The Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, Bishop of Southeast Florida, was one of six members of the clergy who joined U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) as speakers at a “Darfur Interfaith Awareness Gathering” Dec. 18 at Temple Emanu-El, Miami Beach.

“We gather here to challenge our conscience and the conscience of our community,” Bishop Frade said. “We gather as one people to cry in outrage for the horrible and barbaric killings taking place in the area of Darfur in Sudan.”

Bishop Frade also emphasized the responsibility of governments for the situation in Darfur, saying, “We know that the Darfur genocide is no accident…[it] is the devilish and brutal product of those in power, the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum…”

“But I am also afraid that the genocide is also due to the negligence of the present administration of the United States for not really caring for a group of people that were also created in God’s image as we are.”

Bishop Frade cited the position of The Episcopal Church on Darfur, which calls for such measures as expansion of the African Union security force authorizing “if necessary an international intervention in Darfur that includes troops from outside Africa as well as within” and “the prosecution of the perpetrators of the Darfur tragedy.”

“Let our voice rise as one cry demanding justice,” he concluded. “Let us pledge ourselves to this holy cause until justice and peace are restored.”

Sponsored by the Miami Coalition to Save Darfur, a project of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, the rally to raise awareness of the Darfur genocide was originally scheduled to be held in the symbolic setting of the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial, but was moved to the temple because of rain.

Mary Cox

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