Earth Ministry/WAIPL is proud to join with faith leaders across the country in sending a letter calling for President Biden, Senator Schumer, and the U.S. Senate to act with conviction and courage and not to delay enacting the Build Back Better Act which will protect our climate and put our nation on the path of climate justice, environmental justice, and intergenerational justice.
The letter reads (in part): “We share a moral call to care for our common home, God’s creation, and to love our neighbors, both here and around the world. Many of our communities have experienced the severe repercussions of climate change: wildfires, superstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and increasingly-intense weather phenomena that cause damage, injury, and loss of life. We are running out of time to avoid even more serious consequences.”
The National Catholic Reporter’s Earth Beat reported on the letter in an article by Brian Roewe, excerpted below.
Nearly 100 faith leaders have called on President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to not abandon Democrats’ sprawling Build Back Better agenda and its hundreds of billions of dollars to combat climate change, saying “this is a moment for courage” as the bill has stalled and fallen behind other legislative priorities.
“We cannot delay enacting the Build Back Better Act. This vital legislation will protect our climate and put our nation on the path of climate justice, environmental justice, and intergenerational justice,” a coalition of 86 faith leaders of national, state and local faith-based organizations and congregations wrote in a letter Feb. 14 addressed to Biden, Schumer and the full U.S. Senate.
Signatories to the letter, the bulk from Christian and Jewish traditions as well as numerous national and regional interfaith groups, said they represent millions of people of faith and hundreds of thousands of faith communities. Among them were nearly two dozen congregations of Catholic women religious and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group that represents approximately 80% of Catholic sisters in the country.
“We share a moral call to care for our common home, God’s creation, and to love our neighbors, both here and around the world,” the faith leaders said. “Many of our communities have experienced the severe repercussions of climate change: wildfires, superstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and increasingly-intense weather phenomena that cause damage, injury, and loss of life. We are running out of time to avoid even more serious consequences.”
Pointing to principles of prophetic leadership espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the faith leaders said this is a time for conviction and “a moment for courage.”
“This is a moment that future generations will look back on, to see if we did what the moment called for,” they added. “We still have a chance to do the right thing.”
Read the full story on the National Catholic Reporter website, linked here.
Read the letter sent to Biden, Schumer, and the Senate here
Featured image photo credit: “Build Back Better Press Conference on Economic Equity – Wilmington, DE – July 28, 2020” by Biden For President