Occupying our thoughts and prayers

Church of the Holy Trinity Statement
Occupy Wall Street Movements
November 2011

“…in our society, casino capitalism prevails in lockstep with an inexorable
rise of poverty and inequality. Wall Street and Bay Street
have become vehicles for the takeover of the state and the
public square by corporations whose sole loyalty is increasing
profits…Our faith traditions call on their followers to place the most
vulnerable – the homeless, the widow, the orphan, the
unemployed, and the stranger – at the centre of our living
concern.”—Occupy Movements, An Interfaith Response (ISARC)

The Occupy Wall Street Movements (OWS) are drawing critical attention to the gaps between the wealthiest and the rest of society, including the role that banks, corporations and governments have played in increasing this gap. OWS is a movement for communities of greater fairness, equality and inclusion, as contrast with the divisive society that has been created by twenty or more years of neo-liberal policies.

To this movement for equity and justice, Holy Trinity offers its solidarity and support. We have a long history of working for economic justice in our community. Our faith compels us towards a vision of radical inclusion, that sees poverty, homelessness, and worker exploitation as a collective failure. Inspired by the experience of Jesus disrupting the economic system in the Temple, we affirm the need for some peaceful “disruption” in the status quo in order for a new reality based on the needs of the whole of the community to emerge. It is our intention to support the Toronto expression of this movement in whatever ways we can.

It is our view that as a legitimate public protest, Occupy Toronto should be permitted to remain in its current location. Adjacent as it is to our sister church, St. James Cathedral, we are committed to providing the Cathedral the support it requires to continue to be a faithful neighbour to the Toronto face of this movement. We ask other citizens of faith or conscience from Toronto to join with us in their support– moral, political, or physical–for Occupy Toronto, and other manifestations of this transformative movement.