The worldwide character of the Catholic Church -- and of efforts to reform her -- will be a particular emphasis of the 1996 CTA We Are Church Conference Nov.15 to 17 in Detroit. For openers, representatives will be present from CTA-minded church reform groups in Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and of course Canada. More than that, a number of speakers will bring an international perspective to the way we are church.

Hans Küng not only plans to talk about a global ethic that can be shared by all world religions. The Swiss theologian is also heading a Global Ethic Foundation which is planning a major interfaith symposium of Jewish, Muslim and Christan scholars. He has edited a book, Yes to a Global Ethic, in which Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, President Mary Robinson of Ireland, and Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and other world leaders endorse his "Declaration Toward a Global Ethic." And Küng has suggested the U.N. issue a document on "human obligations" to stand alongside its declaration on human rights.

Miriam Therese Winter, an American Medical Mission sister, in the past year has spent three months in India, two weeks in Argentina, and seven weeks lecturing on feminist issues in Catholic circles all over Australia. Her experiences of the world church will flavor her address at CTA. She told CTA News Australian Catholic women are right where CTA is on the issues. "In major cities and even in rural areas, I found women hearing a strong call to alternative ways of behaving within the system -- Spirit-led, lay-sensitive, less hierarchical." The Aussie women adopted the title of her book, Defecting in Place, as a mantra of hope that names their experience of not leaving the church but staying in a new way. Women down under also seem less afraid of the hierarchy -- and less hassled by bishops -- than their U.S. counterparts. She visited one alternative community in a major city which had been doing its own Eucharist without interference for 12 years.

Maria Mejía will bring to CTA the liberation theology perspective of base communities in her native Mexico. Mejía spoke about the grassroots church of Latin America at the June 30 meeting of COR -- Catholic Organizations for Renewal -- in San Diego. "The Zapatista Front rebelling against the Mexican government is criticized for violence, but it is nothing compared to the structural violence the poor have endured for years," said Mejía. She is closely allied with Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, the prophetic bishop of the poor in Chiapas. Mejía is director of CDD/MX, the Mexican sister organization of Catholics for a Free Choice. She recently edited a book of essays about women's perspectives, ethics and social justice with the same title as the CTA Conference and the U.S. Catholic Referendum: Somos Iglesia -- "We Are Church."

Bishop Jacques Gaillot, removed from his diocese by the Vatican in January, 1995, explains in a forthcoming book, Voice from the Desert, that part of what got him in trouble was public advocacy for the world's poor that embarrassed other bishops. Just before the Vatican tribunal, Gaillot had been in Haiti. So a Vatican official asked if he had paid a courtesy call to the Haitian bishops. Writes Gaillot:

During a very brief visit to Haiti, I had filmed a television program for France on the condition of children in Haiti. But in Rome they didn't ask me about the distressing condition of those children. They were concerned about protocol. No, I had not met the bishops. I had written to them, but clearly, that wasn't enough.

Gaillot's topic at the CTA Conference will be "My Option for the Poor." Ironically, removal from his diocese has freed him from administrative duties and allowed his voice to be heard even more frequently in the French media on behalf of the marginalized peoples of the world.