Originally appeared in The Hill 

Donald Trump’s repeated promise on the campaign trail to defend Christianity if elected President has been of concern to us.  When he recently called Pope Francis’ critique of his immigration stance “disgraceful,” we hit our tipping point. Mr. Trump cannot defend that which he does not seem to understand.

Christian faith teaches love of neighbor and love of the stranger, not sentimental love but real life-giving love.  The Bible speaks of two types of love: phileo and agape. Both are Greek terms that appear at different points throughout Scripture but agape is the most powerful, noblest type of love: sacrificial love, an act of the will. Christians are to love one another with agape love as in Jesus’ parable where the Good Samaritan saw an injured man and helped him without regard to race or religion; he just saw a person in dire need. Christianity is not the only faith that speaks of willful love. Every world religion has at its core a commitment to caring for humanity: the orphan, the widow and the stranger.

It’s clear what’s going on. Mr. Trump is executing a political strategy that has been around for millennia: channeling anger born of fear. He is not the only candidate to do so, but his microphone seems to be the loudest and the angriest. We understand that much of this fear is coming from those who see their majority status – white and Christian and male – changing. They have not felt that they have someone standing alongside them. But Mr. Trump’s promise to defend their Christianity is merely a political ploy to grab their votes. It’s not just manipulative and cynical, it diminishes the deep wisdom of our Christian faith, and that is offensive to us.

Millions of Americans, including those whose fear Mr. Trump is channeling, have dedicated their lives to doing the good works of their faiths. His fear mongering is personally insulting and publicly dangerous. It is building a wall between American citizens — of all faiths, colors and cultures.  Our faiths deserve far more respect than has been shown thus far.

Mr. Trump says the Pope’s suggestion that his immigration policies are not Christian is “disgraceful.” What is disgraceful is Mr. Trump’s xenophobic zeal. Stirring up fear of immigrants by calling them rapists and then offering a giant wall as a solution is anything but a solution. Nor are the current administration’s actions that detain immigrants in for-profit detention centers; or deport parents, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves. I know. As a Methodist Bishop, I held a little boy from Honduras at an immigrant center in South Texas as he showed me pictures he had drawn and he described the perilous journey he had just taken as an unaccompanied immigrant child. I knew then, as I know now, that the solutions offered by Mr. Trump or the administration are not the answers and certainly not expressions of Christian faith.

Walls separate us from the possibility of exercising life-giving love; bridges offer us the possibility and Christians are to be counted among America’s bridge builders. We stand with the New Sanctuary churches and synagogues that provide safe haven to families threatened with being ripped apart – parents from children, wives from husbands — neighbors from our communities. I know. During our “Nuns on the Bus” campaign to honor the Pope’s U.S. visit and message of economic inclusion, I met 16-year-old Kathryn who was caring for her five siblings after her hard-working parents were deported. Her 11-year-old sister, Stephanie, in her anguish, attempted suicide, believing that it would be better for her family that she not be alive. Luckily these children were wrapped round with their neighbors’ care and the love of their parish community that continues to support them.

That is agape love. Powerful, willful, Christian love.

The holier-than-thou claims by presidential candidates wearing Christian costumes will not effectively address immigration reform or the problems of U.S. poverty and economic inequality, institutional racism, educational inequity, and still having too many people in this country living without health insurance. It will take more than holding up a false placard declaring that one understands what it is to be Christian.

All presidential candidates are invited to join the courageous witness of persons of faith and love – the bridge builders. But they cannot do so through shallow words. Being a leader requires taking on the tough, real-life issues that our nation faces with integrity. Even if we disagree on policies, we cannot disagree on the need for integrity.

About the Authors:

Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño is Los Angeles Area Resident Bishop of The United Methodist Church, the first Hispanic woman to be elected to this episcopacy; and a leading advocate for U.S. immigration reform. www.calpacumc.org/bishop

Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, is executive director of NETWORK and leader of NETWORK’s “Nuns on the Bus”, Washington, DC. She is author of A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community. www.NETWORKLobby.org and @Sr_Simone

On Tuesday, Dec. 8 Pope Francis established a Jubilee Year of Mercy, which is considered a “year acceptable to the Lord” (Is 61:2). Its origin comes from the Bible in Leviticus 25. The scripture states that every fiftieth year was considered a sacred time to return property, forgive debts, and free people who were considered “slaves.” It was a year to reset, refresh, and allow those subjugated by societal actions to reconnect with society in a more holistic way. The Christian version of the Jubilee turned into a season of pilgrimage to sacred places around the 14th century and had less focus on societal forgiveness. Therefore, Francis’s emphasis of this Jubilee year as a return to mercy is radical and will be educational for how forgiveness is necessary for a just society.

