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Religious Leader Meet in Canada, Send Message to G8, G20 and the Rest of the World

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Religious Leader Meet in Canada, Send Message to G8, G20 and the Rest of the World


23.06.2010

Some 100 religious leaders have gathered in Winnipeg, Canada, to push their political counterparts – who will be meeting at the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville, Ont. and Toronto – to seriously address poverty, climate change and armed conflict, the Anglican Journal reports.

“The current economic and political crises in the world weighs heavily on the poor,” said The Rev. James Christie, a minister with the United Church of Canada and one of the organizers of the 2010 World Religions Summit being held at the University of Winnipeg June 21 to 23. Religious leaders from the G8 and G20 nations have gathered to express their solidarity with the poor and to call for social change, said Christie in his opening remarks.

The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia and primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill I, sent a message calling for renewal and the creation of societies “built on a solid ethical and moral foundation.” Today’s world has a “utilitarian attitude to human life” and this has made it easy for nations to go to war and violate human rights, he said in a message read by his representative, Hegumen Phillip Riabykh.

At their meeting, faith leaders will finalize a statement, “A Time for Inspired Leadership,” which will be presented to G8 leaders who are meeting in Muskoka, Ont., on June 25 to 26, and to G20 leaders, who are gathering in Toronto on June 26 to 27. “…we expect leaders to put first the needs and values of the majority of the world’s population, of future generations and of Earth itself,” say faith leaders in a draft statement. They also note that half of the world’s population lives in poverty. “A record one billion people are now chronically hungry – one in seven does not have the food needed for basic life.”

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