Before she told the audience what Reproductive Justice is, the Rev. Shanea D. Leonard had to say what it isn’t.
“Most people think that it’s all about abortion, but it’s not,” Leonard said at the top of a Tuesday afternoon webinar, presented by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) in Washington, D.C. “It’s so much more than that, but it’s inclusive of that as well.
As reports of inhumane conditions in child detention facilities near the United States-Mexico border surfaced over the weekend, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) staff working on immigration and asylum issues, like many observers, were shocked and saddened.
If there wasn’t an organization like Creation Justice Ministries, Presbyterian Hunger Program coordinator the Rev. Rebecca Barnes says her ministry would want to create one.
Ecumenical leaders who are gathered in Louisville through Saturday are exploring how God continues to call the church to be a faithful witness, even during the current troubled times.
The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness in Washington D.C., says “we have third-world conditions in parts of the United States of America,” reflecting on his travels to cities some might find surprising.
Samantha Paige Davis had to start her lunchtime talk at Compassion, Peace & Justice Training Day re-framing her given topic: “Movement Building in a Time of Fear.”
Leaders from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Racial & Intercultural Justice ministry and Office of Public Witness participated in a Monday morning announcement by The Poor People’s Campaign that it will be embarking on a National Emergency Poverty and Truth Bus Tour in the coming months.
Presbyterians are being asked to play an advocacy role to avert a second government shutdown — and at the same time protect immigrants and border communities.
It’s been a long four months for Marleny and her family. Since Aug. 28, she, her daughter, son-in-law and nine-year-old grandson have been on the road from El Salvador to the U.S. border. They’ve been at the Mexico-U.S. border for two weeks and are still waiting to talk with border officials.
Despite the heat and humidity, as many as 7,000 Central American migrants are still making their way slowly northward from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador into Mexico. The latest reports estimate they are still more than 1,100 miles from the U.S. border.
