Visit of Methodist Ordinands

On 1 June six Methodist students training for ministry in the British Methodist Church and their tutor, Deacon Julie Hudson, visited the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and met with Father Anthony Currer, the official responsible for relations with the World Methodist Council.

The students all study at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, UK. The group was accompanied by the Reverend Matthew Laferty, Director of the Methodist Ecumenical Office in Rome, who organised and coordinated the visit. By way of introduction Father Currer briefly presented the history of the Council and the Catholic Church’s entry into the ecumenical movement. The Reverend Laferty and Father Currer then presented the history of the international Methodist‒Catholic theological dialogue and fielded questions particularly concerning the reception of the dialogue and how ecumenism could be advanced on the ground.