Press Release

Br. Kevin Cawley of Edmund Rice International Joins GreenFaith’s National Fellowship ProgramNationally Recognized Initiative to Train Religious Leaders for Environmental Leadership

GreenFaith announced that Br. Kevin Cawley of the Congregation of Christian Brothers and Edmund Rice International has been named a GreenFaith Fellow and is a member of the 2008 Class of the GreenFaith Fellowship Program. The Fellowship Program is the first comprehensive education and training program in the US to prepare lay and ordained leaders from interfaith religious traditions for religiously based environmental leadership, and has received national recognition. “We are pleased to welcome Br. Kevin Cawley to the Program,” said Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Fellowship Program Director. “We look forward to working with our Fellows to support their growth as religious-environmental leaders.”

Kevin will take part in three three-day residential sessions in ecologically varied settings - urban, rural, and suburban, and will receive extensive education and training in eco-theology, “greening” the operation of institutions, environmental advocacy, and environmental justice. Fellows also take part in monthly conference calls, and build relationships with environmental leaders in their region. Each Fellow will carry out a leadership project in their community, mobilizing religious leaders in relation to an environmental issue. Upon graduating, they will join the Fellowship’s alumni/ae network and mentor other emerging leaders in this field.

Br. Cawley grew up in Newark, New Jersey and has been a member of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers since 1966, completing his undergraduate degree at Iona College, his Master ‘s Degree at Seton Hall University and Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Fordham University. Kevin has been a teacher, coach, administrator and religious superior in high schools and at Iona College. At Iona he was an administrator and served in the Education Department in both graduate and undergraduate programs. Kevin is currently the coordinator for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation for the North American Province of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. He also serves with Edmund Rice International, an NGO in the area of Human Rights. Kevin is their liaison with the United Nations in New York. Kevin believes that “ the work of educating will inevitably overlap with the work of informing and redirecting each of us how to live sustainably.”

Kevin is with a class of over 20 Fellows from diverse religious backgrounds. The Fellows represent over ten religious denominations, including Roman Catholic; mainline Protestant; historically Black churches; and Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish. Fellows work in a wide variety of settings, including congregations, universities, campus ministries, NGO’s, and denominational organizations.

Rabbi Lawrence Troster, the Fellowship Director, is a nationally recognized religious environmental leader who has worked with the Coalition for the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), the Jewish Theological Seminary, Bard College, and as a rabbi of congregations in Toronto and New Jersey. GreenFaith’s Executive Director, Rev. Fletcher Harper, also offers leadership for the Program. “This program will offer these leaders the opportunity for educational, spiritual and vocational growth and skill development in religious environmentalism,” said Harper. “These leaders will help create an environmentally just and sustainable world.”

An advisory committee of nationally recognized religious and environmental leaders have offered strong support. “The GreenFaith Fellowship Program is a critical initiative for the religious environmental movement,” said Drs. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, co-directors of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University. “There is a dearth of religious leaders in the United States who are speaking out regarding key environmental issues. This interfaith effort is indispensable.”

Dr. Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, said “The GreenFaith Fellowship Program meets a palpable need for a select group at a critical time. I applaud the substance and details of the program – if it didn’t exist, we would need to invent it.”

Rabbi William Lebeau, Dean of the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, said “I believe that this program will help to produce a cadre of clergy and lay leaders who will help to bring their communities to a new level of environmental knowledge and action.”

GreenFaith is grateful to the Richard Oram Charitable Trust, the Kendeda Sustainability Fund, the Edgebrook Foundation, and to GreenFaith members for their support for the Fellowship Program. For more information, visit www.greenfaith.org.

Tags: Ecology