Author: meorome

The Taize Community in partnership with the Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome and 50 Christian communions, movements, and organizations are organizing a special weekend of prayer, learning, and service.

Young people aged 18 to 35 from different European countries and from all Christian traditions are invited to come to Rome from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon for a weekend of sharing. They will be hosted by the parishes and communities of Rome and stay with local people.

At the heart of this weekend of sharing will be an ecumenical prayer vigil in Rome on 30 September 2023, in the presence of Pope Francis and representatives of various churches. Open to all the People of God, this prayer together will include listening to the Word of God, praise and intercession, Taizé songs and silence – a strong sign of fellowship, unity and peace.

Who can take part in the gathering?
The Saturday prayer vigil is open to everyone. Young adults from 18 to 35 can come to Rome from Friday evening to Sunday. They will be hosted by parishes and Christian communities of the city.

What will be the program for young people?

• Arrival on Friday
  Young adults taking part in the whole weekend should arrive on Friday 29/09 afternoon. They will be assigned to a host parish which will offer them hospitality.
• Saturday morning
  Saturday 30/09 morning will start with a programme split up into different “pathways” with meetings in different parts of Rome.
• Workshops & round-tables
  Participants will take part in workshops and round-tables on different themes in churches of different denominations and other places.
• Praise and worship
  A highlight of the weekend for young adults will be a time of praise and worship in an iconic location in the centre of Rome at the beginning of the afternoon on Saturday.
• Prayer vigil
  This ecumenical prayer vigil open to everyone will take place on St Peter’s Square in Rome on the Saturday evening. Pope Francis and representatives of different Churches will participate.

Visit the event website for more information and register for the event – together2023.net

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Isa 52:7)

Context and background

In alignment with the spirit of the Tozanso process and Glion consultation, Methodist churches worldwide have maintained a steadfast commitment to fostering peace and reunification on the Korean Peninsula. During the 21st World Methodist Conference on September 1, 2016, representatives from the KMC, UMC, and WMC convened to reaffirm their dedication and collaboratively address the ongoing conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The second session of the Roundtable coincided with the launch of GBGM’s Asia regional office in Seoul on March 25, 2017. This gathering reiterated the significance of peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula and humanitarian cooperation, both integral facets of the church mission’s objectives. The third Roundtable was convened by the UMC-GBGM in Atlanta on November 9-11, 2018. Its primary focus was to enhance the Methodist church’s role as a mediator concerning the normalization of DPRK‐USA relations and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This responsibility was undertaken in conjunction with the church’s enduring advocacy for global denuclearization, as articulated in the Atlanta Statement.

The fourth KMC-UMC-WMC Roundtable, hosted by the KMC on August 28-29, 2023, focused on enhancing the Methodist church’s contribution to the peacebuilding process in the region. Given that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice agreement, the Roundtable also reemphasized the importance of dialogue, diplomatic engagement, and peaceful process, supporting the global Korea Peace Appeal, promoted by the churches in Korea and the Korea Peace Action, co-convened by UMC-GBGM-KMC-GBM along with numerous civil organizations.

In accordance with the 88 Declaration, in prayer, we recognize the presence of hatred, division, and the lingering Korean War as violations against our Lord Jesus Christ’s New Commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Through our prayers, we humbly ask God to empower us with the courage to testify to the vision of a bountiful life for all within the new heaven and earth, where the essence of shalom prevails. Moreover, we understand our divine calling to engage in the ministry of reconciliation, a manifestation of Christ’s boundless love (2 Cor 5:14), and thus, as Christians, we are tasked to serve as ambassadors of reconciliation in Christ.

We, therefore, commit ourselves to:

Calls to action

Pray with the churches of Korea on the Sunday before August 15, observed as the “Sunday of Prayer for the Peaceful Reunification on the Korean Peninsula.”

Urge Methodist churches worldwide and ecumenical partners to offer their advocacy, support and solidarity for Korean churches and Korean diaspora in their pursuit of lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and relationships.

Encourage the KMC-UMC-WMC to foster young people and women leadership who can work for peace, promote disarmament, and denounce militarization, ensuring that young people and women have an equal and meaningful role in the peace process.

Recommend the Methodist churches worldwide to organize peace pilgrimages, jointly coordinated by the KMC-UMC-WMC, serving as both peacemakers and bridge builders. This group affirms the 22nd WMC in Gothenburg, Sweden, from August 13 to 18, 2024 as a space  for further engagement for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Invite Methodist churches worldwide to engage in international cooperation to improve the quality of human rights and seek to provide humanitarian aid in the DPRK.

Adopted by consensus

The Rev. Matthew A. Laferty, director of the Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome, participated in the annual Synod of the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches in Italy, meeting in Torre Pellice, Piedmont, Italy from 20-25 August 2023. Director Laferty is a member of the Synod since 2020.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, sent a telegram to the Synod on behalf of Pope Francis. Vatican News noted

The telegram began by expressing the Pope’s delight to greet the synod members, and conveying his hope that the “meeting may be, for each one, an occasion of a profound experience of Christ who welcomes, guides and leads to the fullness of communion with Him and with the brethren.”

Pope Francis raised a prayer of praise to God the Father “for the gifts bestowed through ecumenical dialogue,” as well as for the “harmonious collaboration” between Christian confessions.

