Committee approves recommendation proclaiming ‘Decade of the Child’
Presbyterian News Service, June 12, 2001
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – For the past year, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has lifted up issues and concerns pertaining to children by celebrating the “Year of the Child.”
The celebration may continue for the next 10 years if the General Assembly Committee on National and Social Issues has its way. On Monday, the committee overwhelmingly approved recommending to the 213th General Assembly that it extend the denomination’s emphasis on children by declaring the first decade of the 21st century – July 2001 to July 2011- as the “Decade of the Child.”
Under the proposed overture, submitted by the Presbytery of Mission in San Antonio, Texas, the PCUSA would call upon its agencies, churches and members to continue the ministry efforts started on behalf of children during the past year while “diligently” exploring new ways to strengthen the lives of children and the families in which they live to ensure the future of the “church” and “world” through the new millennium.
“The future well-being of our church and nation depends on the healthy nurture of our children spiritually, physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychologically and socially,” the proposed overture says.
The overture, approved 48-to-1, is in line with past PCUSA policies concerning children, for whom the denomination has been a longtime advocate. The church has called for equitable education, comprehensive health care, quality childcare, protection from violence and abuse, the eradication of exploitive labor and U.S. adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The church also has supported welfare programs that benefit children, including help for families with dependent children and school lunch programs.
“There is still so much to do to strengthen the well-being of children inside and outside the church,” the overture says.
Justice for other groups also was on the meeting agenda. Committee members approved a recommendation by the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns calling for the 213th General Assembly to direct the General Assembly Council to create a task force to study the issue of reparations for groups subjected to past injustices.
The task force would work in consultation with the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, examining reparations for African Americans, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives and Asian Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and others. The recommendation calls for the task force to report its findings and recommendations regarding how the church can foster dialogue and healing to the 216th General Assembly in 2004. Committee members approved forwarding the overture to the Assembly by a vote of 45-to-4.
“You can’t get to justice if there isn’t some kind of healing process,” said the Rev. Curtis Jones, a Baltimore pastor and outgoing chair of the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns.
In other action, the Committee on National and Social Issues:
- Approved recommending to the General Assembly that it disapprove an overture by the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, which advocates for military use of the island of Vieques, located 10 miles east of Puerto Rico. Since 1941, the U.S. Navy has conducted live gunnery and bombing exercises using targets on a portion of the island. Overture opponents said during the meeting that the military practices could endanger residents and property on the island if a mishap occurred.
- Approved recommending to the General Assembly an overture, as amended, pertaining to the federal government’s faith-based initiatives program, which makes funding available for projects by religious groups. The proposal commends the recent establishment of the faith-based initiatives program, its similar predecessor, the Charitable Choice program, and related resources for Presbyterians. It directs the stated clerk to send the resources on faith-based initiatives to the White House Office and to appropriate congregational oversight committees, ecumenical bodies and other appropriate bodies. The committee commends the Presbytery of Albany in Watervliet, N.Y., which submitted the overture.
- Approved a recommendation by the denomination’s Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns to create a task force to study (in consultation with the advocacy committee) the disenfranchisement of people of color in the United States’ electoral system; to consider whether or not the church should make a policy statement on the matter and to report its findings and recommendations to the 215th General Assembly in 2003.