Episcopal Press and News
Church Should Take Lead in Advocacy for Children in Crisis, Edelman Tells Coalition
Episcopal News Service. July 13, 1994 [94130]
Jay Cormier, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Massachusetts and editor of Episcopal Times
Churches must be "the engine and not the caboose" in "the movement to stop the killing, the abuse, and the violence" against children, one of the nation's top advocates for children told the Episcopal Church's Urban Bishops Coalition meeting in Boston June 9-10.
Speaking at a dinner meeting of 40 bishops, clergy and lay leaders, Marion Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund said that churches can and must exert their moral authority to confront issues of poverty, abuse and violence that are destroying America's children and families. She encouraged the group to find ways for the church "to reclaim its role as center for children and families to learn, to study, to play, to feel wanted and welcomed and listened to."
The meeting was designed "to be a planning session and learning seminar," according to Bishop Arthur Walmsley, the retired bishop of Connecticut who is secretary of the coalition. "We hope to build a movement from the bottom up to respond to our national crisis of children at risk," he said.
Bishop David E. Johnson of Massachusetts, who organized and hosted the meeting, said that "the reality is that all of our children are at risk. This is the most compelling issue facing our church and society. We must dispel what we think we know about children and their issues -- and become learners." Johnson helped establish an organization that has recruited and trained volunteers to serve as tutors and mentors in the state's school districts and build a network of advocacy on behalf of children.
The key is the church's ability to "let go of other agendas," Johnson said. "The church does not need to be there with its own institutional agenda, the church is there because God has called us to be present." And the goal is 'freedom and dignity for all."
Before we can shape a response, we must "get to the reasons why children are at risk in our society," contended Joyce Strom, executive director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in her keynote address. "We have to get beyond cases and get to causes....we have to model what we want and hope for children."
The church is the one institution that can be a "persistent and effective voice for children in the political arena," especially at the state and local level, according to Dee Whyte, executive director of the Massachusetts Children's Trust Fund. Churches should be "safe places" for parenting education and harbors for children and families in crisis, she said.
The coalition is sponsoring a resolution for General Convention that makes "children our number one priority," according to Johnson. And it supports a resolution that seeks half of the funds being returned to dioceses and congregations by the Church Pension Fund for use in local and national ministries with children. The resolution also addresses the affect of drugs and the escalation of violence against children. The resolution was subsequently supported at a meeting of the seven dioceses of New England that constitute Province I.