Faith in the Public Square

   Last August, Pope Francis said that the current pandemic “has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected everyone is. If we do not take care of one another, starting with the least, with those who are most impacted, including creation, we cannot heal the world.”   With that in mind, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued  some guidance  on what a COVID relief bill should contain. In doing so, they noted that the USCCB “has consistently advocated for Congress to address peoples’ need for food, housing, health care, employment and income support, and safety in prisons and detention facilities.” They said that relief legislation passed by Congress last year has been a lifeline for families and individuals struggling to make ends meet. Still, they say, more is needed to reach all sectors of society and ensure that help lasts for the duration of the economic crisis. In the area of hunger and nutrition, the bishops praise increases to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Pro

There is still time to register for the annual Ecumenical Advocacy Day sponsored by the New York State Council of Churches which, like so much these days will be virtual. The event begins at 9 a.m. this Thursday, February 25, with a series of presentations. Participants will then be scheduled to meet virtually with their state legislators beginning at 2 p.m. Thursday and in the following week.   The day begins with “Historical Reflections on Congregational Activism” with  Dr. Alison Collis Greene , Associate Professor of American Religious History at Emory University and Candler School of Theology in  Atlanta, Georgia and Author of  No Depression in Heaven, The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta.  In her book, Dr.  Greene “demonstrates how the Great Depression and New Deal transformed the relationship between church and state. Grounded in Memphis and the Delta, this book traces the collapse of voluntarism, the link between southern religion

This is the continuation of a blog with the same name that lived on the website of the Albany Times Union for more than seven years until last week, when the newspaper decided to end that service. I am grateful to the staff of the paper for giving me the opportunity to reach out to their large audience and develop a following that was concerned about the role of religion in our public life. We in the Capital District are blessed to have an interfaith community that willingly shares its beliefs without feeling the necessity to attack those who believe differently. We gather on issues where we agree and travel our own paths on issues where we differ. Those differences center on substance, never on the character or tenets of the other. By way of introduction, my name Walter Ayres and I am an ordained deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. I also am director of Catholic Charities Commission on Peace and Justice, a member of the Capital Area Council of Churches , the Labor Religion Coalitio