Welcome to week 3 of our Lenten series, “Giving Up Billionaires,” as we call on Congress to give up billionaires so our communities can have what we need to thrive. Click here for the rest of our Lenten reflections and actions.

Congress: Protect Our Health, Not Private Profits

Sr. Emily TeKolste, SP
March 19, 2025

A friend of mine is a primary care doctor who regularly shares stories about insurance executives blocking her ability to care for her patients. For example, they delay her patients’ access to life-saving medications, which puts their health, and perhaps even their lives, at risk. Meanwhile, these insurance executives rake in record-breaking profits for themselves and their wealthy investors.

Catholic Social Teaching affirms that ensuring access to quality health care is essential to respecting the dignity of each person. No matter our race, country of origin, or size of our bank account, we value our health and want affordable health care–for ourselves and our families.

But insurance executives are lining their pockets at the expense of our health and using their profits to fund politicians who will protect their money grabs. It’s no wonder that some members of Congress are working on a bill to slash Medicaid funds–because by gutting government-supported health care, they can force more of us onto private plans and turn a bigger profit. Meanwhile, too many of us are left with huge medical bills and denials of needed medical treatment.

Take action

• Call your House Member at 1-888-897-9753 to ensure that Congress does not cut our Medicaid to give tax-breaks to the ultra-wealthy and to pay for deporting our neighbors in the budget reconciliation bill.
• Spread the word. Save the image that I’ve placed below to your computer or phone and share it on social media and in emails to friends and family.
• Write a letter to the editor (LTE) calling Congress to reject the budget proposal–make sure to include your Members of Congress (Representative and two Senators) by name!

Find more LTE and social media guidance in our Lent toolkit.

There is a lasting solution: end the private profit motive and ensure that everyone has quality, affordable health care–for less than we’re paying now. This solution is sometimes known as Medicare for All. With Medicare for All, billionaires wouldn’t be able to continue profiting at our expense through the private insurance industry (which is why they pay to put people in office who will block it).

Until we achieve a common-sense program like Medicare for All, our society fills the gaps with Medicaid, which covers more than 71 million people. Right now, a few millionaires in Congress, backed by billionaire donors and the insurance industry, are working to kick people off Medicaid to fund massive tax cuts for themselves and their ultra-wealthy backers.

We are coming together to insist that a handful of billionaires stop profiting off our health care while families struggle to afford the care they need.

Call your Representative today at 1-888-897-9753 to ensure that Congress does not cut our Medicaid to give tax-breaks to the ultra-wealthy and to pay for deporting our neighbors.

NETWORK has more shareable content, sample social media posts, and LTE guidance for you in our Lent Toolkit.

Welcome to week 2 of our Lenten series, “Giving Up Billionaires,” as we call on Congress to give up billionaires so our communities can have what we need to thrive. Click here for the rest of our Lenten reflections and actions.

Congress: Tax Billionaires and Feed Our People

Sr. Emily TeKolste, SP
March 12, 2025

As a child, I remember receiving the Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl at church just before Lent. I was urged to donate my spare change or the money I saved from not buying a bag of chips after school so that hungry children in other countries could eat.

In 2021, David Beasley of the United Nations’ World Food Programme presented Elon Musk with a plan to address critical world hunger for $6.6 billion, about two percent of Musk’s wealth at the time. Musk had issued a challenge offering to pay that amount of money if someone presented a plan, but then refused to follow through. Two percent of my wealth is probably close to what I gave CRS as a child. It didn’t make much of a dent in world hunger, but Elon Musk could have fully ended critical world hunger at that moment.

It is a policy failure that the whims of one person can determine whether the world’s 8 billion people have access to food, or not.

In 2021, no billionaire stepped up to fund the UN World Food Programme’s proposal. Today, Congress is trying to cut our communities’ access to food to pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. Families who are already struggling to put food on the table will be even hungrier.

Take action

Call your House Member and tell them to reject cuts to SNAP and tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. 

Join us as we continue promoting our Lenten campaign, “Giving Up Billionaires for Lent.” Save the image that I’ve placed below to your computer or phone and share it on social media and in emails to friends and family. And check out our Lent toolkit for more ways to share our campaign on social media and write letters to the editor (LTEs).

We must reject these cuts and act to ensure that the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share, so our communities can have what we need.

With just a two percent tax on all wealth over $1 billion, we could end hunger and homelessness, provide universal paid family and medical leave, and offer tuition-free community college in our country. We could also end hunger around the world—and still have money left over!

Take action with us today by calling your Member of Congress and asking them to reject cuts to SNAP and protect our access to food.

NETWORK has more shareable content, sample social media posts, and LTE guidance for you in our Lent Toolkit.

Welcome to week 1 of our Lenten series, “Giving Up Billionaires,” as we call on Congress to give up billionaires so our communities can have what we need to thrive. Click here for the rest of our Lenten reflections and actions.

Why Catholicism Calls Us to Give Up Billionaires

Sr. Emily TeKolste, SP
March 5, 2025

This year, we’re giving up billionaires for Lent. It’s not like giving up a sweet indulgence like chocolate. When we say we’re giving up billionaires, we mean we are working toward a future where no one is allowed to hoard excessive wealth and power–so that we can live in a world that looks more like the Kingdom of God.

This Lent, we are urging Congress to reject tax cuts for billionaires and to protect programs that provide critical services like access to food and health care in our communities. We’ll be doing this by calling Congress, writing letters to the editor, posting on social media, and sharing about the campaign with others in our lives. 

Let’s put “billionaire-ism” into perspective

Billionaires in the United States hold nearly $7 trillion in total wealth. If you earned $100,000 per year, paid no taxes, and had no living expenses, it would take you 10 years to save $1 million. In 10,000 years you could save $1 billion. It would take you 10,000,000 years to save $1 trillion.

It’s not just that it is wrong that billionaires exist while so many of their fellow Americans face homelessness or don’t know where their next meal is coming from: the existence of billionaires is why so many of us don’t have stable housing or food. Our economic system concentrates resources that should be for everyone into the hands of a tiny group of people. This is a policy failure and a moral failure.

Take action

Join us in spreading the word about giving up billionaires for Lent! Save the “imagine where we can go” image I’ve placed below to your computer or phone and share it on social media and in emails to friends and family. And, consider writing a letter to the editor (LTE) of your local newspaper about why Congress must give up billionaires.

NETWORK has more shareable content, sample social media posts, and LTE guidance for you in our Lent Toolkit.

Catholicism teaches: tax billionaires! 

Catholic Social Teaching offers a principle called the “Universal Destination of Goods.” The Catholic Church has long taught that the fruit of creation was given to us by God, and that private property exists to protect access to the fruits of creation for all people. When private ownership fails to do that, “Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good” (Catechism, 2406). It is long past time that Congress makes billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.

Giving up billionaires this Lent and beyond 

So this year, we’re giving up billionaires for Lent. Beyond Lent, we’re committed to coming together to elect leaders who will make the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share of taxes so that we can live in a world that looks more like the Kingdom of God: where everyone has clean water to drink, healthy food to eat, a safe place to live, and time to spend with our loved ones.

Over the next few weeks of Lent, look out for weekly emails from me about our “Giving Up Billionaires” campaign, which culminate with our Easter call to tax billionaires out of existence, so that all of us can share in the fruits of creation!