By Bob Pomerantz Toronto Star
The coming together of Christians and Jews can lend clout to the struggle for human justice, a national interfaith conference has been told.
In fact, the National Tripartite Liaison Committee-representing the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Canadian Council of Churches and Canadian Jewish Congress--is considering issuing a joint statement on nuclear disarmament within months, Rabbi Robert Sternberg, a secretary to the liaison committee, said yesterday.
"Jewish and Christian religious leaders have all engaged in making separate statements and notifying governments on their views on disarmament, but it could be important for us to speak jointly on this issue," said Sternberg at the committee's annual conference at the Wagman Centre in North York, which drew more than 80 delegates from across Canada.
Keynote speakers at the two-day conference, which ended yesterday, were The Most Reverend Clarke MacDonald*, moderator of the United Church of Canada, Bishop Adolphe Proulx, Bishop of Hull, and Rabbi A. James Rudin, Assistant National Director, interreligious affairs, of the American Jewish Committee.
While religious leaders must not become fanatical about addressing important issues, neither should they remain indifferent, Rudin said: "Now in the 1980s we face the struggle to preserve family values, and to protect human rights and religious liberty and the need to break the terrible nuclear arms cycle.
"The Moral Majority in the U.S. has no monopoly on family values, but by being passive and indifferent to the plight of our families, we have conceded much to the New Right."
MacDonald said religious leaders "for the most part" are taken seriously by government when they address issues. For example, both Christian and Jewish groups were able to provide important input on the native rights section of the new Canadian Constitution, he said.
"There is power in numbers," MacDonald said, "and there can be clout when different groups speak together."
Sternberg, director of Canadian Jewish Congress national religious department, said the committee is only five years old and that bringing together Jewish and Christian leaders in regular dialogue is still a relatively new area.
"So we must learn to crawl before we can walk," get to know each other and compare ideas--and then start getting together on issues," he said.
(text of October 8, 1982 Toronto Star article)
*-I MET THE MOST REVEREND CLARKE MacDONALD ON SEPTEMBER 15, 1985 AT
AN EVENT AT A NORTH VANCOUVER CHURCH CALLED, 'PLANET AT THE CROSSROADS'.
HE
DELIVERED A LECTURE ON THE PRESENT AND FUTURE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN THE PEACE
MOVEMENT, AND THEN TOOK QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE.
NOT ENTIRELY AS AN
IRRELEVANT ASIDE HERE, I WANT TO BRIEFLY EXPLAIN HOW A GREAT DEAL OF THIS
AWARD-WINNING WEBSITE WAS PUT TOGETHER IN ITS EARLY STAGES...THE ONES THAT WON
THE AWARD 28 DAYS AFTER IT WAS OPENED.