Category Archives: Front Page

Hundreds of Miles of Wall and Two Years of Title 42 Later: Are We Any Better Off?

Hundreds of Miles of Wall and Two Years of Title 42 Later: Are We Any Better Off?

Julia Morris
May 9, 2022

“Title 42 is a policy failure plain and simple. It does nothing to stop COVID from being spread and by circumventing immigration law it actually goes against the principles on which our country was founded.
Ending it was the right decision”
– Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-7)

A Trump appointed federal judge ordered a two week hold on the phasing out of the Title 42 expulsion policy, raising doubts about the Biden administration’s ability to restore asylum on May 23.

As Pope Francis said, “[T]housands of persons are led to travel north in search of a better life for themselves and for their loved ones, in search of greater opportunities. Is this not what we want for our own children? We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation … Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’” (Papal address to the United States Congress, 9/24/15.)

Faith and secular border reception agencies are ready to receive asylum seekers and hope that Congress and the Administration will treat them as partners in this journey so that they can provide the best service to our siblings at the border. Rather than fall victim to anti-immigrant rhetoric, we have an opportunity now to live up to our values and show compassion.

Title 42 is a death sentence for these vulnerable asylum seekers. At its core, Title 42 is an obscure public health law weaponized advance cruel, xenophobic immigration policies under the guise of public health.

We know how to curb COVID-19: vaccines, masking, and social distancing. A xenophobic and selective ban on individuals and families fleeing harm only undermines public trust in federal institutions like the CDC.

We can protect public safety without turning away vulnerable families coming to this country for a better life.

Join NETWORK activists in restoring the right to asylum, email Congress now!

The Weight of Something Precious

The Weight of Something Precious

Erin Zubal, OSU, Chief of Staff
May 9, 2022

In NETWORK, Catholics Sisters Have Built a True Legacy

We seldom end up where we expect in life. We think we have a clear vision of where we’re going, but the Spirit blows where it will, and our God is one of surprises. As I transition into the role of NETWORK’s first Chief of Staff, this rings true for my journey — from a social worker, to an Ursuline Sister of Cleveland, teacher, and school administrator. And now here I am, unexpectedly receiving a legacy shaped and handed down by the women religious who have come before me. As a Catholic Sister, I approach this moment with a deep awareness of its gravity.

You know something is well constructed and even valuable when it’s heavy. And that is definitely the case with NETWORK. In Catholic spaces, we throw around a word like tradition, forgetting that it has real weight. Fifty years ago, 47 women religious came together to discern, pray, and ultimately build on a vision for a better church and world by founding NETWORK. Emboldened by the spirit of their visionary founders and foundresses, these women heeded the call of the Second Vatican Council to breathe new life into their community charisms.

These dynamic and visionary women were grounded in a common call – to dismantle systems of racism, oppression, and inequality. This call was rooted in first-hand encounter and accompaniment of men, women and children who were suffering extreme poverty with limited access to healthcare and housing. I imagine the passion and resolve of these women came from their hearts being broken open by the suffering of those they loved and served. You might say these women had hearts ablaze for what they knew was possible — a way forward for the common good.

NETWORK has been blessed with an incredible legacy of women religious leaders who read the signs of the times and responded accordingly — Carol Coston, Maureen Kelleher, Nancy Sylvester, Catherine Pinkerton, Kathy Thornton, Simone Campbell — each sister receiving the torch from the sister and staff who served before her. I believe these women were called to serve for a particular moment in history and were blessed with the “grace of the office.”

But even these Sisters didn’t end up exactly where they expected. On issues including equal rights for women, universal health care, voting rights, and essential reforms of our immigration and criminal legal systems, the better future envisioned by NETWORK remains just that. This too is the weight of tradition, that we faithfully and persistently do our part, in cooperation with the Spirit, but also leave much for those who will follow us.

There is no question that the ministry of educating, organizing and advocating can be daunting at times. However, when a network comes together to support each other and the work; good things happen. I believe every generation is called to embrace and claim their moment in history. I too have had my heart broken open by the people I have encountered in my ministry. It has transformed me within, and as a woman religious, I know that interior transformation must precede work for social and economic transformation.

I am proud to take my place among the holy men and women who make the work possible, who keep alive NETWORK’s hope and vision for a more just and inclusive society. Thank you for your faithfulness to NETWORK these past 50 years. I look forward to serving with each of you as we carry the mission long into the future.