It is significant that Francis departed from tradition for this year’s Jubilee. First, Jubilees are supposed to be every 25-50 years and the most recent one was in 2000. The pope knows it has only been 15 years, but he finds the message of mercy to be too important for our age to wait another 10-35 years. He also broke from the tradition of the pilgrimage-type Jubilee and goes to the spirit of the original Jubilee described in Leviticus with this Year of Mercy. The word “radical” comes from the Latin radix, which means “forming the root.” Francis is radical not only in revisiting the original purpose of the Jubilee; he is also forming strong roots in the Church and the world for cultivating social justice.

Pope Francis said, “a little mercy makes the world less cold and more just.” How can forgiveness create a warmer, more loving world? Imagine if we held to the original Jubilee ideals. In current times, perhaps there would be no more student debt, we could provide hardworking people around the country with a living wage and healthcare, and the ills that a capitalistic society inevitably produces would be righted through stronger controls on our economy led by a political system concerned for the common good. Society would be held accountable for the ways it causes harm and creates brokenness. The Jubilee would uplift the people society puts in dehumanizing situations and improve their quality of life, or liberate them from systems of oppression. Imagine the cycle of poverty being swiftly uprooted and interrupted. If we can be inspired only slightly by Pope Francis’s Jubilee Year of Mercy, we will certainly create more justice in the world.

There is so much fear in many people who unjustly criticize this kind of societal forgiveness for those who struggle in oppressive conditions. For example, this seems to be a constant point in the narrative around our social safety net and programs designed to help lift people out of poverty and support those struggling in our economy. Should we judge those who receive government assistance? How many chances should we give repeat offenders of the law? The answer is no, we shouldn’t judge, and we should give people as much support as they need because we are all connected. We are one body and all of us are sick when one of us is hurting.

Peter Maurin, a founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, wrote Why Not Be a Beggar? (below), which illustrates how those pushed to the margins are our shared redemption.In the end, we are all susceptible to marginalization and all have pain and darkness within us. We must have consciousness of this common fragility and realize “the other” is not other at all; this person is another self and their struggles can illuminate the necessity of our own pain. In a capitalistic society where “being the best” is often considered the point of existence, the person who is most economically vulnerable has a lot to teach us about our shared humanity.

In this Jubilee Year of Mercy let us remember the necessity of forgiveness of ourselves and others for the benefit of creating the common good. We can “form the root” of society by interrupting cycles of poverty and giving people a hand up with our legislative policies. We can structure society in ways that don’t ostracize folks for some of the difficult choices they have made. We must continually remember that we and others are welcome to the table no matter how many times we’ve been pushed away. Let us refresh, reset, and restructure into a community of forgiveness that knows how much we need one another.

Why Not Be A Beggar?
1. People who are in need
and are not afraid to beg
give to people not in need
the occasion to do good
for goodness’ sake.

2. Modern society
calls the beggar
bum and panhandler
and gives him the bum’s rush.

3. The Greeks used to say
that people in need
are the ambassadors of the gods.

4. We read in the Gospel:
“As long as you did it
to one of the least
of My brothers
you did it to Me.”

5. While modern society
calls the beggars
bums and panhandlers,
they are in fact
the Ambassadors of God.

6. To be God’s Ambassador
is something
to be proud of.

May 21, 2015 | By Carolyn Burstein

The Fiscal Year 2016 GOP Budget, A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America, starts off with soft words that mask harsh policies. At NETWORK we have serious concerns about their claim to promote a better place to live and work, for all. They claim that they need to cut programs in order to grow the economy by giving further tax breaks to the wealthy. But, we have 30 years of experience that their trickle-down economics has only served to shift wealth to the top. Pope Francis says that trickle down theories “have never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings for the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.” We here at NETWORK are still waiting to see a responsible blue print of government spending that prioritizes the needs of the majority of our people over additional preference for the wealthy. The actions they propose are hard to imagine creating a better place to live.

They assert that their plan will balance the budget in less than ten years, without any increased revenue. Their proposed $1.017 budget doesn’t balance in FY2016. However, in 2017 it comes closer as non-defense discretionary spending is cut twice as much as in 2016.

