SODEPAX

SODEPAX is the acronym for Société, Développement, Paix. SODEPAX was established as the Committee on Society, Development and Peace of the Programme Unit Justice and Service of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace of the Holy See, its official parent bodies. SODEPAX was a liaison body whose task was to promote development, justice, and peace by means of study and reflection programs. Based on the social thinking and teachings of the WCC, these programs were for ecumenical use in the Churches and were developed in close conjunction with the WCC and the Catholic Church. In this way, SODEPAX was intended to be a significant ecumenical instrument of the WCC's and the Catholic Church's common witness to Christian concern for development, justice, and peace in the world.

SODEPAX was established on an experimental basis in 1968, in the spirit of Vatican Council II and the WCC's Geneva Conference on Church and Society (1966). Its offices were located in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. By agreement, the General Secretary was a Catholic, the Associate General Secretary a Protestant. In its first phase, 1968–71, SODEPAX organized a number of large international conferences on development and peace, in addition to sponsoring many regional meetings and organizing national chapters in several countries. Its second mandate, 1972–75, was notable for activity in the Far East on development and an important conference which brought together Protestant and Catholic representatives from Northern Ireland to discuss avenues to peace. The third mandate of SODEPAX, 1976–78, saw the launching of an ecumenical program entitled In Search of a New Society: Christian Participation in the Building of New Relations among Peoples. From 1973 onward, SODEPAX published a journal of documentation, news and articles, in French and English, called Church Alert.

In addition to its program function of reaching out to the Churches and the world, SODEPAX carried on a continuous liaison function between its parent bodies, seeking to draw them closer together in both reflection and action. It kept in close touch with the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the joint working group of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, while acting as a kind of ecumenical and social conscience for the Churches, and especially its parent bodies. Perhaps most important of all, it attempted, despite its slim resources, to be the effective symbol of the Churches' commitment to unity and to the Christian service of humanity.

In the late 1970s, SODEPAX was caught in the dilemma of being regarded as a "third entity" that overshadowed its sponsoring institutions, the WCC and the Vatican. Under considerable pressure, it reduced its operations, and in 1980 its experimental mandate was terminated.

Bibliography: h. a. jack, "SODEPAX Program: Guidelines for Peace and Christian Action," Christian Century, 87 (1970) 675–677. h. a. jack, "SODEPAX as a Thriving Union," Christian Century, 87 (1970) 709–710. g. h. dunne, "Principes et activités de Sodepax," in Oecumenisme en mission, eds. j. kempeneers, j. masson, and g. h. dunne (Paris 1970) 23–39. j. j. spae, "SODEPAX: An Ecumenical and Experimental Approach to World Needs," Ecumenical Review, 26 (1974) 88–99. l. j. niilus, "Efforts for Human Rights of the World Council of Churches and of SODEPAX," The Church and the Rights of Man (Concilium 124 ) (New York 1979) 86–91. "Some Lessons from the Ending of SODEPAX," African Ecclesiastical Review, 23 (1981) 258–259. p. land, "SODEPAX: An Ecumenical Dialogue," Ecumenical Review, 37 (1985) 40–46.

[j. lucal/eds.]