Erin Zubal, OSU, is an Ursuline Sister of Cleveland and NETWORK’s first Chief of Staff. She previously participated in NETWORK’s “Nuns on the Bus” campaigns and served as Chair of the NETWORK Advocates Board. This article originally appeared in Connection, NETWORK’s quarterly magazine (Second Quarter 2022 – “Celebrating Sister-Spirit: Our 50-Year Justice Journey”  *Special 50th Anniversary Edition*).

Social Poet Award Winners | NETWORK Lobby Celebrates 50 years of Justice

Gratitude and Memories from Our Spirit-Filled Celebration

Gratitude and Memories from Our Spirit-Filled Celebration

Joan Neal and Mary Novak
April 25, 2022

We are full of joy, hope, and gratitude for the NETWORK community! Our time together at the Advocates Training and Justice Ablaze Gala was the perfect way to honor the 50 years of work we’ve done together.

We have selected a few favorite photos to share with you, with more to come in the weeks ahead! Thank you to those who celebrated in D.C. and those who held us in your hearts. We are on this sacred journey together.

Black Maternal Health Week

Ending the Black Maternal Health Crisis Is a Moral Imperative

Ending the Black Maternal Health Crisis Is a Moral Imperative

Joan F. Neal
April 15, 2022

This week marks the five-year anniversary of Black Maternal Health Week in the United States. During Black Maternal Health Week, advocates and elected officials build community and draw awareness toward the maternal mortality epidemic that is sweeping our nation. At NETWORK, we believe that access to quality, affordable health care is a fundamental human right. It is our moral responsibility as Catholics to ensure accessible health care for all and eliminate racial and economic health disparities. As Representative Lauren Underwood (IL-14) who is the co-chair and co-founder of the Black Maternal Health Caucus stated, “This work is deeply personal” during an interfaith event NETWORK helped to organize.

Statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in February revealed that the Black maternal mortality crisis has only gotten worse. The data shows that the mortality rate for Black women rose by 26 percent in 2020—a rate three times greater than that of white women. In an interfaith event last month, Representative Alma Adams (NC-12) said, “Overlooking the pain of Black women in health care results from implicit bias and racism.” The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, especially for birthing people of color. This is unjust and sinful.

On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a historic call to action to improve lives and health outcomes for birthing people, especially people of color, across the country. The Biden-Harris administration made a series of announcements that will work toward health equity including extending Medicaid and CHIP coverage for a full year after pregnancy in 11 additional states, and proposing “Birthing-Friendly” hospital designations to make improvements in maternal health outcomes. These announcements, along with the 12 key bills in the Momnibus Act, are vital steps forward to invest in maternal health and dismantle systemic racism in our health care systems.

Black mothers should not fear for their lives or their infant’s life while giving birth. As Representative Ayanna Pressley (MA-7) said during Wednesday’s Black Maternal Health Week event, “Birthing while Black should not be a death sentence.” NETWORK is proud to see the work done by the Biden-Harris administration to achieve healthcare equity for Black mothers, and continually supports the work of the Black Maternal Health Caucus to pass the Momnibus. With ongoing advocacy and a commitment to Build Anew, we can end the Black Maternal Mortality crisis in the United States. And we should do that.

Celebrate 50 Years! Get your NETWORK Zoom Background

Celebrate 50 Years with a NETWORK Zoom Background!

Save the images below to your computer as an image file (.png), then add them on Zoom to use as your virtual background!

Zoom support: Changing your Virtual Background image

Download from Google Drive.

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NETWORK Lobby invites you to join your Lent 2022 journey with ours. Our weekly Lenten lesson includes reflections and a video series on individual bias and racism and racist policy built into the US tax code

Lent 2022: Lent Calls Us to Atone

Lent 2022, Week 6: Lent Calls Us to Atone

View earlier Lenten Reflections: Ash Wednesday | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 

Mary Novak
April 8, 2022

Watch Tax Justice For All

The Conclusion (starting at at 38:37)
As Lent gives way to Easter, we must ask ourselves, how can we atone for our part in the systemic evils that oppress so many? How can we carry the lessons that we’ve learned this Lent with us? One practical exercise is found in NETWORK’s Tax Justice Calculator. In the final video installment, our interactive tax calculator lets you simulate the impact that a more just tax code could have.

