Although they have not yet reached full unity, Roman Catholics and Anglicans continue their dialogue, come together in prayer and work side by side, including on a new project to combat human trafficking around the world.

“I thank God that, as disciples sent to heal a wounded world, we stand together with perseverance and determination in opposing this grave evil,” Pope Francis told Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury June 16 during a meeting at the Vatican.

Archbishop Welby, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, was in Rome to hold his second meeting with Pope Francis, to visit Anglican communities in the city and to participate in a meeting of the Global Freedom Network, which they and other faith leaders founded to combat human trafficking and modern slavery.

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The leaders of the Anglican Church of Canada and TEC not only split the church in their own land with their heterodox doctrines and aggressive litigation against their fellow Christians, but caused schism in the worldwide communion, costing incalculable time, money and effort and a terrible stain on the church’s witness. Yet it is they who now claim to be the messengers of reconciliation, as if they have done nothing wrong, as if all the conflict in the Anglican Communion comes from the GAFCON side. If they were able to articulate repentance for what they have done there would surely be a case for a new listening. But instead, we see these architects of schism coming to Britain to lecture on how to bridge divides and bring together parties who disagree.

The official report of the conference can be found here.

The liberal Canadian-American axis have brought to this conference delegates from different parts of the world, especially Africa. We know that most African Anglicans are conservative in their theology and would be suspicious of the revisionism of their fellow Anglicans in the West. Why did these participants come?

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby arrives in Rome on Saturday for a two day visit that will culminate on Monday in a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. On Sunday the Anglican leader will preach at Vespers at the church of St Gregory on the Caelian Hill, visit the two Anglican churches here in Rome and take part in a prayer service with the St Egidio community at St Bartholomew’s on the Tiber Island. During his packed programme, the Archbishop will also launch a new website for the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), showcasing ways in which members of the two communions are increasingly worshipping, working and witnessing side by side.

To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke with Canadian bishop Donald Bolen, co-chair of IARCCUM and Canon Alyson Barnett-Cowan, director of Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion office in London and co-secretary of IARCCUM”¦

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Update: You may find a nice picture about this there.

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In their second meeting within eighteen months Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby today recommitted themselves resolutely to the struggle against modern slavery and human trafficking.

Following their first meeting last year the two global leaders have continually spoken out to challenge this crime against humanity, and have acted decisively to support the foundation of the new faith based global freedom network. They both endorsed this network as a crucial force in the struggle to rid the world of a global evil.

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The summit was opened by the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the Hollywood star Angelina Jolie. It ran from Tuesday to Friday, and brought together hundreds of politicians, activists, and survivors to discuss how to tackle the scourge and stigma of sexual violence.

Speaking at the opening to the summit, Ms Jolie, a special envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said that she wanted to dedicate the summit to one rape victim she had met in Bosnia. “She felt that having had no justice for her particular crime . . . and having seen the actual man who raped her on the streets free, she really felt abandoned by the world. This day is for her.”

Mr Hague announced a further £6 million in government funding for programmes to combat sexual violence, and said that he hoped other nations would pledge more money.

“We began campaigning two years ago, because we believe the time has come to end the use of rape in war, once and for all,” he said.

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From a Christian point of view, within the context of the church, this drive that we feel to engage 16,000 parish churches and 8,500 full-time stipendiary clergy in this springs from our sense of our faith. There’s a story that Jesus tells of two debtors, one who owes a huge sum of money, one who owes a little. The one who owes a huge sum of money is summoned by his creditor, who says, ‘You’re going to pay or you’re going to prison.’ The guy begs for forgiveness and gets it, and goes away and beats up the guy who owes him a little sum of money in order to get repaid, and Jesus points out the injustice of that.

There are a lot of meanings to that parable, but one of them is that debt is a form of slavery – and debt to a bad lender is a particularly unendurable form of slavery. The credit unions are trying to be the merciful lender, the one who has a clear system of values and ethics, and builds what they do around a value of the common good.

We’ve seen a huge increase in people’s knowledge about the existence of credit unions. In the past there have been three significant areas of challenge. First of all, as you know the regulatory system was virtually impossible for a credit union to make any money in in other words to pay its cost of capital and therefore to survive. They all needed subsidy ”“ that can’t work, it’s not sustainable. Secondly, credit unions needed a lot of help and support in some of their systems and the way they worked. And thirdly, they weren’t known.

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“A few weeks back I was with my wife in the eastern DRC and seeing what ”“ funded by the British government ”“ churches and NGOs are doing to combat sexual violence. And when you see what happens to people, it is breathtakingly terrible; and when you see what targeted, careful work does it is extraordinary in what can be achieved.

“Let me give you an example. On both visits over the last few years I’ve gone to see churches working with women who had been raped. The society of the eastern DRC is being progressively more brutalised by war, by rampaging militias, by extractive industries misbehaving, and that brutalisation is slipping into the general population. The churches are the main bulwark against this brutalisation. They love the women who come to them for help. They show them love and human dignity ”“ that is extraordinary in itself.

