wfn.org | WCC NEWS: General secretary Samuel Kobia to meet Benedict XVI

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 10/06/2005

WCC GENERAL SECRETARY SAMUEL KOBIA TO MEET POPE BENEDICT XVI

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia
will meet Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, 16 June. The encounter, which
includes a private audience, is the first meeting between the two since
they took up their current positions. A press conference is scheduled at
12:30 the same day, after the meeting.

The audience with the newly elected pope will be the climax of a 13-16
June visit to the Vatican which also includes meetings with the heads of
four pontifical councils, a courtesy call to the Vatican state secretary,
and visits to other Roman Catholic bodies and sites. The WCC delegation
will also be spending an afternoon as guests of the WCC member churches in
Italy.

Kobia will be accompanied on the visit to Rome by WCC president Bishop
Eberhardt Renz from the Evangelical Church in Germany, and central
committee member Archbishop Makarios of Kenya and Irinoupolis from the
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa (Egypt).

The Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC but works cooperatively with it in several areas, and is a full member of two of the Council's
commissions: Faith and Order, and World Mission and Evangelism. Benedict
XVI, then Prof. Joseph Ratzinger, was a member of the Faith and Order
Commission between 1968 and 1975.

The main channel for WCC-Roman Catholic Church study and discussion is a
consultative body created in 1965. The Joint Working Group will celebrate
its 40th anniversary in November this year in Geneva.

Former WCC general secretaries have visited the Vatican in the past, and
Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II visited the WCC in 1969 and 1984,
respectively.

WCC associate general secretary Mr Georges Lemoupoulos, executive
secretary Rev. Sabine Udodesku, programme executive for church and
ecumenical relations, Ms Teny Pirri-Simonian, and Kobia's wife Mrs Ruth
Kobia will also be part of the delegation visiting Rome.

> Highpoints of the WCC visit

-Monday, 13 June:
Meeting with Cardinal Walter Kasper, Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity
Meeting with Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald, Pontifical Council for
Inter-Religious Dialogue

-Tuesday, 14 June:
Meeting with Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, Pontifical Council of
Justice and Peace
Programme with WCC member churches in Rome, including a conference on "The
migrant church and European Protestantism in the 21st century"

-Wednesday, 15 June:
Meeting with Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, Pontifical Council for
Health Care
Visit to Radio Vatican
Visit to Sant'Egidio Community

-Thursday, 16 June:
Audience with the pope
Press conference hosted by the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy
and the Catholic magazine Jesus.
(Address: via della Conciliazione 22, second floor - Time: 12:30)
Visit to Focolare Movement centre

Media contact in Italy: Gaëlle Courtens, Tel. 06 48 25 120 gaelle.courtens@fcei.it

More information on relationships between the WCC and the Roman Catholic
Church are available on the WCC website at:
http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/ecumenical/index-e.html#wccrcc

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.