A large group of Protestant and Catholic women participated in an ecumenical liturgy in Poznan in recent days, on the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for Women. The liturgical material was prepared by an ecumenical group of women from Paraguay who asked for forgiveness for “having remained silent about acts of vendetta, violence and corruption, for not having opposed the oppression of the indigenous peoples and for not having reacted to the maltreatment of children and adolescents, forced to work and deprived of the chance of continuing their education”. The World Day of Prayer for Women has been celebrated in over 170 nations over the last 120 years, always on the first Friday in March. It originated in 1887 in the USA, where a group of women of the Presbyterian church – concerned by the needs of immigrants and the fate of former slaves in their country – made an appeal for a national day of prayer. The movement spread rapidly to other countries, developing into a world day.
