On a Mission With Nuns On the Bus
Usually you don’t hear a lot about nuns in the mainstream media. But everyone’s talking about the Nuns on the Bus these days and the ruckus made by Sister Simone Campbell and her band of sojourners.
Before they ended their two-week tour today with a prayer service in Washington, D.C., Nuns on the Bus had made it onto everyone’s radar by making clear their mission, “to stand with people in need and to be witnesses for economic justice.”
These Roman Catholic nuns chose the bus tour as a very public way to bear witness—to speak out against the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
“We do so because it harms people who are already suffering,” according to a statement on the Nuns on the Bus website .
Members of the Southeastern Area Labor Federation of Pennsylvania, AFL-CIO , rallied alongside the nuns at one of their Pennsylvania stops. The Pennsylvania rally took place in Bucks County on Friday in front of the headquarters of Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, a Republican who supports the Ryan budget.
Calling on Fitzpatrick to support budget fairness, the protestors condemned the Ryan plan, which would raise taxes on 18 million working families while cutting taxes for millionaires, end Medicare as we know it, cut Head Start and special education and eliminate thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania alone.
Nuns on the Bus toured Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The nuns traversed the nine states where Ryan’s budget would hurt the most. The trip was organized by NETWORK , a national Catholic social justice lobby.
