ELCA NEWS SERVICE March 29, 2004 ELCA Presiding Bishop Advocates for Global Poverty, AIDS Funds 04-052-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), was among nine distinguished religious leaders who went to Washington, D.C., March 25 to remind the Bush Administration and other political leaders to keep financial promises to fund programs aimed at combating global poverty and HIV/AIDS. The religious leaders met with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson and Ambassador Randall Tobias -- U.S. State Department leaders involved in administering a Bush administration plan to fund Third World development known as the "Millennium Challenge Account" and a global HIV/AIDS initiative. The group also went to the White House to meet with Dr. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor to President Bush, and to Capitol Hill to meet with U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). The religious leaders asked the government officials to keep promises to spend $15 billion on global AIDS programs and $10 billion on Third World development. They say the Bush administration and the Congress must work harder to secure the funding needed. Congressional appropriations and Bush administration proposals thus far are short of the funding needed annually to meet the spending goals. The meetings were arranged through Bread for the World, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, supported by the ELCA and many other church bodies, dedicated to fighting hunger worldwide through advocacy. "It was a good day," Hanson told the ELCA News Service in an interview after the meeting. "As we in the ELCA talk about being a 'public church,' I think [it] was the kind of day on which the vast majority of ELCA members want the presiding bishop to spend time on their behalf." Together, the religious leaders represented some 80 million Christians in the United States and U.S. territories, Hanson said. The meetings had two purposes, Hanson said. The first was to express gratitude to the Bush Administration and other political leaders who created the Millennium Challenge Account and to those who support HIV/AIDS prevention by expanding funding globally, he said. A second reason was to remind the elected leaders how important it is to keep promises for funding those initiatives, Hanson said. "Every day we delay the appropriation of funds, countless people in the world die of AIDS," Hanson said. Bread for the World estimates nearly 800 million people in the world are undernourished and 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. "There was a lot of conversation during the day about faith and how we have an obligation as the wealthiest nation on Earth to respond out of that wealth to people living with AIDS and poverty," he said. Each of the church leaders will be asked to communicate with members of their churches about the importance of holding the political leaders accountable to live up to the promises they made on HIV/AIDS and poverty funding, Hanson added. "In these grim times church leaders working together can address the real opportunity we have to dramatically increase and improve development and health assistance to poor people around the world," said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World and an ELCA pastor. "September 11, 2001, convinced many Americans and our political leaders that it is in our national security interest to reduce misery in far-off places. What's needed from church leaders now is mainly insistence that our nation live up to its promises to the world's poorest people." Chad Kolton, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the poverty and HIV/AIDS programs are getting "double- and triple-digit increases" and are on track to meet the commitments President Bush made, according to the Religion News Service, Washington, D.C. Leaders attending the March 25 meetings were the Rev. Susan Andrews, moderator of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the Rt. Rev. Frederick Borsch, retired Episcopal Church bishop of Los Angeles; the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.; Hanson; the Rev. Major L. Jemison, president, Progressive National Baptist Convention; the Rev. Glenn Palmberg, president, Evangelical Covenant Church; the Rev. Lawrence L. Reddick, presiding bishop, 5th Episcopal District (Alabama and Florida), Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; the Most Rev. John H. Ricard, SSJ, Chair, International Policy Committee, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; and the Rev. Peter D. Weaver, president-elect, United Methodist Council of Bishops. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news