Questions for reflection:

  1. How can I incorporate what Tax Justice For All taught me about racist policies and laws into my daily life?
  2. How can I continue to do the work of recognizing racist structures and policies and (if applicable) how they directly or indirectly benefit me?
  3. What would it look like for our society to be transformed into one that has eradicated racist structures and policies?

What does it mean for us to atone?

This Lenten season, NETWORK invited you to journey with us in exploring racist impacts hidden in something mundane: the tax code. Through our Tax Justice for All resource, we examined how tax policies historically and systematically disadvantage Black and Brown families and disproportionately benefit white people and the ultra-wealthy.

We all have a part in this. Those of us with the right to vote to bear a responsibility for who we elect and the policies they enact. And Catholics and other people of goodwill have a moral duty to see that our government policies benefit people pushed to the peripheries of society. Pope Francis calls this a lofty form of love.

As we journey through Lent in preparation for Holy Week, the language associated with Jesus’ suffering and death becomes familiar: atonement. But this complex concept is too often oversimplified as Jesus dying “for our sins.” Accepting this shortened summary fails to capture the pernicious nature of sin in our world and convey what is demanded of us as participants in God’s transforming grace. This is why we have focused on one aspect of structural sin with our Tax Justice For All series.

It is important to reflect more broadly as well. On April 9, 2022, NETWORK will host a special conversation on “White Supremacy and American Christianity,” featuring Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), Father Bryan Massingale of Fordham University, and Dr. Marcia Chatelain of Georgetown University, the recipient of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History. Watching this conversation can also serve as a form of penance, educating ourselves about the reality of white supremacy in U.S. Christianity. 

Many people do not realize that the Catholic Church did not abolish ‘penitential days’ on Fridays year-round. In fact, the Bishops’ 1966 statement says “Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year.” Today, in place of — or in addition to — fasting from meat on Fridays, people are encouraged to engage in other personal penance.  

As someone who holds many privileged identities in our society, I can think of no worthier personal penance than the reflecting on systemic racism, examining my own complicity in it, and finding paths forward to end the sin of racism.  

In the hope of Easter, I believe accepting this work of penance will allow each of us to atone and be transformed. 

Good and gracious God, as we prepare ourselves to share in the joy of Easter, open our hearts and minds. Help us to see what we would rather not see, especially the suffering caused by the injustice of systemic racism. Help us reflect on these painful realities and see them for what they are. Help us to avoid despair and to move from reflection to action, galvanized by your Spirit. Grant us the courage to speak out and the clarity to cooperate with your grace in building the world anew. Amen. NETWORK Prayer to Move from Reflection to Action

Judge Jackson’s Nomination Soon to Move to the Senate Floor

Judge Jackson’s Nomination Soon to Move to the Senate Floor

Julia Morris
April 1, 2022

Next Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote  on whether to send the Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination for the Supreme Court to the Senate floor. This will likely split the committee in a party line vote, but not necessarily derail the prospect for a final confirmation vote later next week. The particular day for confirmation depends on how much Republicans want to obstruct before leaving town.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) publicly expressed her support for nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her statement Sen. Collins expressed her concern with the manner in which these hearings have proceeded saying, “In my view, the role the Constitution clearly assigns to the Senate is to examine the experience, qualifications, and integrity of the nominee … [I]t is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the ideology of an individual Senator or would rule exactly as an individual Senator would want.” Sen. Collins’ support means Vice President Kamala Harris will not have to break a 50-50 tie for the nomination.

At NETWORK, we urge the Senate to confirm her nomination with all deliberate speed. As our Executive Director Mary Novak stated:

“In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims a new law of love known as the Beatitudes. He said: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. We the People are hungering for justice. We need our political and judicial systems to live up to the vision of ‘right relationship’ where every person’s sacred worth is respected. On behalf of NETWORK’s 100,000 members and supporters, I express our strong support for the swift and historic confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court.

“Judge Jackson’s service as a federal public defender, the first defender nominated since Justice Thurgood Marshall, means she experienced firsthand the way our criminal legal system works for some but not all of us. This unique experience will allow her to bring a commitment to equal justice for all, grounded in human dignity to the Court.”

Join us in celebrating this occasion. Call 888-897-9753 to urge both of your Senators to Confirm the Honorable, and extremely qualified, Ketanji Brown Jackson!

