Faith Inspires: Guardian Angels Catholic Community
Zach Grossman and his daughter volunteering at Guardian Angels Catholic Community’s I-HELP program. Credit: Guardian Angels Catholic Community
This week’s Faith Inspires highlights the work of Guardian Angels Catholic Community, an LGBT-friendly independent Catholic Church focused on social justice located in Tempe, AZ. An eight-year-old parish, Guardian Angels Catholic Community is part of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. The ECC was formed in 2003 in Orange, CA and traces its history to the “Old Catholics,” a group of Catholics who came together in 1870 in opposition to the Pope’s declaration of infallibility. Today the ECC, which is independent of papal jurisdiction, has parishes all over the world.
Charity and justice, core values of Catholic social teaching, are the foundation of Guardian Angels’ ministry. Their social justice focus areas include interfaith dialogue, community service, eco-justice, immigration, medical care, and serving meals and providing shelter to the homeless and needy through I-HELP (Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging Program).
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Source: The Huffington Post
Faith Inspires: Hindu American Seva Charities
This week’s Faith Inspires highlights the work of Hindu American Seva Charities (HASC), an organization whose mission is to engage in “seva, interfaith collaboration, pluralism, social justice and sustainable civic engagement to ignite grassroots social change and build healthy communities.” Seva, which means “service” in Sanskrit, is an important aspect of the Dharmic traditions, which include Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
In 2009, when President Barack Obama issued a “call to serve,” Anju Bhargava, a Hindu American resident of Livingston, NJ, was appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. HASC is a result of that collaboration, and was designed to strengthen and put a spotlight on civic engagement and community service efforts in the Dharmic community.
Despite the White House’s support and guidance, HASC did not have the easiest start, and their success over the past two years can be attributed as much to creative theological thinking, as to the Dharmic community’s desire to be fully accepted in the American community.
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Source: The Huffington Post
Assistant Religion Editor, The Huffington Post.
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