Annual meeting of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace (WCC) in Chiang Mai, Thailand

From 4–6 March 2019, Father Andrzej Choromanski and Brother Guido Dotti (Monastic Community of Bose, Italy), represented the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity during the meeting of the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace (PJP) Reference Group and Theological Study Group. The meeting took place in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and was hosted by the Christian Conference of Asia. The focus of this year’s meeting was on racism and discrimination in the Asian context, as well as discussion on ecumenical cooperation in promoting a just society and peaceful coexistence among different peoples, cultures and religions in the region and worldwide. One of the highlights of the three-day gathering was an interfaith evening attended by more than 100 representatives of Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religions that reflected together on reconciliation, peace and justice from the perspective of the different religious traditions in Asia.

The initiative called Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace is a WCC programme adopted by the 10th Assembly (Busan, 2013) that promotes a shared commitment of churches involved in the ecumenical movement in healing a world broken by conflict and injustice, and to build a society based on the Gospel.

Without being member of the WCC, the Catholic Church supports the PJP, an initiative that corresponds to the vision of ecumenism of “praying, walking, and working together” as expressed by Pope Francis during his recent visit to the WCC in Geneva on 21 June 2018.