Some may read the GOP budget narrative and perceive it as being for the 100%, since they co-opt the language of compassion. However, on more careful reading and comparison between the narrative and funding tables it is clear that their budget would not bring about a better place FOR ALL to live, and certainly not to thrive. They speak about the need for all to have sufficient nutrition, yet they turn SNAP into a state run block grant, no longer an entitlement program available to all who meet criteria. This is one of many examples of the language not matching their actions.

NETWORK is seriously concerned about what is stated in neither the House nor the Senate budget statement – yet we hear from many sources that it will be heavily addressed in amendments to both. We believe that some Members will propose elimination of vital supports to taxpaying immigrant families, many of whom have citizen children. Programs such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit help ensure families have the money to pay for basic needs.  Yet, word is out there that amendments would be proposed to eliminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), law since July 2012, and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), the president’s immigration actions in response to the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive reform. They would also deny family-friendly supports such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), non-emergency healthcare, housing assistance, tax credits and worker protections. Any one of these would be devastating to our nation – not just to the immigrants directly affected.

There are disturbing processes laid out in this budget plan. Although sequestration is maintained, true parity between defense and non-defense discretionary spending is lost, due to the slush fund called the OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations). Reconciliation instructions will be adopted, in which each committee is instructed to reduce the deficit, and to seek ways their committee can help to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A deficit-neutral reserve fund will be established to allow for further military spending or tax expenditures later in the year. A budget gimmick (Dynamic Scoring) allows spending and tax cuts to be justified by imagining some fiscal impact of the policy several years out – with no specific information on how that would be.

Several areas of the House GOP Budget proposal are particularly distressing:

Healthcare

The budget would do grave damage to the progress that has been made in providing affordable, accessible healthcare in the United States. Instructions in the budget to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are an attack on the 16.4 million Americans who have enrolled in insurance plans this year. Furthermore, the budget would privatize Medicare and convert Medicaid into block grants, decreasing significantly the funds available to states for participants in those programs. Finally, the budget repeals Medicaid expansion, moving the eligibility level back down to each state’s individually decided Medicaid level, which was on average 67% of the federal poverty level before the ACA was passed. All of these harmful changes are made with no significant plans to institute replacements for the coverage that will be lost.

Security

When asked what makes them feel secure, people generally speak about the ability to support themselves and their families. That means sufficient income to afford housing, adequate food, child care and healthcare. Rarely do they respond that nuclear weapons, drones and other military equipment make them feel safe. In fact, many speak to the discomfort and fear they have due to the huge numbers of weapons we hold.

Pentagon funding increases included for now and into the future make it evident that the House GOP budget prioritizes military defense over real human security. NETWORK hopes they follow through with their intent to increase support of veterans and their families.

However, the House budget accepts sequestration for limiting spending in the Pentagon base budget, which is raised to $523 billion, $1 billion over the FY2015 limit. Non-defense spending would be $493 billion, giving the Pentagon $30 billion more than programs to meet human needs. The Overseas Contingency Operations fund would provide an even greater boost of $90 billion to defense.

Non-Defense Discretionary

There is a discrepancy between recognition of needs and funding to meet those needs. Even in the commentary on their budget, this discrepancy is clear.

One statement lays out the need. In the same section, the funding is ridiculed as meant to increase government spending, rather than to meet the needs

“Right now, there are those in our nation who are truly struggling to make ends meet – who need our support…. Our charge is to address these challenges in a way that is compassionate and constructive – mindful of the fact that Washington does not hold the answer to every question.” A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America, p.26

This quote sounds supportive of the 100%. However, the quote below presents a negative view of spending on programs to meet the need.

“Financial aid and job training programs are measured by how much money goes in rather than how much achievement comes out. Similarly, food stamps, public housing assistance, and development grants are judged not on whether they achieve improved health and economic outcomes for the recipients or build a stronger community, but on the size of their budgets.” A Balanced Budget for a Stronger America, p. 26

Housing

The budget recognizes that the number of families heavily burdened by rent continues to grow.

HUD guidelines are that housing costs should be 30% of household income. Rather than providing additional housing that meets the guidelines, this budget eliminates thousands of housing vouchers and denies funding to the National Housing Trust Fund, designed to make available more units of housing affordable for low- and extremely-low income households. These are the families and individuals most likely to become homeless.

