This was the view of Reverend Joji Abonio from St Christopher's Anglican Church, who was part of a male advocacy training workshop that ended in Suva on Friday 22 July.

"We are thankful to the Pacific Conference of Churches and the Fiji Council of Churches for organising this workshop that has given me insight and so much more knowledge on this issue of gender and gender based violence," Abonio said.

The Fiji Women's Crisis Centre (FWCC) in partnership with the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) have been conducting the male advocacy workshop for women's human rights with pastors, priests and church workers.

FWCC facilitated the workshop organised by PCC to help men who are members of churches that belong to the Fiji Council of Churches understand gender, violence against women, human rights and how they can help eliminate gender-based violence.

29 men including pastors and lay preachers attended the workshop which was held at the Methodist Church of Fiji's Epworth House hall in Suva.

FWCC Co-ordinator Shamima Ali said religious leaders play an important role in the lives of the majority of people in Fiji.

It was hoped that through the workshop the religious leaders would be open to learning about the issues and coming to terms with the magnitude of the problem.

This included the fact that some priests and pastors are perpetrators of violence.

Source

• fijitimes.com
• fijisun.com.fj
• Image: seedstheatre.org

A Pacific Council of Churches Secretariat team is expected to begin a data gathering process early in 2014, visiting clergy and lay people in churches around the region.

This process will ensure that as many views as possible are gathered before submissions are made to the PCC Executive Committee in 2015.

Churches in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji an Nauru have already expressed their objection to marriage between people of the same sex.

Father Peter Houhou, Vicar-General of the Roman Catholic Church in the Solomon Islands said his position was clear.

"We cannot support such marriages," he told the PCC Executive Committee.

In Vanuatu reports that gay marriage, which is prohibited under the constitution, is being performed on the small island of Iririki off Port Vila have lead the Vanuatu Christian Council of Churches' secretary general, Pastor Shem Temar to say, "I believe for the churches to rise against this is a constitutional duty and that is why the churches really stand against this. This country is seen as a Christian country and the churches want to maintain that."

Source

• Island Business
• Radio New Zealand International
• Image: Technorati.com

General Secretary Reverend Francois Pihaatae said a key component to creating peace was to first ensure a just society.

Pihaatae was speaking ahead of the International Day of Peace on Saturday (September 21).

"To say there is peace merely because there is no war or violence is to neglect the fact that peace exists at several levels - physical, mental and spiritual," he said.

Pihaatae said that while there were many forms of injustice in the region, the PCC called on regional leaders to urgently address the following issues in order to ensure justice and peace in the Pacific:

1. Self-determination in West Papua, Maohi, Kanaky (New Caledonia)
2. Compensation for damage caused by nuclear testing on Moruroa, Bikini Atoll, Christmas Island affecting people and the environment
3. Climate change in Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tonga, Fiji and Papua New Guinea
4. Asylum seekers in PNG and on Nauru
5. Extractive industry - mining, timber and fisheries - throughout the Pacific
6. Free and fair elections
7. Judicial systems free of political influence.

Source

• Island Business
• Image: cdn.shopify.com

Image

• Sydney Morning Herald

His comments were made on Thursday during the final reading of the bill ratifying Vanuatu's membership of the WTO. On Wednesday the bill passed its first reading by a vote of 26 to 21. However the Minister of Justice crossed the floor to vote with the opposition.

The Prime Minister, Mr Sato Kilman, said it would be interesting to learn where the Vanuatu Council of Churches got the money to pay the allowances. Other ministers were also critical of the Churches' opposition. The minister of internal affairs who is responsible for churches, swore about the church leaders and NGOs but later withdrew the comment. The minister of public utilities said the role of the churches is to prepare the souls of the people for the next world, not to preach against the WTO.

Earlier International and Pacific organisations called on the Vanuatu government to respect the free speech of its citizens after it banned protests against joining the WTO.

In a press release the general secretary Fe'iloakitau Tevi said "This irradiated sea water poses a lasting threat to Pacific ecosystems and the livelihoods of island communities who depend on the marine environment for their survival and sense of identity."

The council went further in condemning the use of nuclear power and called on "the international Community to advocate for the promotion and adoption of clean and renewable energy."

Source
Pacific Conference of Churches

The primary purpose of this document is to inform the member churches of the Pacific Conference of Churches and the Pacific Theological College, and the member schools of the South Pacific Association of Theological Schools, of the results of a week long deliberation on the theme "Rethinking the Journey and Course of our Hermeneutics in Oceania". The second purpose is to set a platform for collective hermeneutical talanoa and reflections with the understanding that it is incomplete.

The consultation met in the village of Namoli, Lautoka, Fiji from the 13 - 18 of March 2011.

Source
Pacific Conference of Churches

Photo Credit
Malua Theological College