Leaders of the International We Are Church Movement (IMWAC) met March 10 in Frankfurt, Germany with Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC). Purpose was to explore working together toward a Universal Council of Christian Churches, which WCC is actively pursuing and which IMWAC endorsed in Rome last October. Raiser said the second millennium was the era of Christian division, with modest attempts at reunification only in the last 100 years. Many feel the third millennium will focus on Christian unity. Bilateral ecumenical dialogues -- Catholics with Lutherans, Methodists with Anglicans, etc. -- have produced giant documents but little real unity. All major churches must engage in dialogue on all major issues of division. Hence the call for a truly Universal Council early in the new millennium.

As a step in that direction, WCC is proposing an International Forum in 2001. The Vatican is interested. This fall, 15-20 persons will meet to prepare a forum proposal. U.S. representatives at IMWAC, Maureen Fiedler of Catholics Speak Out and Anthony Padovano of CORPUS, reported on the idea March 21 in Washington, at Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR) -- the 34-group North American coalition facilitated by CTA. They stressed that IMWAC, and its partners in COR, can further the process toward a Universal Council, not by purporting to speak for the Vatican or the hierarchy, but by helping to build popular support. A Universal Council is not a project of WCC. The ecumenical movement belongs to the whole People of God.

Human rights in the church

IMWAC also decided at the Frankfurt meeting to mark the 50th anniversary of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights in 1998 by compiling lists of human rights violations and of "prisoners of conscience" in the church. The lists will be presented late this year to the International Court of Justice at the Hague, with copies to the media, and a reminder to the Pope that his request prompted Castro to release similar prisoners in Cuba. Could John Paul II do likewise?

Elfriede Harth of Frankfurt, IMWAC's international coordinator, will attend the CTA National Conference Oct. 30- Nov. 1 in Milwaukee, part of an international church reform panel with Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka, Carmiņa Navia Velasco of Colombia, and Paul Collins of Australia.