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In his message Archbishop Justin hails the conference, which is organised by Fairfield University, USA, and Durham University, as “a sign of a rediscovery of the ecumenical spirit, which remains an important element for participation in the life of world Christianity.”
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It is difficult to imagine a more brutal way for a teenager to be confronted by the reality of life and death.

But as an 18-year-old gap year student, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, found himself having to cut down the body of a fellow teenager who had hanged himself.

A new biography of the Archbishop singles out the moment in the early summer of 1974, while he was volunteering as a teacher at a boys’ school in Kenya, as marking the beginning of an unlikely journey to becoming one of the world’s most influential spiritual leaders.

Within days of the tragedy, about which he is not believed to have spoken previously in public, the future leader of the 80 million-strong worldwide Anglican Church told a close friend how he had begun to find faith in God.

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Evangelism is the discipline of not keeping the good news to ourselves. There is no better news for anybody, anywhere, than who God is for us in Jesus Christ – in whom God has chosen to be for all people. In his life, his teaching, his death, and his resurrection, God has chosen to love, call, suffer, die, rise, and open the Kingdom of God for each person. God desires each one to live in the joy of this grace.

So many people are living with no knowledge of what God has done for them. And yet the difference would be transformative if this “took”; if this was effectual in human lives. The beauty of this gospel captivates our lives and sets us free.

Evangelism is not a recruitment drive. It is not done for fear that nobody will be in the Church in a generation’s time, or as a solution to financing crumbling buildings or crumbling clergy. It is our response to what God has done.

This message is about the person of Jesus Christ: so it is always personal, always loving, always gracious, and always particular.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made a last minute visit to Nigeria today to offer his heartfelt sympathy for the recent events affecting the country, including the recent bombings in Jos and the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls who have now been missing for almost two months.

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Read it all and note the Archbishop’s tweet about it here:

The results of good disagreement: this report draws to Christ while not confining to unanimity – http://t.co/z1qtVMVJMK

— Justin Welby (@JustinWelby) June 2, 2014

“There is a considerable sense of anxiety, of being under siege,” Justin Welby, a former oil executive, told Reuters outside a church in the eastern city of Lahore.

“There was a very clear sense that people were nervous about the misuse of the blasphemy law, as a sort of a tool of politics, a way of gaining attention, or as a mob thing,” he added, flanked by two Pakistani bishops.

He earlier told reporters: “Equality under the law is very important.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said the Christians of Pakistan are a people under siege and joined calls for their churches to be protected and for them to be able to worship in safety.

“Freedom of worship is a universal human right around the world, and all countries need to pay attention to that,” he said.

Meanwhile, condemning the “revolting lynching” of a pregnant Pakistani woman who was stoned to death by her family in front of hundreds of people outside the Lahore high court, the Archbishop told the Times: “I was utterly horrified and every Pakistani I have spoken to is also horrified. It (the stoning) was in no sense a punishment, but but a revolting lynching.”

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The threat facing minorities in Pakistan was laid bare on Monday, the day of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s arrival in the country, when an American doctor was shot dead in the Punjab province.

Mehdi Ali, a volunteer cardiologist born in Pakistan, was a member of the minority Ahmadi community, which faces persecution in the country.

Security is tight for Archbishop Welby’s visit to the country. On Tuesday, he met the diocesan bishops of the Church of Pakistan, the Governor of Punjab, and leaders from a range of faith communities.

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…the ministry will today face further revolt over its decision to let developers turn 7 acres of church land near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire into an out-of-town retail park.

Campaigners, who will march on Westminster Abbey at lunchtime, say the £15m development, in conjunction with Claymore Group, will “go against Christian beliefs” by damaging trade for small businesses in the town centre.

But the church is keeping faith in the controversial project, despite the fact it has been put on hold due to an ongoing legal challenge by protester Victoria Harvey.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby will meet Pope Francis in Rome next month.

The visit, from 14th to 16th June, will focus on the joint modern slavery and human trafficking initiative launched by Archbishop Justin and Pope Francis earlier this year.

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The Archbishop will attend services with bishops from the eight dioceses of the 800,000-strong Church of Pakistan, which unites Anglicans, Methodists, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches. He will promise global support from the Anglican Communion in fighting discrimination and resisting persecution. At the same time he will try to promote reconciliation among Pakistan’s Anglicans, who is recent years have been riven by court cases over property and sales of church land.

In meetings later with the Governor of Punjab and Muslim leaders, he will raise his concerns about the abuse of the notoriously ill-defined blasphemy laws, introduced in the 1970s, and do more to halt violence against women and religious minorities.

But he will also tell Pakistan’s Muslim leaders that he is determined to improve relations between Christians and Muslims in Britain and the West, as well as in flash points such as Nigeria.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has arrived in Pakistan to show his backing for the country’s persecuted Christian minority and to ask Muslim leaders for help in building better relations.

