President's Column, 2014

Mitzi J. Budde

It is truly an exciting time for ecumenists again. We see a resurgence of hope and enthusiasm with fresh winds of the Spirit blowing in the papacy. The maturing of various Protestant bilateral relationships is bringing about deepening mission and creative joint ministries. Renewed conversations are taking place between the Orthodox and Catholicism. The World Evangelical Alliance, the World Council of Churches, and the Vatican, who together represent over 90 percent of the world’s total Christian population, have released a joint document on Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct. Collaborative and cooperative ecumenical work is spreading across the churches.

At the same time, we live in a time of reinvigorated international religious violence and persecution. Pope Francis has spoken of “the ecumenism of blood” that binds Christians of all persuasions who are facing religious violence. The pope’s assertion that “Unity is a gift that we need to ask for” calls us all to fervent prayer for peace and justice, dialogue and witness.

I commend to you a new resource for ecumenical education just released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations.  On the Path to Christian Unity is a series of  fourteen 4-minute online videos that address topics including friendship as the foundation of ecumenism, ecumenical families, grassroots ecumenism, dialogue, culture and ecumenism, and prayer. The USCCB also provides a helpful discussion and study guide.

Thanks to our past president, Sr. Dr. Lorelei Fuchs, the North American Academy of Ecumenists had a stimulating conference on “The Emerging Face of Being One” in Chicago September 27-29, 2013. The abstracts of the papers in this e-news are intended to whet your appetite for the full papers, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

Mark your calendars now for September 26-28, 2014! The annual conference will be held in Burbank, CA, jointly sponsored by the North American Academy of Ecumenists and the Southern California Ecumenical Council’s Faith and Order Commission. The presenters will discuss the new WCC ecclesiology document The Church: Towards a Common Vision and include the Rev. Canon Dr. John Gibaut, Director of the WCC Faith and Order Commission, and the Rev. Dr. Sandra Beardsall, Professor of Church History and Ecumenics at St. Andrew's College (Saskatoon). The Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America will host the event at the St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank, and His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, Primate, will be our banquet speaker.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve as President of the North American Academy of Ecumenists. I hope that you will join us in Burbank next September!