Church Officials Call for Increased Federal Role in Ending Hunger by 2030

Officials from more than 60 U.S. religious organizations have pledged an end to hunger within 15 years in a statement released this week. Organized by the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization Bread for the World, the statement is timed with the arrival of Pope Francis on his first visit to the United States.

The officials see an ally in the Pope with his calls for poverty alleviation, believing that his U.S. visit and address to the Congress could coalesce support around federal programs that they insist have been disproportionately cut following the economic recession. Private charity was briefly acknowledged as a helpful means to combat hunger, but the officials focused upon increased federal spending as essential.

“100 faith leaders commit themselves to end hunger by 2030 – but this will not happen unless the U.S. government takes stronger leadership on this issue,” declared Bread for the World President David Beckmann at a Tuesday morning press conference to announce the pledge.

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Minister and President Sharon E. Watkins stated that the 2008 financial crisis brought about a corresponding food crisis due to “deep and disproportionate cuts” in federal spending on anti-hunger programs.

“Congress needs to steer away from brinksmanship and put an end to the sequester,” Watkins said in reference to budget battles among lawmakers attempting to either preserve or limit the growth of federal spending.

The seven officials present at the National Press Club in Washington from Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish and Muslim traditions could “accurately claim to represent the entire faith community,” Beckmann asserted. The pledge is signed by liberals such as Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and National Council of Churches’ President Jim Winkler, as well as Evangelicals like Wesleyan Church General Superintendent JoAnn Lyon, National Association of Evangelicals’ Vice President for Government Relations Galen Carey and Salvation Army National Commander David Jeffrey.

“Our coming together last night represented our belief that the ways in which Pope Francis has addressed issues of hunger, poverty, the misalignment of economic and other related issues in the world will mean a more extensive hearing of those issues,” shared Bishop Lawrence Reddick III of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

A loosening of U.S. immigration policies was also suggested by several speakers.

“We see this as a systemic issue – it’s not lost on us that the Pope has talked about both hunger and immigration, and they are both on the same spectrum of addressing the lives of vulnerable people,” said National Latino Evangelical Coalition President Gabriel Salguero. “This is probably the most urgent issue of our generation, to end hunger by 2030.”

Salguero charged that his hopefulness around the goal was not naiveté.

“We’ve made significant advances over the past 10 years to eradicate extreme poverty at home and abroad,” Salguero noted. “I fervently believe that the people of my generation and millennials together with the veteran leadership of my sisters and brothers across faith lines can end hunger by 2030. Part of that is addressing issues of migration and immigration reform.”

“Immigration reform and the issue of hunger are interconnected,” Beckmann affirmed.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, who planned to greet the Pope upon his arrival later in the day, declared that “it is the responsibility of religious leaders to speak the values of their religious tradition.”

Describing his own church’s efforts to alleviate poverty, Salvation Army U.S. National Commander David Jeffrey noted that their goal is to create lasting impact by helping parents help their children grow into successful adults.

“Our goal is to make a lasting difference in reducing intergenerational poverty across the United States by transforming the lives of 100,000 families by the year 2030,” Jeffrey explained.

“There are 800 million people around the world who will go to bed hungry every night until we commit not just to food assistance but to systems change, local, domestic and global,” added American Jewish World Service President Ruth Messinger.