Friday, September 29, 2023

WCC News: WCC and partners celebrate 75th anniversary of adoption of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

As the World Council of Churches (WCC) celebrates its 75th anniversary, it is also marking the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris on 10 December 1948.

Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs reflects on the historical contribution of churches to the universal human rights protection as the World Council of Churches and United Evangelical Mission celebrates the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Photo: Ivars Kupcis/WCC

29 September 2023

The histories of the WCC and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are intertwined. The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, established in 1946 in anticipation of the subsequent foundation of the WCC, played a significant role in the drafting of the declaration.

To help mark this shared birthday, the WCC and United Evangelical Mission held a reception at the Ecumenical Centre on 28 September–-a date in between the respective birthdays of the WCC and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Those gathered shared reflections on the history of the declaration and its current and future importance for our global community.

In his remarks at the reception, Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reflected on the shared history of the WCC and the declaration. “Our commemoration of this anniversary year is muted, even sombre,” he said. “The principles of human rights law seem to be more contested than ever before, and the commitment to multilateralism itself in retreat.”

He noted that we live in a time with new conflicts. “The World Council of Churches has consistently and repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the principles of international human rights law,” he said. “And yet we also have to acknowledge that within our own constituency – comprising 352 member churches in 120 countries and a total of over half a billion people – there are divergences and differences of opinion on the nature of the relationship between Christian faith principles and international human rights law.”

Dr Jochen Motte, deputy general secretary of the United Evangelical Mission, reflected on the history of the declaration and the organizations that have been strongly committed to it. “Today—as in many years after 1948—we face fundamental challenges for the implementation of universal human rights,” said Motte. “As church people, based on our faith and our biblical roots, we celebrate this day.”

Dr Michael Wiener, human rights officer with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reflected that it’s important to discuss both the history and the future of the Declaration for Human Rights, and expressed his appreciation for how the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs helped shape the declaration. “That’s a very good example of how the various stakeholders, including civil society and faith-based actors, actually can and really have contributed to international human rights law,” he said. “The high commissioner looks forward to continued collaboration and to strengthening the engagement of faith-based actors in promoting and protecting human rights for all.”

Photo gallery from the event

Publication "Strengthening Christian Perspectives on Human Dignity and Human Rights"

United Evangelical Mission

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 352 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
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EarthBeat Weekly: From a bishop in Tucson to journalists in NYC, climate hope exists

From a bishop in Tucson to journalists in NYC, climate hope exists

Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change

September 29, 2023

Participants with the banner of the Metro New York Catholic Climate Movement march from St. Paul the Apostle Church to the main rallying point for the Sept. 17 climate march in midtown Manhattan. (GSR photo/Chris Herlinger)

Last week, I spent two days during Climate Week NYC at "Climate Changes Everything: Creating a Blueprint for Media Transformation," a conference for climate journalists and journalists who want to do a better job of telling the climate story. Held at Columbia University and cosponsored by Covering Climate Now, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, The Guardian and the Solutions Journalism Network, it was an event full of valuable listening and learning.

I left at the end of the conference full of ideas and enthusiasm for new projects at EarthBeat, and also with a real sense of pride for the work that we already do. With a small staff within the niche landscape of Catholic media, EarthBeat is publishing reports and commentary on many of the same major climate stories as other larger mainstream media outlets — always while asking why these stories should matter to Catholics or what they have to do with Catholicism.

For me, one of the things that approaching climate news from a Catholic angle has always meant — and that was emphasized by last week's conference about climate journalism in general — is being attentive to how care for creation is connected to other topics of conversation or issues of concern. Popular culture calls this intersectionality. Pope Francis calls it integral ecology. No matter its name, it is a critical part of effectively telling the climate story.

Sometimes it means including points about the environment within stories that run outside of the dedicated climate beat, such as in this story about the 2023 Farm Bill, published in NCR's news section on Tuesday, that discusses why some Catholic groups want environmental components of the legislation to be prioritized.

