Faiths unite to launch pre-G7 summit in Calgary
Cardinal Pedro Barreto, the former Archbishop of Huancayo, Peru from 2004 to 2024, emphasised during his remarks at an interfaith service hosted at Ambrose University in Calgary on June 12, that there is a need for human fraternity to solve the problems of the world. This event, hosted by the Calgary Interfaith Council, opened the G7 Jubilee People's Forum (June 12-15).
Quinton Amundson
The Catholic Register
June 13, 2025
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A vibrant interdenominational tapestry was woven at Ambrose University in Calgary last night.
Among the faith rituals incorporated into the opening worship service for the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum running through June 15 were a Gospel reading from Luke, verses from the Quran, the sounding of the Shofar (a ram’s horn),and a musical land acknowledgement performed in Cree.
There were voices and elements from Muslim, Hindu, Indigenous, Jewish, Buddhist, Bahai, Sikh, Unitarian and Christian traditions.
Sarah Arthurs, the executive director of the Calgary Interfaith Council, told The Catholic Register that the spiritual celebration, which attracted approximately 200 people, was a fitting introductory event "as all the world’s religions have themes of justice, compassion, equity and care for the poor."
The Hillhurst United Church congregant suggested these ideals will shape the discussions, workshops and other activities featured during the grassroots assembly preceding the June 15-17 Group of Seven (G7) Summit in Kananaskis outside Calgary.
One of the two main speakers for the interfaith service was Cardinal Pedro Barreto, who served as Archbishop of Huancayo from 2004-2024. The Peruvian Jesuit prelate declared that faith communities “bring to the G7 leaders the voice and sentiments of a humanity suffering the consequences of their insensitivity and indifference.”
Barreto suggested representatives of some of the world’s largest economies realize that “the best way to face the serious problems that affect humanity is the promotion of human fraternity.”
The 81-year-old delivered a similar message during a June 9 speech in Toronto at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish hosted by Development and Peace - Caritas Canada. The humanitarian aid and international development agency of the Canadian Catholic Church was an organizing partner of the event alongside KAIROS Canada, Citizens for Public Justice and the Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology.
Rabbi Cantor Russell G. Jayne of the Beth Tzedec Congregation Jewish community delivered the other major remarks after chanting verses from Leviticus 25, the passage in Scripture that proclaims the Year of Jubilee. The rabbi said one of the most important lessons the Jubilee teaches us is that everything in this world is the Lord’s domain.
“The Jubilee year reorients our perspective,” said Jayne. “Wealth, power, property — these are all temporary. What endures is our relationship with each other, the land and with the divine.”
Likening the Jubilee to a “societal reset,” Jayne said “its practice restores dignity to the poor, liberation to the slaves and equilibrium to society.”
KAIROS Canada is actualizing the Jubilee promise with a petition campaign calling on political leaders to cancel and remedy “unjust and unsustainable debts without economic policy conditions" and looking to prevent future debt crises from occurring by identifying root causes and establishing a debt framework backed by the United Nations.
Over 36,400 names have endorsed this initiative as of today. The goal is to attain 100,000 signatories by 2026.
Following the worship service, the Sikh Society of Calgary (Gurudwara Sahibs) provided a meal to foster fellowship.
“We take our shoes off, we cover our heads and we sit on the floor together with rugs,” said Arthurs. “There is equity. Nobody is more important than anyone else.”
The Calgary Interfaith Council, of which the Diocese of Calgary is a founding member, will not have a continuous role throughout the G7 Jubilee People’s Forum. The organization will support an interfaith prayer gathering on June 14. Forum participants and the general public are invited to experience the Stoney Nakoda First Nation Medicine Wheel at the Stoney Park campground.
(Amundson is a staff writer for The Catholic Register.)
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