by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service
United Nations headquarters in New York City. (Photo by Daryan Shamkhali via Unsplash)
LEXINGTON, Kentucky â The Rev. Dr. Dee Cooper has a certain expectation of how world leaders address large groups.
âWhen you get to high levels of government, even within diplomatic government agencies, typically I experience a lot of âlet me share with you my thoughts about this.â I just don’t always experience them as dialogue.â
So, Cooper was pleasantly surprised by Tuesday morningâs town hall meeting with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres at the 65
âI felt this was very, very conversational,â said Cooper, the interim Executive Presbyter of the Heartland Presbytery in Kansas and Missouri. âI mean, we could have all been sitting in a room with coffee or tea. I felt his intentionality to address the specific concerns but also appreciate where people were coming from reflected he was li
by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service
Ruling Elder Vilmarie CintroÌn-Olivieri, co-moderator of the 223rd General Assembly (2018), preaches during Tuesday worship for the 65th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. (Screenshot)
LEXINGTON, Kentucky â On International Womenâs Day, Vilmarie CintroÌn-Olivieri noticed her social media feeds were loaded with memes in celebration, but one stood out:
âOn this day, we donât need flowers. We need justice and equity.â
âI should have taken a screenshot,â CintroÌn-Olivieri, co-moderator of the 223
rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), said Tuesday morning to participants in the 65
th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She was preaching at the daily worship service Ecumenical Women at the UN usually holds in the chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations during the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service
The 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will be held online over the next two weeks.
LOUISVILLE â Kay Woods was a newcomer to the United Nationsâ largest annual gathering on gender equality and womenâs empowerment when she traveled to New York City in 2019 as part of a Presbyterian delegation.
âWhat I found, personally, is that I just got on fire there,â Woods said of the 63
rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). There were 5,000 âdetermined, courageous, brilliant, forward-looking women, all working on these issues, and I just got that âWe can do this!â feeling.â
by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service
The Rev. Christian Brooks (counter-clockwise from top left) of the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness moderated a discussion with the Rev. Dr. Laura Cunningham of Western Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. and Rev. Graylan S. Hagler of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ for the final episode of the webinar series, “Where Do We Go from Here?” (Screenshot)
LEXINGTON, Kentucky â Millions of Americans were surprised and shocked when insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 attempting to stop the certification of the November presidential election.
âThis was not new,â Hagler said he told his congregation the next Sunday. âThis was a part of the historical fabric that exists in the United States of America, that very often white supremacy groups, white idolatrous groups resort to violence when they don’t get their way.â
by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is joining hundreds of other groups calling for intellectual property rules to be lifted to enable wider distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute via Unsplash)
LEXINGTON, Kentucky â The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) is joining more than 400 faith, human rights, civil society, and labor organizations in calling on the administration of President Joe Biden to join a global movement to make COVID-19 vaccines more widely available around the world.
The groups are calling on Biden to reverse the Trump administrationâs opposition to a waiver of World Trade Organization intellectual property rules so that vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests can be more broadly produced and distributed, particularly in developing nations.