2013-10-30 14:23:14

WCC Assembly: Help proclaim the Gospel worldwide


(Vatican Radio) The Tenth General Assembly of the World Council of Churches began on Wednesday in Busan, South Korea. The meeting is bringing together Christians from many different denominations to speak about fulfilling the Lord’s mandate that “we all be one.”

Although it is not a member, the Catholic Church has a large delegation attending the meeting, led by the President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch.

Among the delegation is Dr. Annemarie Mayer, a professor of Theology at the University of Leuven in Belgium, and the representative of the Catholic Church to the WCC.

“The WCC is not just the headquarters in Geneva, but the main thing is its member churches and the assembly is the only event when all these members come together,” she said. “Over 2 weeks [we] reflect on the last 7 years… were we faithful to the mandate… what fruits can we harvest… and where do we go from here….can we make things better… are there new goals with new methods more adapted to spreading the Gospel in our contemporary world?”

She told Vatican Radio about the goals of the General Assembly.

“Firstly, to try to listen to the needs of member churches, not to be a super-church but an umbrella body that would offer a forum for discussion and joint action to help implement the call of proclaiming the Gospel on worldwide scale,” Mayer said. “Of course there are different ways of implementing this….with at least 2 different approaches, firstly the practical angle of what can we do together as churches that confess Trinitarian faith and recognize each other as churches”

Listen to the full interview by Philippa Hitchen with Dr. Mayer: RealAudioMP3








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