Sister Simone Campbell Speaks About Faithful Budget at Harvard Divinity School

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, Network's Sister Simone Campbell was invited to speak at Harvard University Divinity School as part of its Religion and American Public Life lecture series.

She engaged with students about how to stand together for the common good in today's divisive political climate.  She described the Faithful Budget that she has promoted through the Nuns on the Bus tour this summer with five words: “reasonable revenue for responsible programs.”

Harvard Divinity School logo

The Harvard Crimson newspaper covered her talk.  Here is an excerpt:

The resounding shrieks of the fire alarm interrupted Mara Willard as the lecturer on religion and society welcomed a guest speaker to the Harvard Divinity School Wednesday night. As a student ran to check whether the alarm was a test or an actual threat, the speaker, Sister Simone Campbell, seized the opportunity and the microphone.

In addition to emphasizing the importance of unity in the face of economic, political, and social instability, Campbell discussed her “Faithful Budget,” a spiritually based alternative to the budget proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan, Gov. Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate.

Campbell took advantage of the fire drill to make her presentation interactive. When the audience was temporarily displaced to the Divinity School courtyard, she created a makeshift aisle—to maintain the lecture’s religious feel, she said.

She then recruited seven volunteers to form a “human bar graph,” to demonstrate the disparities in income created by the nation’s “trickle down” economics.  

Read full article, entitled Sister Pans ‘Trickle Down’ Plans