First ever Peace and Justice Walk planned for May 29

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 5/17/16

Four Warwick faith leaders have come together to organize the first ever Peace and Justice Walk to help encourage the community to come together. Father Andrew Messina of St. Timothy Church, Pastor Dennis Kohl of Pilgrim Lutheran Church,

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First ever Peace and Justice Walk planned for May 29

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Four Warwick faith leaders have come together to organize the first ever Peace and Justice Walk to help encourage the community to come together.

Father Andrew Messina of St. Timothy Church, Pastor Dennis Kohl of Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Rabbi Richard of the West Bay Community Jewish Center and Reverend Susan Wrathall of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church often work together on different initiatives. Over the years the religious leaders have tried to share lunch with one another once a month.

Kohl said, “We have created a strong friendship from that. We understand the ups and downs of our work and we have found support in one another. We have a lot of trust in each other.”

Although the group often works together, they came to realize that many of the events and work they do together is inside, away from the public eye.

The group decided to hold a very public event, the first ever Peace and Justice Walk, to show the community at-large the four institutions coming together.

Messina said that, sometimes, for people of other faiths it can be intimidating to walk into another’s house of worship, and to continue to bring people together it’s necessary for some public outreach, “public togetherness.”

“If we can’t bring people into the church we can bring the church to them,” he said. “We may be from different religions, but what God wants is to bring people together, not apart, and that’s what we are trying to do.”

With different faith leaders coming together they hope to inspire others to do the same.

“When you look at our communities now, they are shattered, splintered. We are divided, and that is not the way to build community or to live our lives. We want to come together from different traditions so hopefully others will too,” Kohl said.

The leaders believe houses of worship are one of the last community institutions that encompasses a “broad spectrum of humanity,” reaching to people of different skin colors and social class, among other things. Despite the wide variety of persons, these individuals come together to recognize that they stand in the “presence of a greater power” than themselves.

“The idea for the Peace and Justice Walk went along with those ideals,” Messina said. “We want to show our solidarity with one another and demonstrate the power of coming together.”

Messina, Kohl, Perlman and Wrathall’s congregations work together on several ministries, such as feeding the poor and feeding the hungry. They hope that in this public display others throughout the community will come to realize that these ministries are not just a responsibility to people of faith but goals all of society should be working towards. The four faith leaders are hopeful the walk will be a success and would like to make it an annual event.

The Peace and Justice Walk will take place on Sunday, May 29, beginning at 1 p.m. The walk will start at St. Timothy Church, 1799 Warwick Ave., and then make its way towards West Shore Road to stop at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 111 West Shore Rd., then turn around to walk back towards Warwick Avenue ending at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, 1817 Warwick Ave. There will be a brief prayer service and refreshments after the walk. The Peace and Justice Walk is free and open to the public.

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