Report on Joint Meeting of American and Canadian Bishops
Diocesan Press Service. October 21, 1968 [70-6]
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Lady Jackson (Barbara Ward), internationally-known economist, and William Booth, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of New York City, today delivered messages of hope and despair to a joint meeting of the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the United States.
"We must learn to turn off the faucet of hate," Booth advised.
He said that we have learned to turn on and off the faucet of hate when it comes to dealing with enemies in wartime, but we have not learned to turn it off for people when considered by color.
Barbara Ward asserted that "all God's children should live" and she backed it up with hard statistics concerning the differences between the "have" and "have-not" peoples of the world.
She called for a concerned Christian lobby to move the nation to share more of its resources -- a percentage of the Gross National Product -- in efforts to alleviate world starvation.
" It is a sobering thought," she said, "that in the wider Atlantic area, the money spent on alcohol and tobacco by the English and French speaking people passed $50 billions last year. "
She said it would be difficult for her to believe a glass of brandy had more moral value than a glass of pure drinking water in a ghetto.
Both speakers saw the problem as one of developing human resources.
"It is to the self interest of all of us to use the human resources we have got," Booth said. "Thank God some Churchmen have discovered this."
He referred to the Episcopal Church's efforts through its General Convention Special Program passed by the Seattle Convention in the fall of 1967, which will invest nine million dollars over the next three years to combat problems of race and poverty.
Booth said that if the efforts to close the gap between black and white continued at the same pace as it is going today, it would be closed for clerks by 1992, for professional people by 2005, and for owners of businesses by 2730.
"I can't wait so long," he said. "That's why there is so much disbelief. Some promises have been met, but some seem so far off."
Barbara Ward and Booth were the principal speakers at the morning session of the Bishops from the United States and Canada, who are meeting together for the first time in an historic session at the Augusta Town House.
This evening the American Bishops will meet to nominate candidates for election as Bishops in the Philippines and Costa Rica, and for Eastern Oregon. The Bishops will be elected Tuesday morning.