Brad Pitt recently spent four days in Ethiopia learning more about AIDS in Africa.

Louisville—An interfaith convocation on hunger organized by Bread for the World (BFW), a Christian anti-hunger group, will bring together a host of prominent U.S. religious leaders, including the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The gathering, “Hunger No More: An Interfaith Convocation,” is scheduled for June 6 at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

The event, part of a larger conference in the capital, will address hunger in the United States and around the world. Participants will urge President Bush and members of Congress to join Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths in a new national commitment to ending hunger.

“As Christians, and as all people of faith, we are called to care for hungry people,” Kirkpatrick said. “This issue is one on which we can all agree. So, we are using our collective voice at this historic event to call our government to stand for ‘the least among us.’ I am proud to represent the PC(USA) at this event.”

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa, will preach a sermon on hunger, public policy and religious duty.

People of faith concerned about hunger will “raise their voices in song and seek guidance from the sacred texts of many faiths” during the meeting, to be held on the Eve of National Hunger Awareness Day, BFW officials said in a news release.

The convocation will be one of scores of such observances around the country.

“As Christians worldwide observe the season of Easter, religious leaders from many different faiths are planning a historic gathering to celebrate the triumph of life over death,” said the Rev. David Beckmann, the BFW president. “When all of these leaders come together and commit to help end hunger in our nation and our world, they will be creating the potential for life to flourish in places where before there has only been despair.”

The event is part of a conference called One Table, Many Voices: A Mobilization to End Poverty and Hunger. Call to Renewal and America’s Second Harvest are co-hosts with BFW of the June 4-7 conference at American University in Washington, which will include a “lobby day” on Capitol Hill.

Bread for the World is a 54,000-member, non-partisan Christian organization founded in 1974. Its members lobby for public-policy changes addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty. The 47,000-member non-partisan organization is backed by 2,300 churches and more than 45 denominations and church agencies, including the PC(USA) and the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP).

For more conference information, visit http://www.onetableconference.org.