Friday, September 23, 2005
WCC WOULD LIKE INDIVIDUALS TO DISARM
Churches must take responsibility to nurture healing in broken societies and to promote peace, urged leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in public statements on Haiti and small arms released today.
The 25-member WCC executive committee was meeting at the WCC's Bossey Ecumenical Institute, near Geneva, 13-16 September 2005, in its last full meeting prior to the WCC 9th Assembly in 2006.
A public voice against gun violence
In a statement on small arms and light weapons, the WCC executive committee urged churches to exercise their "unique potential" to curb demand for guns and "to affirm God's vision of life in peace and fullness" by "changing public attitudes, shaping community values and becoming a public voice against gun violence."
Small arms are used in the vast majority of the estimated 350,000 of the world's deaths by violence annually. In 2006, the WCC will lead an ecumenical delegation at the United Nations Small Arms Review Conference.
