North Dakota: Faith leaders join pipeline protest

Image: Episcopalian News Service

Hundreds of faith leaders from around the world joined protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota on Thursday. The interfaith event was organised to express solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and appeal to elected officials to call a halt to the construction of the $3.8 billion pipeline intended to carry oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. The tribe say the pipeline threatens the reservation drinking water and will destroy historic sites and sacred burial grounds.

Rev Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said the pipeline was "a textbook case of marginalising minority communities in the drive to increase fossil fuel supplies."

More than 500 clergy joined protesters at a campfire at the main protest camp to burn a copy of a religious document sanctioning the taking of land from indigenous peoples. About 200 people then sang hymns while they marched to a bridge that was the site of a recent clash between protesters and law officers. Some held signs that read, "Clergy for Standing Rock."

"It's amazing the spirituality going around this place," said Joe Gangone, who came with an Episcopalian church group from South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux Reservation.

The group sang and prayed while gathered in a semicircle while law officers watched by armed men from vehicles at a barricade on the other side, from surrounding hillsides and from a helicopter flying overhead.

The vigil passed peacefully but later, 17 protesters were arrested in the State Capitol buildings in Bismarck where they were singing and praying.

There have been several other acts of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux by faith groups. On Wednesday, nine rabbis, rabbinical students, and Jewish community members were arrested in Philadelphia for staging a civil disobedience action at a downtown TD Bank, one of the biggest financiers of the pipeline project. Nearly 300 rabbis have signed a statement in opposition to Dakota Access.

Read a report here: https://theshalomcenter.org/rabbinic-statement-supporting-lakota-nation-its-opposition-dakota-access-pipeline

In September around 2,000 representatives from the Global Catholic Climate Movement held a vigil with prayers, songs and testimonies at the State Capital. Read a report by Rev Peter Sawtell of Eco-Justice Ministries: https://catholicclimatemovement.global/standing-with-standing-rock/