“Too often the impact of religious extremism on human events has made news in a negative way. Greater attention ought to be paid instead to the dedication with which the Churches and religious movements work to promote justice, liberty and quality at the national and international level”, said the general secretary of the CEC (Conference of the European Church) Colin Williams, intervening at the final day of the world summit of representatives of the great religions in Moscow. With reference to the Third European Ecumenical Assembly (EEA3) due to be held in Sibiu (Romania) in September 2007, Williams confirmed “the commitment to remove the barriers that still divide us” and expressed the hope that from this meeting, in which “our 125 Churches will participate”, the CEC would emerge “reinforced to proclaim with renewed vigour the vision of a new Europe in which “all citizens would be equally respected”. Williams also commented on the imminent meeting of the G8 in St. Petersburg: “We must evaluate critically how far the nations of the G8 have pledged themselves” to the objective “of eradicating poverty fixed at the summit last year”. “As men of faith – concluded Williams – we must identify ways of humanising the effects of globalization by guiding economic policies in an ethical sense”.
