Phoenix-area religious leaders Tuesday signed onto Gov. Jane Hull's campaign against child abuse and domestic violence by pledging to raise the issue in hundreds of congregations across the state.
"We want to scratch our fingernails across the blackboards of the consciousness of every church, mosque and synagogue," Paul Eppinger, director of the Arizona Ecumenical Council, said before a meeting of about 100 religion, education and business leaders at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.Among the crowd were representatives of the Catholic, Mormon and Jewish faiths and several Protestant denominations.
Warren Stewart, pastor of First Institutional Baptist Church, Phoenix, told the group the religious community "needs to first of all repent of how we've been silent on child abuse and family violence. Churches have looked the other way, many times because it involved our own parishioners.
"The church must rise up and stop child abuse and family violence by being peacemakers and not just peace lovers."
Eppinger said the Ecumenical Council will encourage the faith community to join the state's public awareness campaign planned for October.
The council, which represents about 700 churches, will dedicate its annual Children's Sabbath weekend - Oct. 16-18 - to raising the issues of abuse and violence in churches. Each day of the following week will be dedicated to one aspect of the problem - verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse and community violence. Religious groups will be asked to dedicate each day to preaching, teaching or acting on the issues, Eppinger said.
On the weekend of Oct. 24-25, the council will sponsor a gun buy-back program and distribute gun safety locks.
Information packets recently were sent to 3,800 churches, synagogues and mosques around the state to encourage them to speak out on the issue, Eppinger said.
On Sept. 17 the council also will sponsor a training program for clergy and laypeople on addressing problems of abuse and violence.
Monsignor Edward Ryle, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, said the state "by its enthusiasm for executing people who are mentally ill, poor or themselves the victims of child abuse is making a statement that violence is a solution."
Elizabeth Reich, director of the Governor's Office for Community and Family Programs, brought a message from Hull, who said, "Government cannot solve this problem, and you by yourselves as houses of faith cannot solve the problem and business cannot solve the problem, but maybe together we can solve the problem."