Welcome to My Website!
Here you can find some things that I am thinking and doing. To learn more about my academic work and my speaking engagements see my Resume/CV. To see some of the things I’ve done check the image gallery or follow me at Facaebook/Twitter. If you want to read this site in Portuguese or Spanish, click on the link above. Check my blog, I will be writing on it about several things. Place your comments if you feel like it. If you want to contact me for other issues please send me an e-mail.
See you around here,
Cláudio Carvalhaes
We are each other’s keepers- Accompanying churches in situations of conflict
Accompanying churches in situations of conflict
Religious symbols and idioms are sometimes used to promote political interests, causing tensions and conflicts within communities where people of different religions have to live together. Christian communities are sometimes caught in the middle of such conflicts. Religious intolerance has a negative effect on today’s increasingly pluralistic and interdependent societies.
This project accompanies churches faced with religious intolerance, discrimination and conflict, and advocates for inter-religious cooperation, human dignity, sustainable values and just relationships. It emphasizes those aspects in all religions that promote harmony among communities, that help people to live their individual faith with integrity while living together in mutual respect and mutual acceptance of each other’s faiths.
In response to requests from member churches and national councils of churches, the project helps prepare communities in two countries where religions have been used to fuel conflict to prevent and deal with such conflicts.
It will research and evaluate situations of religious intolerance, discrimination and conflict, organize visits, training, consultations, capacity-building and engagement with those of different faiths involved in such situations, and engage in advocacy work on behalf of those affected. A fund will be made available in concrete situations to assist individuals and groups at risk (i.e., legal assistance).
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/programmes/public-witness-addressing-power-affirming-peace/justice-and-accountability/churches-in-situations-of-conflict.html
Nigerian archbishop encourages inter-religious solutions to violence
Methodist Archbishop Michael Kehinde Stephen of Ibadan, Nigeria has appealed to Christian and Muslim leaders worldwide to act together in the face of extremist violence that threatens to divide Nigerians along religious lines.
“In Nigeria, leaders of the Muslim and Christian communities have come together to condemn violence,” the archbishop noted in an interview. “Since 1999 the Nigerian Inter-religious Council (NIREC) has worked to calm the passions arising from a series of attacks and retaliations manifested in murders and the burning of churches and mosques.”
In recent weeks, Islamic leaders have joined Christians in condemning renewed violence fomented by Boko Haram, a Nigerian group that demands the imposition of Sharia law and the eradication of western influence in the nation. The current wave of terror was started by church bombings at Christmas.
Stephen asserted, “We want to see Nigeria remain as one, but today there is apprehension and anxiety among people who fear that calls for geographical division may intensify.” The north of Nigeria is populated predominantly by followers of Islam, while southern Nigeria is largely Christian.
A PSALM TO A GOD WHO IS ONLY GOOD
A PSALM TO A GOD WHO IS ONLY GOOD
Lord, our God, we thank you
because You have revealed yourself in Jesus
as wholly good.
In this, you do not look like us;
and you are different from all the images
we create, trying to be yours.
You love everything you created;
And establish an everlasting covenant with us
that nothing can break.
You do get angry at our sins
or retaliates against those who do evil;
you don’t kill those who kill
but protects them, like Cain, against their avengers.
For You are entirely good
and send the sun on the just and the unjust.
You love each one of us
and do not want the sinner’s death
but rather, that we convert and live.
The pardon all the sins
and invites us all to sit at the same table
from those who arrived at last minute
to those who started working since dawn.
We thank you because in everything,
you show yourself as entirely good.
You are so far from sin
so alien to all the mechanisms of evil
that you can not even punish the offenders
so violence will not generate more violence.
You have no power to kill
because this is not a divine power.
Your power is love without measure
creating, healing, forgiving
until we triumph over death.
Your justice is not to measure or evaluate
but only to make us just
until we are all reconcile to justice in this life.
Our God, we’re thankful
thou you are our Father,
and since you have made us in your image
Give us a generous heart just like yours.
(Peter Wheat, Caracas, 1983)
Translation and Picture: Claudio Carvalhaes
State Of The Union Address 2012: Obama Calls Income Inequality ‘The Defining Issue Of Our Time’
The president has the wealth gap on his mind.
Obama identified the need for a level economic playing field as “the defining issue of our time” in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, according to early excerpts of his speech made available to the press.
“No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important,” the president said. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
Resources for THE WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY and throughout the year 2012
We will all be changed by the Victory of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor 15:51-58)
Jointly prepared and published by
The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity The Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches
Faith and Order World Council of Churches P. O. Box 2100 CH – 1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland infowcc@wcc-coe.org www.oikoumene.org
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity VA – 00120 Cité du Vatican office@christianunity.va www.vatican.va
IN MEMORIAM Monsignor Eleuterio Francesco Fortino
During the meeting of the International Committee in Warsaw, Poland in September 2010, news was received of the death of Monsignor Eleuterio Francesco Fortino, Under- Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and long serving member of the International Committee for the preparation of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. His passion and dedication for the cause of Christian unity and especially for the promotion of prayer for the unity of Christians was one of many gifts he possessed and shared willingly with the other members of the Committee. This year’s text is dedicated to his memory. May praying with these texts bring closer the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer, “That they all may be one… so that the world may believe”.
2
CONTENTS
To those organizing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 4 Biblical text 5 Introduction to the theme for the year 2012 6 The preparation of the material for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012 9
Ecumenical worship service 10 Introduction to the service 10 Order of the service 11
Biblical reflections and prayers for the ‘eight days’ 15 Additional worship resources 24 Information about Poland – The Ecumenical context 31 Themes 1968-2012 35 Key dates in the history of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 39
Scripture quotations: The scripture quotations contained herein are from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, 1995, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used with permission. All rights reserved.
3
TO THOSE ORGANIZING THE WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
