Last Updated: Wednesday - 01/05/2011

Churches avoid violent protest

OTTAWA — Representatives of Church-based organizations were among 2,000 anti-globalization demonstrators who took to the streets in a largely peaceful, non-violent protest against policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"We want to remind them and Canadians, also, that we have a responsibility to create a more just world for people at home and abroad," Carl Hetu, Eastern Ontario animator for the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, told CCN.

"If we don't allow the people of the South to live in dignity that means more violence will come out of it," said Hetu, one of the speakers at an anti-globalization rally earlier in the day.

"You saw what happened in New York (the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks). That's from poverty. People blinded by poverty will associate themselves with terrorist groups because they have no way out."

The churches' presence during the protest rallies - which saw the arrest of over 30 people - was largely low-key.

However, members of the Canadian Religious Conference, the national organization of Catholic religious men and women, took part in the demonstrations as did representatives of KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, a coalition formed earlier this year.

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