In Latin America, jubilee celebrations are focusing on promoting life and human dignity. These countries are planning to celebrate the millennium by seeking ways to promote justice and peace. In Australia, Church officials have asked the Olympic organizers to allow for an expression of Christianity during the Year 2000, when the international community will focus on Australia as it hosts this years games. Canadian churches are lobbying for cancellation of third world debt and facing up to their responsibility regarding treatment of native Canadians in residential schools. Virtually every Christian church is planning celebrations, programs, events, and worship services tto mark this event.
Reconciliation also means reconciliation between faith groups.
The ecumenical movement has been continuing steadily over the past few decades. Dialogues between the various churches at all levels are all making progress. Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, encourages this movement and invited divided Christians to discuss the papacy, which is one of the more difficult barriers to full unity. Here in the United States, the Catholic Church has included a strong ecumenical component in planning events to mark the millennium, and this same trend is seen in other churches as well. On the international level, the Holy See and the World Council of Churches are working together on this question, and there are representatives from other churches involved in the work of the Vatican's Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.