Other times it means planning content in a way that highlights how it relates to other justice issues, such as NCR environment correspondent Brian Roewe's recent feature story on how climate change is affecting migration in Honduras. That story ran on Earthbeat and NCR's homepages during National Migration Week to make clear this was not just a climate story.

Other reports at Earthbeat this week connected to issues of health, economics, finance, politics and activism. There are so many entry points for people to encounter climate news. And because Pope Francis repeatedly and emphatically talks about how intricately everything is interconnected, it feels like the only way to tell a Catholic climate story is to do it in this way.

It also helps us reach new readers with stories that matter. If you know someone who might not click on the climate section, but would be interested in one of the other topics listed above, consider sharing the article link with them. They just might be surprised to find how much resonates with their own experience or interests.

Thanks for helping us share the Catholic climate story.

What else is new on EarthBeat:

Bishop Weisenburger says climate change is an issue of 'life and death'

by Stephanie Clary

Bishop Edward Weisenburger says climate change "is a practical, local issue of local concern." He spoke to EarthBeat about his recent op-ed on climate change and hope, and his hopes for Pope Francis' "Laudate Deum."

New American Climate Corps aims to boost clean energy, jobs for young people

by Kimberley Heatherington, OSV News

The announcement was greeted with "excitement and hope" by Kayla Jacobs, program manager of youth mobilization at Catholic Climate Covenant.

Pope says his new ecology document is titled 'Laudate Deum'

by Catholic News Service

Pope Francis said the title of his new letter on the environment will be "Laudate Deum," (Praise God), a frequent refrain in several psalms.

Catholic groups underscore urgency of United Nations 'Climate Ambition Summit'

by Kimberley Heatherington, OSV News

The "Climate Ambition Summit" excluded the U.S. and China because the U.N. invited only leaders from nations with concrete plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Catholic action on climate issue must continue, advocates say

by Chris Herlinger

With a week of marches, workshops and a U.N. summit behind them, Catholics say they must continue and expand their work to increase public pressure for change on climate action.

Catholics ask Biden to deliver debt relief to countries most at risk from climate change

by Brian Roewe

As President Biden urged global cooperation at the U.N. to combat climate change, U.S. Catholic groups are calling on his administration to use debt relief to help countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The increasingly perilous lot of the pilgrim shows us all the path on climate

by Marqus Cole, Religion News Service

We must take up the opportunity to partner with God in bringing "heaven to earth" through positive actions that restore creation and defend the most vulnerable from climate harms.

What's happening in other climate news:

Report: The world’s most critical climate target is still within reach — Akielly Hu for The Guardian

Why Biden's allies are scrambling to elevate his landmark climate law — Timothy Puko for The Washington Post

The Father of Environmental Justice Exposes the Geography of Inequity — Yessenia Funes for Scientific American

‘We Can’t Drink Oil’: How A 70-Year-Old Pipeline Imperils The Great Lakes — Oliver Milman for the Guardian

"Indigenous Brazilians Celebrate Land Claims Win - But Fight Goes On" — Andre Cabette Fabio for Thomson Reuters Foundation

Times launches Climate California — The LA Times

Final Beat:

Another takeaway from the "Climate Changes Everything" conference in New York last week was a sense of community hope and optimism. Yes, sometimes working in climate news can be hard, feel defeating and even lead to despair. There's a reason terms like "climate anxiety" and "climate grief" have developed in recent years. And yet, this was a room of people who know the extent of the climate crisis — and also know that we have the solutions we need to protect life on Earth. We just need to share information about them and implement them well.

Here's a brief video put together by Covering Climate Now of journalists at the conference sharing their thoughts.

Thanks for reading EarthBeat!

Stephanie Clary
Environment Editor
National Catholic Reporter
sclary@ncronline.org
Instagram: @stephanieclaryncr

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SojoMail - These Indigenous spiritual practices deepen my faith

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My Latine Christian Faith Embraces What Western Faith Demonizes

Tired of Western expressions of Christianity that are ahistorical, deeply individualistic, and private, Sandy Ovalle Martínez writes in this week’s SojoMail that she longs for cosmologies that integrate the pieces within us:

Costa Rican-American writer John Manuel Arias often says that he lived in San José, Costa Rica with his grandma and four ghosts.