He also expressed his desire “to remain spiritually present at this important event, so that we may grow in mutual knowledge in order to bear witness together to the Gospel of Jesus.”

The Holy Father concluded by offering his best wishes for the work of this synodal assembly, and invoking the Lord’s blessing.

Deborah Castellano Lubov/Vatican News

The Synod received a number of reports related to church projects on a new liturgy, humanitarian cooridors, ecumenical engagement, and evangalization.

The Synod is the highest decision-making body of the church.

The Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches is an Italian united church founded in 1975, which brings together the Waldensian Evangelical Church and the Evangelical Methodist Church in Italy.  The church has approximately 50,000 members – 45,000 are Waldensians and 5,000 are Methodist.

The Rev. Matthew A. Laferty, director of the Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome, along with 8 other clergy and laity from the Methodist Church in Britain attended a special conference on synodality and receptive ecumenism, organized by the the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University. During the three day conference, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Quakers, Reformed, Anglican, and Catholic participants learned and dialogued about how their various Christian churches discern the Holy Spirit, journey together, and live the mission of the church.

The Rev. Dr. Liz Kent, director of the Wesley Study Centre at St. John’s College, Durham, wrote a paper on the theology and practice on Methodist concepts of synodality.

Sr. Nathalie Becquart from the General Secretariat of the Synod Office delivered the Bishop Dunn Memorial Lecture on 21 June on the subject “Why Ecumenism and Synodality Go Hand-in-Hand.”

On 23 May, the Methodist Ecumenical Office Rome hosted a reception to celebrate the 285th anniversary of the conversions of early Methodist leaders and brothers Charles and John Wesley. Over 60 guests attended the reception on the roof terrace of St. Andrew’s Presybterian Church of Scotland in Rome. Among the guests were Methodist clergy, senior Vatican officials, senior leaders from other Christian confessions, diplomats, faculty from Roman universities, and MEOR supporters. Guests sang two Charles Wesley hymns – “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” and “And Can It Be That I Should Gain” – to commemorate the musical legacy of Charles Wesley.

The Rev. Matthew A. Laferty addressed the guests during the reception, saying

Today we commemorate the 285^th anniversary of the conversions of Charles and John Wesley, two brothers who were instrumental in establishing the Methodist movement in the Church of England. This movement would eventually grow into the Methodist Church. Our Methodist communion – the World Methodist Council – counts nearly 80 million members worldwide who often remember the 24^th of May as Wesley Day or Aldersgate Day. According to history, John Wesley reluctantly attended a Moravian prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street in London on May 24, 1738, during a period of despair in his ministry. John who was starting the second decade of his ministry as an Anglican priest had returned to England a few months earlier after a failed ministry in the British North American colony of Georgia. His time in Georgia was such a failure that he left Savannah by night because an arrest warrant had been issued for his arrest, stemming from his refusal to serve Eucharist to a scorned love interest whose new father-in-law was a wealthy and influential Savannah citizen. In his melancholy, John attend a prayer meeting where he hears the Moravians reading from Martin Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. In those moments, John experienced a strong evangelical conversion, not a conversion to Christ as John was already an ordained priest, but rather a deep and profound experience of the assurance of salvation. John noted in his diary around 8:45 in the evening: “while [the prayer leader] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” This indwelling of the Holy Spirit led John to seek spiritual renewal in Britain and Ireland by spreading, what he described, as Scriptural holiness across the land.

We celebrate today John’s conversion alongside John’s brother Charles who had a similar Spirit-filled encounter in London on the May 21, a few days before John. While John was the organizing figure of the Methodists, I believe that Charles is the more famous brother as Charles put Methodist theology into song. Charles remains today one of the most important hymn writers of Anglophone church music, having written over 7,000 hymns during his lifetime.

Rev. Laferty turned to the legacy of the Wesleys on other Christian confessions.

I must acknowledge too that Methodists cannot exclusively claim the Wesley brothers as our own. The then-Methodist preacher William Booth established the Salvation Army in 1865 in the legacy and theological heritage of the Wesley brothers. Our siblings within the Anglican Communion also are inheritors of the Wesley brothers’ legacy. Tomorrow [on May 24], the Church of England officially celebrates the feast of John and Charles Wesley.

Reflecting on the relationship with Methodists and Catholics, Rev. Laferty noted

While Methodists would eventually be separated from the Anglican Church, contemporary Methodists are also committed to seeking the unity of the Church, so, as Jesus says in John’s Gospel, that the world may believe. In May 2022, the World Methodist Council with the Holy See published its 11^th comprehensive theological dialogue report, focusing on the theme of reconciliation. On the cover of the report, there is a photograph of a statue at Duke University, a Methodist university in the United States, of the return of the prodigal son. When our joint Methodist-Catholic theological commission met Pope Francis in October 2022 to present to him the report, Pope Francis took the opportunity to speak off-the-cuff about reconciliation. He sat for a few moments rubbing the report’s cover image and reflecting silently on the story, eventually, reminding us that both Catholics and Methodists are like the son who has run away from the Father’s house. Pope Francis called us as Methodists and Catholics to walk together and work together with joy as we return to the Father’s house. I thank all of you for your companionship on this pilgrim journey as Catholics and Methodists on our way to full communion in faith, sacraments, and mission.