Episcopal News Service February 16, 2007
Presiding Bishop joins call for federal budget representing 'justice and compassion'
[ENS] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and four leaders of Protestant denominations wrote to the U. S. Congress February 15, calling on the members to re-write President George Bush's fiscal year 2008 budget in a way that represents "a shared vision of justice and compassion for all of God's people, both in our own nation and around the world."
The letter is signed by Jefferts Schori and the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Bishop Beverly Shamana, President of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society and the Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ.
"We call upon the 110th Congress to work to both sustain this budget where it is just and compassionate and to improve upon it where it is not," they wrote.
The signers wrote that the current version of the budget "meets our vision in some areas but decidedly not in others" and noted the "staggeringly large" cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the cost of extending tax cuts.
The letter lists specific changes in domestic spending, applauds international spending for HIV/AIDS, the Millennium Development Goals and humanitarian and peacekeeping aid in Sudan. It asks that international-development efforts be supported.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_82541_ENG_HTM.htm
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