NEW YORK – Seventeen US bishops have thrown their weight behind a campaign to encourage Congress to redirect military spending towards helping the nation’s poor and marginalised. Those leading the campaign hope to see more bishops add their support.
For decades, Catholic peace advocacy organisation Pax Christi USA has advocated through its “Bread Not Stones” campaign for Congress to allocate more of the US defence budget to other areas of the federal government’s spending that will help the poor and marginalised. The campaign takes its name from a question Jesus asks his followers in Matthew 7:9: “Which of you, if your child asks for bread, will give them a stone?”
For the latest version of the campaign, the focus has shifted. While still addressing the federal government, the campaign is also directed at the nation’s Catholic leaders in an attempt to get them to become more outspoken about the “scandal of unfettered military spending”.