Jobs and Labor

Certainly, there is a need for more well-paying jobs within the United States. Republicans plan to increase jobs by providing more tax relief to the wealthy and to corporations.

We have seen this approach before as Congress reduced taxes for corporations in 2001 and 2002, promising that would create jobs – but the only new jobs were outside our borders, and many existing jobs were offshored. How will this be different?

Their plan to expand energy is another way in which they purport to produce jobs. Production and installation of green technologies would certainly do this – but the focus is on oil, gas and coal. And, finally, they claim that jobs will be created by reducing regulations – at what price to the environment and to human health?

Entitlements

One of the ways for the federal government to save money is to shift responsibilities and costs to the states.

Entitlements are defined by federal legislation, but many entitlement programs are jointly operated with states. The GOP budget would remove several entitlements. The mandatory elements of the Pell Grants would be eliminated. Both SNAP and Medicaid expansion, adopted by many states would be replaced by block grants called “State Flexibility Funds.” Each of these would provide less funding and place a greater burden on the states – while being framed as “respecting federalism.”

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Currently, there is a waiver allowing a single parent with a very young child to receive TANF benefits, even though not working. This waiver is removed in the budget.
• Nutrition Assistance: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been found to be efficient in meeting urgent needs, the most adaptable on short notice. It is counter-cyclical, with use growing as the economy is bad and shrinking as the economy improves. Just what it is intended to do. It has a negligible error rate. SNAP is attacked and cut significantly in this budget, accused of not being well run. A smaller amount of money, instead, would be provided for a State Flexibility Fund in 2021. State Flexibility Fund is another name for a block grant which would be vulnerable to discretionary cut, when it is implemented. Another cut to the SNAP program is the elimination of funding for efforts to increase SNAP enrollment.
• Income and Disability Insurance: There is recognition that when people are unable to work, they need assistance. However, this budget mistakenly considers disabled persons as “double-dipping” when they are laid off from the minimal work they are able to do and receive unemployment benefits as well as the very meager disability insurance. Neither of these amounts alone allows a person to live in dignity. Yet, our vulnerable neighbors are denied this combined assistance.

Revenue

A faithful budget requires that our nation pay for and invest in programs that support the common good. Revenues raised through our tax system should pay for the public needs of society, and set us on a sustainable path to economic growth and stability. The Republican budget fails the test of fairness and justice by providing significant tax relief to wealthy corporations and individuals who are thriving in today’s economy by dropping rates and repealing the alternative minimum tax – while failing to provide tax relief to those who need it most: working class families and individuals who struggle to make ends meet.

Under this proposal, Republicans would allow the expiration of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit after 2017, meaning 13 million families (a total of 25 million children) would lose part or all of these tax credits in 2018. At the same time, billions of dollars each year in tax expenditures would be given to those in the top economic bracket.

These tax proposals are similar to what we have been hearing from the House majority for the last several years. It is likely that reconciliation will be used to make more specific tax expenditures. There is no attempt to make a case for any good that would come from their tax policies.

NETWORK continues to believe that the government needs to work from the base of “Reasonable taxes for responsible programs.” This implies that ALL individuals, corporations and other businesses should pay their fair share of what is needed for the nation to be a place where ALL can live and work, and to thrive. For this to happen, needs such as those addressed above must be adequately funded. Additionally, money must go into infrastructure repair and enhancement, and into protection of our fragile ecosystem.

Newsday http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/campbell-francis-challenges-catholics-to-live-the-gospels-1.7370525

Campbell: Francis challenges Catholics to live the Gospels

Published: March 12, 2014 3:43 PM
By SIMONE CAMPBELL

In a recent interview with an Italian newspaper, Pope Francis warned against calling him a “superman” or “star,” deeming the descriptions offensive. He is, he said, a normal man who laughs, cries and has friends.

And yet, people around the globe respond enthusiastically to him as if he alone can satisfy a deep hunger for a renewed Roman Catholic Church focused on Gospel messages of compassion, inclusiveness and mercy.

The truth is, no single individual can satisfy our spiritual hunger. The challenges are too great: sexual-abuse scandals, Vatican financial misconduct and the perception that the church is deeply disconnected from those it is supposed to serve.

