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World Council of Churches - Update
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 20/10/2005

9TH WCC ASSEMBLY: LATIN AMERICAN CHURCHES PREPARE FOR SIGNIFICANT MOMENT
IN THEIR HISTORY

Free high resolution photos at
http://www.wcc-assembly.info

With a call "to pray, support and participate" in the forthcoming World
Council of Churches (WCC) 9th Assembly in Porto Alegre next February,
representatives from churches and ecumenical bodies in the region
concluded a preparatory event that took place in Mendes, Brazil from
October 16-18.

The WCC's 9th Assembly "will, without a doubt, be a significant moment in
the history of our journey in this continent," said the 60-some participants in a letter to region's churches.

The letter invites churches to "pray, support and participate" in the
Assembly. Moreover, it underlines the need to "encourage and motivate
youth participation" as a "contribution to the construction of a new Latin
American ecumenical movement".

Speaking for young people, Nicaraguan Ashley Hodgson, the Caribbean
representative on the Latin American Council of Churches' Youth Pastoral
Commission, said that "young people are prepared and willing to make a
contribution".

"When we proposed that the 9th Assembly be held in Porto Alegre, we did so
because we see a laboratory of something new developing there, a laboratory of hope," said Bishop Emeritus Federico Pagura, WCC president from Latin
America.

"In Porto Alegre, the cradle of the World Social Forum, we will hear the
challenge from social movements: 'Do you also believe that another world
is possible, is necessary, urgent, indispensable?'" The Assembly will be
an opportunity to "seek an answer in prayer and hope".

Participants at the preparatory meeting reflected on the contribution that
churches from the region can make to the Assembly.

"There is a lot we can contribute," affirmed Nelida Ritchie, bishop of the
Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina. For example, the "unavoidable
need to anchor the search for Christian unity in the search for justice" .
Or the "impulse to broaden the ecumenical space beyond those who confess
Christ".

Ritchie proposed "moving beyond what is politically correct and speaking
from the heart, from the experiences of suffering but also the dignified
resistance," of the churches in the region. "As Latin Americans, we should
not expect to impact the Assembly in terms of numbers, because we don't
have them, but let's do it working from around the edges," she suggested.

Participants discussed the Assembly agenda and procedures, in particular
consensus decision-making. Cuban Presbyterian pastor Héctor Méndez, a
WCC central committee member, underscored the benefits of the new model,
and emphasized that as it was only recently adopted, it is still being
tested.

Meeting in the week prior to a national referendum about banning the guns
trade in Brazil, participants manifested their decisive support "for the
churches' YES to life and NO to the guns trade campaign".

In their message, participants reviewed the "concerns, hopes and dreams"
identified at the event. "We recognize our failures and limitations as
churches" in the face of major current challenges, but are open to the
"transforming action of God in our lives, in our churches and throughout
our world," they said.

The full text of the letter (in Portuguese) is availabe at:
http://www.wcc-assembly.info/en/about-the-assembly/pre-assembly-events/latin-america/as-igrejas-da-america-latina.html

More news stories and free high resolution photos available at the
Assembly website:
http://www.wcc-assembly.info

This material may be reprinted freely.

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org

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The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.