When he shares this fact with Latine folks, he is typically met with curiosity: What are the ghosts’ names? How do they communicate with you? Did they follow you to the U.S.? It is a common understanding in many Latin American Indigenous cultures that the veil between the living and the dead is thin, and relating with our ancestors can be an everyday occurrence.

Scriptures that speak of the clouds of witnesses surrounding those who follow Jesus resonate strongly with many Latine folks. We know that those who have endured the race set before them still encourage us today. We think of Jesus on a mountain conviviendo and communing with Moses and Elijah before his three disciples as an experience that can be part of our reality too (Luke 9:30-36). We may not call them ghosts, but we recognize our ancestors are still with us.

Many Latines living in this country have adopted a form of white, Western Christianity that has come at a great cost to our cultural identity, our communal connection, and our sense of belonging. We’ve faced the tension of embracing a faith marked by discourses that demonize Indigenous, Afrolatine, and mestizo wisdom and spiritual practices.

In trying to live out our new faith values, we wrestle with continuing to trust the goodness of the traditions and saberes in which we were raised. If we have internalized the air of superiority that white, Western Christianity breathes, we are at risk of losing the very wisdom that allowed our people to resist the dagger of colonization. But our bodies, our hearts, and our communities often clamor to remember, and they will not go silent.

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Thursday, September 28, 2023

WCC news: WCC general secretary to Christian Conference of Asia: “we express and exercise creation care”

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay offered a keynote address at the Christian Conference of Asia assembly, being held in India from 27 September to 4 October.

Photo: CCA

28 September 2023

His remarks reflected on the theme of the assembly, “God, Renew Us in Your Spirit, and Restore the Creation.”

He opened his keynote address by reflecting that we are living in difficult times. “The world is in crisis,” he said. “Today, the existential threat is global and threatens the integrity of life on earth as we know it.”

The world is facing multiple shocks, he added. “Yet, the political establishments are marked by an inability or unwillingness to address these multidimensional and complex challenges,” he said. “Only a holistic and transformative response to these crises, which will even overwhelm the political and societal impediments, can give us respite from these existential challenges.”

Pillay reflected on how churches and ecumenical movements are called to respond to these global challenges, especially the climate crisis. “The current ecological crisis is a major challenge for humanity,” he said. “As God loves and cares for all creation, so must we express and exercise creation care.”

To be created in the image of God provides a great honour—and a great responsibility, Pillay continued. “However, ideals of stewardship and dominion have often led to practices of dominion and devastation,” he said. “Human beings have often regarded themselves as masters of the world, taming and domesticating it, doing as they please with its resources.”

The image of God also entails social and ecological responsibilities, added Pillay. “While dominion has been interpreted as a divine grant to prey on the rest of nature without restraints, we regard dominion to mean the entire stewardship of nature,” he said. “The appearance of creation is a glad act of embrace.”

Humans are the stewards of everything God has conferred on us, reflected Pillay. “To be in the image of God is a vocation or calling, based on the biological fact that humans alone have evolved the peculiar capacity to represent, in modest caring ways, God's care for creation,” he said. “We are called to be faithful stewards, but only so long as stewardship is understood as just and benevolent service on behalf of the interests of both human and non-human kind.”

God created not only the visible but also the invisible, continued Pillay. “God is the sole source and providential benefactor of all being,” he said. “While the kingdom is here and present in the world yet it is still to come.”

Faith is not a kind of make-believe utopianism, said Pillay. “Faith is protest against apparent inevitabilities and the restoration of creation,” he said. “From what we have been saying thus far, it is apparent that humans have a role to play in the restoration of creation.”

In addition to attending the Christian Conference of Asia assembly in India, Pillay, during a visit from 26 September to 3 October, will also visit WCC member churches, seminaries, and the Asian Ecumenical Youth Assembly.

Ecumenical Asia's 15th General Assembly looks to emerging challenges (WCC news release 26 September 2023)

WCC general secretary visits India for Christian Conference of Asia assembly (WCC news release 26 September 2023)