Pope Francis has reached out to everyone — particularly those who are struggling — and made it clear that all of us Catholics are to be part of the transformation. Not easy, but he helps pave the way by calling us to be joyful believers in the power of the Gospel. Joyful . . . not fearful people focused on sin and punishment, as many of us have been of late.

His apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” published in November, highlights his views of the change he is leading in the church and in the world. He is trying to build the peace Jesus gave to the Apostles. He challenges us to end turf battles, whether they be within Vatican offices or elsewhere, and embrace processes that bring us together. He knows that the heart hungers for unity and we must open the door to make that happen for each of us.

He also tells us that reality — read, real people’s lives — is more important than any theoretical construct. This is critical for social justice advocates like myself as we work to apply faith to lived reality. Stories told us by parents struggling to feed their families break our hearts and cause us to grow in a way that a federal budget battle or a Congressional Budget Office report never will.

And finally, he states that building peace requires inclusion of all because individual shapes are needed to form the whole. Each of us matters.

Some skeptics want him to immediately focus on church structural issues such as the role of women and shared decision-making. While critically important, these issues cannot be resolved without first engaging in spiritual conversion.

It won’t be easy. Almost everyone resists, seeking to assign blame for individual failings to others. Pope Francis understands such resistance, but he is engaged in leading the transformation. Simple acts like living in a modest communal residence and personally calling people reaching out for help directly connect him to the world. This is transformational for a church hierarchy accustomed to palaces, fancy capes and inaccessibility.

By focusing on everyone, Pope Francis seeks to heal barriers that separate us. He calls us to connect our spiritual lives with the real world around us and to live out our spirituality by being justice-makers. This requires political engagement for the common good.

By asking us to open ourselves to the movement of the Spirit, he has created deep challenges for us. We cannot authentically connect with others until we acknowledge pain and injustice that have wounded so many. We must let our hearts be broken by injustices we witness, weep together, and atone for our previous inaction or participation before we can truly experience conversion. Pope Francis calls us to this cleansing act, leading to forgiveness and new life.

We must all participate with him in renewing ourselves and our world in the Spirit — for that is the Gospel’s call.

Sister Simone Campbell is the executive director of Network, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and author of “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community.”

In a week of 5,000 postcards, 40 hours of work, 13 hours of Texan filibustering, 11 Senate office visits, 5 Starbucks trips, 4 major Supreme Court decisions, 3 wrong stops on the Metro, 2 Congressional sittings, and more weight gained because of delicious food truck lunches than I’m willing to admit, at first glance my first week interning with NETWORK would appear to boil down to the number one—one successfully Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Having never worked in federal politics, my knowledge of Washington came almost exclusively from The West Wing and The New York Times. When imbibing information from these kinds of sources, certain nuances get lost. For me, Washington became the manifestation of pure belief in statistics.

In a town seemingly obsessed with numbers and among people who rely upon figures to write policies, vote on legislation, and even to understand themselves, I wondered how I would fit in amidst the figures. As I rode the bus to work I thought back to the emails I had received in the weeks before arriving: “think federal budget, taxes, and debt limit.” The email seemed to confirm my suspicions: everything in Washington boiled down to numbers.

My boss told me to prepare myself for work on appropriations and taxation, which would—theoretically—shake out over the course of my stay Washington. I wondered what, aside from making coffee and drafting meeting minutes, I could add to anything so calculated and divisive.

You see, numbers and I never seemed to get along. I never could sit through a math class without my mind drifting and I decided upon History and English for majors in college in part to escape math. In short, the sum total of my mathematical capabilities is my parlor-room trick of doing simple computation in my head. And even though I’d spent years arguing for social change and studying America’s political movements, the concept of belonging to such an official and intense political community felt foreign. I wondered how long it would take before they spotted the intern.

Although the answer to that question proved to be “not long,” it was soon overshadowed by the mountain of work left before the truly life-altering decision on comprehensive immigration reform. I walked into the office to be put to work almost directly. I was thrust into meetings on strategy and development before I’d even figured out where the bathroom was.

And then, before my very eyes, my intern life began. I quickly discovered that as the NETWORK program “Nuns on the Bus” travelled around the country rallying the public around comprehensive immigration reform, the fleet of fervent advocates implored listeners to mail in NETWORK postcards to show their Members of Congress. These postcards, eventually estimated at 5000 in total, found their way to my desk. To ensure that all three affiliated elected officials saw the personal notes, we copied them twice over and delivered each by hand; my job, seemingly mundane but actually critical, was to man the photocopier for two days. By the end of day two we had organized, photocopied, and cut each postcard for delivery and delivered them to Senate offices with the same hope of success as the original sender.

