wfn.org | NCC President: Bush's actions must match words

["NCC News" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

Embargoed until the President begins his address to the nation.

Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., President of the National Council of Churches USA
and Christian Methodist Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana and Mississippi, has
issued the following response to President Bush's address to the nation:

September 15, 2005 -- It is commendable for President Bush to apologize for
the mistakes made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We welcome his
pledge to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We celebrate his promise to
address the injustices that were so profoundly exposed by the devastation of
Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans.  

Both his apology and his promises will help us move forward as a nation. Yet,
as his sisters and brothers in faith, we feel it is our duty to remind the
President that an apology and promises will only go so far. Now, as a nation,
we must acknowledge that this crisis has only exposed what lies just beneath
the surface of prosperity and progress in this country. In America, we have a
past that haunts us on every level of our existence.  We now see all too
clearly that a person's race and class can often determine whether or not you
are left behind in the Super Dome or escorted to safety. 

As we look beyond the President's welcome candor, we must now look to our
government and to the private sector for a long-term change in behavior that
recognizes and corrects the glaring inequities of American society in
housing, jobs and wages, health care and education -- the list is long and
growing.  Disaster relief and rescue must go beyond the flooded streets of
New Orleans and reach into the desperate lives of the millions in poverty
across our land -- a disproportionate number of whom are African American.

Today, we stand on the threshold of what is a great opportunity. It is an
opportunity to become the America that we have always dreamed of being. It is
an opportunity to become the America that Martin Luther King, Jr. so vividly
portrayed in his "I Have A Dream" speech more than 40 years ago.  It is an
opportunity to stop making empty promises, to practice what we preach, to
walk what we talk.  It is way beyond overdue that America treats all its
citizens as full participants in the economic and educational and cultural
mainstream. We may have come to America on different ships, but we're all in
the same boat now.

In our rush to repair the levees and restore the neighborhoods of the Gulf
Coast, let us not continue the injustices -- and yes, the sins of omission
and commission -- of the past. Let us not continue to allow children to be
left behind by under-funded school systems and inadequate healthcare. Let us
not continue to allow poor people to live in neighborhoods that are
environmental hazards. Let us not continue to allow honest, hardworking
people to work for less than livable wages. 

The Book of Nehemiah (2:18) records that the people of Israel, seeing that
Jerusalem was destroyed, said, "Let us rise up and build. Then they set their
hands to this good work."   As the Bishop of the Fourth Episcopal District of
the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church presiding over Mississippi and
Louisiana and as the President of the National Council of Churches USA, I say
to you: Let us rise up and build! How we respond as a nation to this crisis
can be the beginning of a new era of progress, prosperity and promise for a
new America that will be true to its spiritual and ethical values and worthy
of its leadership among the nations. 

The National Council of Churches is composed of 35 member churches in the USA
representing a wide spectrum of Orthodox, mainline, Episcopalian, historic
African American and peace churches. The membership of these churches
includes 45 million Americans.

Contact NCC News:  Leslie Tune, 202-544-2350, ltune@ncccusa.org; and Philip
E. Jenks, 212-870-2252, pjenks@ncccusa.org