NETWORK Lobby invites you to join your Lent 2022 journey with ours. Our weekly Lenten lesson includes reflections and a video series on individual bias and racism and racist policy built into the US tax code

Lent 2022: Lent Calls Us to Remember Our End

Lent 2022, Week 5: Lent Calls Us to See True Gifts

Inequity hurts our country. More importantly, it hurts the broader Body of Christ when generations of families are ensnared in cycles of financial hardship. A new status quo is needed! As we enter Lent’s final days, let us be mindful of how we can advocate for justice that extends past our earthly lives.

View earlier Lenten Reflections: Ash Wednesday | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

Colin Martinez Longmore
April 1, 2022

Watch Tax Justice For All – Week 5 (starting at at 29:50).
This week, we explore family, housing and taxes to explore advantages that contribute to wealth: imputed income, mortgage interest deductions, and home equity gains.
The system of penalizing poor families and rewarding wealthy ones supercharges the already growing racial wealth gap. We know that this type of inequity hurts our country, but more importantly, it hurts the broader Body of Christ by ensnaring generations of families in cycles of financial hardship.
Questions for reflection:

  1. How have you directly benefited from the efforts of a previous generation?
  2. What do you hope to pass on to future generations?
  3. How can reflecting on the end of our earthly lives help us become better advocates for justice?

Thank you to NETWORK Grassroots Mobilization team members Sr. Emily TeKolste, SP for co-leading us through these lessons. We’ll watch the end together next week!

A month ago, on Ash Wednesday, we heard the priest say, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Lent reminds us of our death and calls us to focus on the last things. This includes how we will be judged before God, but it also includes how we find ourselves and our families at the end of our lives.

Recently, my wife and I were married at our home parish, surrounded by the community that raised us. After the big day, we eagerly shifted our focus to the next chapter—starting our household together. With new jobs, a new city and a new apartment, we kicked off the New Year with a blank canvas, ready to create our version of a Holy Family.

She and I are first generation Americans and college graduates. Thanks to the incredible sacrifices of our parents, and several strokes of good fortune, we found ourselves in the position to do what our families could not: build wealth.

As we combined our budgets and planned for our financial future, we were grateful for the sacrifices our families made to provide us with this opportunity. However, at the same time, we were mindful that our financial plans would have to account for the fact that neither of our parents have retirement savings. In a few years, we will have to support them in old age.

Unfortunately, in our country, this situation is not unique. We can see it illustrated in the mixed-citizenship status family with parents who don’t hold retirement assets, or in the single mother heading into old age with a high personal debt-to-income ratio due to emergency expenses. There are countless families who find themselves in the cycle of an upward generational transfer of wealth, where younger generations are financially supporting their parents, rather than receiving wealth from them.

Our tax code does not reward this spending framework. It also disadvantages these families by not offering help, in the form of interest deductions, on certain debts like medical bills, credit cards, or personal loans. Many families are limited in their ability to save, invest, build wealth, retire comfortably and pass down wealth to future generations.

In contrast, wealthy—and overwhelmingly white—families enjoy a very different set of rules in our tax code when it comes to passing down wealth. The “stepped-up” basis loophole for inherited assets protects these families. They can dodge taxes on their wealth when transferring it from one owner to the next. The value on investment assets gained during the original owner’s possession is not taxed upon being inherited by the new owner. In other words, the assets are “stepped-up” in value and the new owner is able to realize tax-free gains. On top of that, estate and other inheritance loopholes allow wealthy families to avoid taxes on up to $23 million when passing down wealth.

The system of penalizing poor families and rewarding wealthy ones supercharges the already growing racial wealth gap. We know that this type of inequity hurts our country, but more importantly, it hurts the broader Body of Christ by ensnaring generations of families in cycles of financial hardship. A new status quo is needed! As we enter into the final week of Lent, let us be mindful of how we can continue to advocate for a justice that extends past our earthly lives.

Good and gracious God, as we prepare ourselves to share in the joy of Easter, open our hearts and minds. Help us to see what we would rather not see, especially the suffering caused by the injustice of systemic racism. Help us reflect on these painful realities and see them for what they are. Help us to avoid despair and to move from reflection to action, galvanized by your Spirit. Grant us the courage to speak out and the clarity to cooperate with your grace in building the world anew. Amen. NETWORK Prayer to Move from Reflection to Action