The Most Rev Justin Welby is due to meet politicians as well as bishops from the Church of Pakistan before travelling to Bangladesh and India.

The trip, conducted amid tight security, is part of a promise to meet leaders of the Anglican community as early as possible after taking up office and comes as Christians in some parts of the developing world suffer attacks at the hands of Islamist groups.

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As the Co-Chairs of the Christian Muslim Forum we call for compassion in this situation and for the death sentence against Mariam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag to be dropped.

Our religions tell us that human interactions should be shaped by compassion and humanity, not by death sentences. It is vital that all people should enjoy freedom of conscience and be able to follow their own religion, as we have already highlighted in our Ethical Witness Guidelines. Christians and Muslims should be able to coexist alongside each other, we emphasise that force and compulsion are not characteristics of either faith.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Revd Justin Welby, has welcomed Church Army’s new resource, Stepping into evangelism, a practical booklet to equip individuals and churches to share their faith through words and action.

Stepping into evangelism is filled with hands-on advice, tips and workbook exercises to help people engage in evangelism day-to-day. With evangelism being one of the Archbishop’s top three priorities, it is hoped the resource will be a blessing to the wider church.

The Archbishop said: “When Pharaoh kept the people of God slaves he instructed them to make bricks but didn’t give them the straw they needed to make them. Our God is entirely the opposite ”“ God charges us with a task then gives us what we need. This resource is a gift from God, via Church Army, to enable each of us to live out the most freeing, exciting and life-giving of mandates that God offers: to be witnesses to Jesus Christ. This is just the kind of thing we need.”

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The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, together with the President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, have today issued a joint statement to their Churches.

The Most Revd Justin Welby, the Most Revd John Sentamu, the Revd Ruth Gee and Dr Daleep Mukarji have issued the statement in response to a report that will be debated by the Methodist Conference and General Synod this year.

The report, entitled The Challenge of the Covenant, recommends that both Churches take action to enhance unity between them, with the work being fully embedded in Church structures. The report also encourages the Church of England to address the question of interchangeability of ordained ministries between the two Churches, and the Methodist Church to consider the possibility of a form of episcopal ministry (such as a ‘president bishop’).

The statement from the Archbishops and Methodist Presidency welcomes the report, stating that:

“The time has now come for our churches to take further, significant steps to achieve that level of reconciliation between us and partnership in the gospel that will enhance our mission together in local communities and our shared witness to the whole of society.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury tucked into a school dinner with pupils from St Luke’s School during his visit to Stratford and Canning Town.

He said that his trip, which was organised to show off the regeneneration in the borough, showed that the area faced both “huge opportunity and huge challenge”.

“I think it’s enormously exciting,” Justin Welby said. “I think there are huge challenges because you’ve got all this new building coming in, which is brilliant, you’ve got this extraordinary Olympic legacy and that gives a massive challenge of creating community and the community developing rather than becoming fractured as numbers grow and new people move in.”

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My final comment in the interview on Radio Nottingham was that cases like Jeremy Pemberton’s are forcing the collapse of the two realities at a pace no-one is ready for””so I think all sides would prefer that such cases do not arise. But the immediate question for the House of Bishops now is: do their statements actually mean anything? I hope they do, for many reasons, and I cannot see that it is in anyone’s interests for the bishops to be told (possibly by lawyers) that they are powerless to enforce Canon Law.

Prayer needed for all sides”¦

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The whereabouts of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted in northern Nigeria remain unknown a month after their kidnapping. Never the less, the Archbishop of Canterbury has cautioned against military intervention by Western nations to find them.

Writing in the Church Times (below), Archbishop Welby says that defeating Boko Haram, the Islamist militants who snatched the teenagers from their school in Chibok, would take a combination of local police work, winning the hearts and minds of Muslims inthe region, and economic development.

He also writes: “External intervention is always difficult. In the first place, our history as the colonial power, and the role of the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan, makes both countries (and indeed much of the ‘Christian West’) suspicious for many Muslims.”

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The church in South Sudan is ‘leading the struggle against violence’ says Archbishop Justin Welby in this interview with Episcopal News Service

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The Church of England has been forced to reaffirm its opposition to same-sex marriage after the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared to suggest that he thinks it is “great”.

In his first interview with a gay publication, the Most Rev Justin Welby, told PinkNews that the Church had to accept that same-sex marriage is now the law in England and Wales after securing overwhelming support in Parliament.

He said it was “right and proper” that same-sex marriage has now come into force, adding: “And that’s great.”

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After a private meeting the Archbishops prayed together in the Crypt Chapel at Lambeth Palace.

In a greeting to Archbishop Chrysostomos, Archbishop Justin said: “Between our two churches there has always been more that unites us than that which divides us and so we can pray together and welcome all sincere efforts for peace in your country, in Europe and in the world. Certainly there is need for peacemakers today, and I pray that God’s love may move us beyond what we can hope for, that our endeavours in interfaith dialogues will create greater understanding for the world as one human family.”

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