News

Head of WCC sends G8 greetings to Dunblane

July 3, 2005

The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, has sent a message of greeting to those taking part in today's G8 Service at Dunblane Cathedral.

Organised by ACTS' member churches, with assistance from members of the Scottish Inter Faith Council, the service is designed to allow people from the faith communities of Scotland to come together to demonstrate their shared concerns for the issues which will be discussed at the G8 Conference. The preacher is Dr Daleep Mukarji, director of Christian Aid.

Dr Kobia's message reads:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Let me at the outset congratulate you and all our ecumenical partners and friends from social movements for the important initiatives being taken to mark the meeting of the G8 at Gleneagles, Scotland. We are sending two of our younger staff persons (Lukasz Nazarko from the Orthodox Church in Poland and José Lopez-Vasquez from the Presbyterian Church in Mexico) to represent the WCC and the global community of Christians to participate in these events and the planned march in Edinburgh.

We have been following with deep interest the commitments and the campaign of the churches and their partners in the UK to make poverty history. I commend you for your dedicated work in ensuring that the campaign reaches people in all parts of the UK, but also the ears of the political leaders.

In my greeting to you at this special service, I share with you an extract of a pastoral letter that the World Council of Churches addressed to Prime Minister Blair. In the letter we urged the G8 to honour some of the urgent challenges they need to address to eradicate poverty and went on to state thus:

“We write this pastoral letter to the G8 so as to raise a candle in a world that seems to be floundering in the dark rather than more resolutely promoting an economy of sharing and justice as a solution to poverty and environmental destruction. For the WCC justice has been and will always be the heart of the matter.

"Life in dignity for all in just and sustainable communities is the framework that has determined the ecumenical vision to respond to the pressing concerns of economy and ecology. But we are convinced that such a vision can become a reality only when economic, financial and ecological justice is addressed holistically, with democratic participation of all, at all levels. The vision can never be achieved while the material over-abundance enjoyed by a small part of the global community continues to grow side-by-side with (and most often at the expense of) the abject poverty of a large proportion of this community, resulting in increasingly unconscionable levels of inequity. The number of people who suffer from extreme poverty, hunger and a lack of health have increased in the past decade because of systems of global injustice.

"The WCC, therefore, urges the G8 to rethink the logic of corporate globalization, which we believe has only sharpened the gap between the rich and the poor and has led to a destruction of the environment. The grinding poverty experienced by millions in our world today is derived from economic models of excessive competition motivated by profits. The WCC cautions that if no drastic changes are made in the present paradigms of economic growth, there will only be an aggravation of poverty leading to insecurity, violence and unnecessary deaths.”

As you gather at Dunblane Cathedral for the special service, please be assured of our prayers and thoughts. In spirit we join you in convoking God’s presence to accompany the political leaders as they meet in Gleneagles and make decisions that might very well determine the future of millions of poor people around the world. May God bless your efforts and may we together as communities of faith speak out more boldly and resolutely to Make Poverty History.

May the God of love, justice and peace bless you all.