In the end, the thousands of postcards and hundreds of hours of labor contributed to two final numbers: 68-32. These two numbers will prove extremely significant. On a personal level, the statistic represents a victory for NETWORK and the apparent successful culmination of my contribution to the campaign; on the national stage, the figure will inevitably change the course of millions of lives. Over 11 million undocumented workers will be given a brighter pathway to citizenship.

While the 68-32 figure may have allowed our nation sorely-overdue room to grow, the values cannot and will not encapsulate the significance of this vote. As I spent hours alphabetizing, moving, photocopying, and stacking the post cards we received, I saw the statistical value of the cards fade into the background. While the size was impressive and the campaign’s manpower was wide-reaching, I became fascinated with the capital we weren’t calculating.

Largely lost between their mailing and our reception was the idea of effort. While the questions we asked were basic contact information, the reality behind each postmark was the level of passion needed to fill out the card at all. In this town the distinction between keen interest and direct act seems less blurred than before. Without people committed to direct action, those individuals willing to fill out postcards or attend our “Nuns on the Bus” events, the passion we have would prove little more than a whisper in the halls of Congress. As we tabulated the size of each stack and the logistics of delivery, the personal almost got lost in the numerical.

Each postcard carried with it a message, some simple—“comprehensive immigration reform now!”—and others more personal; one person even filled out all of the personal information questions with the word “undocumented,” scrawling “help me get out of the shadows” near the edge of the card. The stories and calls for change from around the country were housed on those cards and, by photocopying them and delivering them to senators, I helped connect constituents to representatives.

Just like my understanding of Congress, my knowledge of the inner-workings of the Metro system, and my inability to avoid the food trucks near Union Station, I recognize that the bill adopted by the Senate is imperfect. With 48 amendments and plans that create a climate of militarization along one of our borders, the bill feels to me like progress and not perfection.

I feel much the same about my assumptions about Washington and my potential here at NETWORK. Although statistics eventually determined the fate of this bill, I’ve come to see that in the heart of downtown Washington the political climate is warmer than the cold, hard statistics of appropriations bills and approval ratings, and this political community more sentimentally connected than it seems. In reality, Washington is a hybrid, a creature that feeds on both statistics and sentiment. And maybe I can lend a hand to the mighty task of infusing life back into statistics and increasing socially-conscious funding to the point that they can change the world. It won’t be perfect, it most likely won’t be pretty either, but it will be progress.

In the end, even the highlights of the last week cannot parse out figure from feeling. 11 million people—the comprehensive immigration reform bill is a promise to 11 million people. The legislation I had even the slightest hand in promoting is one step closer to helping millions of members in American society gain citizenship, and I read the words and saw the widespread passion of the American electorate; these are the moments I feel proud to call my own.

I am working this summer as an intern for NETWORK. I have been assigned to do environmental research, and I’ll be doing a weekly blog throughout the summer on my findings. My overall goals are: to define climate change, to define the way that change is affecting people in poverty in the United States, to explore how its effects relate to Catholic social teaching, and to research ways to address the problem.

In the past, advocacy for legislation regulating America’s effect on the world environment has primarily come from environmental interest groups. I would like to clarify the misconception that climate change only adversely affects rainforests and many animal species; our nation too often focuses exclusively on this aspect of climate change and not on the damage being done to humans. The change in the climate has a disproportionate effect on people at the economic margins. Moreover, the increasing frequency of natural disasters is forcing the displacement of large populations across borders and people are struggling to find homes. Citizens of certain island nations will see their country completely submerged within our lifetimes. We have a moral imperative to counter the threats posed by the increasing intensity of droughts and other natural disasters.

We are called to be stewards of the earth and protect human dignity, and by disregarding our obligation to protect the gifts we have been blessed with, we endanger our lives and our morality. In my blog posts, I hope to provide convincing information from a variety of sources, combined with real and creative solutions to the dilemmas caused by our rapidly changing earth. If you have specific questions, please feel free to email me at[email protected].

Blog Post #1 – Global Warming: The Vicious Cycle

Blog Post #2 – Environmental Justice: A Vital Part of Catholic Social Teaching

Blog Post #3 – The Basics of Renewable Energy

Blog Post #4 – Some New and Inspiring Solutions