SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rev. Dr. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, issues the following statement:
“We at the NHCLC, including our more than 2,000-member churches in Puerto Rico, want to commend Gov. Rosselló Nevares for signing the ‘Centros del Tercer Sector y Bases de Fe’ executive order. This executive order not only helps protect religious liberty in Puerto Rico, it simultaneously removes barriers for faith communities to participate in and cooperate with the efforts of government agencies.
“When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, the church was at the very center of the response effort, mobilizing resources and people across the island, reaching some of the hardest hit communities while often serving as first responders. This executive order rightly acknowledges the church’s tremendous ‘on the ground’ humanitarian capacity, as well as the irreplaceable role faith communities play in the health and wellbeing of the broader Puerto Rican culture.”
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Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, executive producer of The Impossible with 20th Century Fox, and bestselling author of “Shake Free.” He has been named by CNN and Fox News as “the leader of the Hispanic Evangelical movement” and TIME Magazine nominated him among the 100 most influential leaders in America.
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is recognized and identified by Time Magazine, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today, Charisma Magazine, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, Fox News and CNN as America’s largest and most influential Hispanic/Latino Christian organization with 40,118 certified member churches in the United States and chapters in Latin America.
