do next. Casey Gerald’s The Great Refusal offers a provocative invitation: perhaps some of what we have been taught to preserve must be allowed to die. Not people, but a way of living organized around domination, extraction, fear, and disposability. As our SojoAction team gathers next week for A Seat Among Seers, our salon during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, we are bringing together leaders of faith and vision to sit with these questions through Casey’s work: What might it look like to hospice this way of living while cultivating the relationships, imagination, and organized power necessary to birth something better? The work is already underway. Across communities, people are building bridges, ushering in liberation, tending to one another, refusing despair, and practicing forms of joy that authoritarianism cannot decode. Birth is messy. There is pain in it, and waiting, and no guarantee of the hour. But on the other end of it is life. I think back to that weekend before, standing in the shadow of towers that no longer stand. I could not have known what was coming. None of us could. Twenty-five years after the wake-up call, I still don't know exactly what's coming next. But I know what I am choosing to labor toward. I hope you'll breathe deep and choose it with me. –– Bryan Epps, Sojourners The Truth and Action Roundup is compiled by Sojourners staff: President: Rev. Adam Russell Taylor Senior Research Associate: J.K. Granberg-Michaelson Digital Content and Community Specialist: Kassandra Tapia Chief Program and Impact Officer: Bryan Epps Political Director: Chad V. Stanton Senior Program Director: Rev. Moya Harris Education and Engagement Program Manager: Cortnie Brooks Mobilizing (SojoAction) Fellow: Alyssa Parker Donate Subscribe Unsubscribe or update email preferences Copyright © 2026 Sojourners. All rights reserved. Email: sojourners@sojo.net | Tel.: 202.328.8842