Tag Archives: health care

photo of San Antonio's market square, the largest Mexican market in the U.S.

Hispanic Heritage Means Resilience Against Injustice

Hispanic Heritage Means Resilience Against Injustice

 

Policies of Exclusion Inflict Lasting Mental and Physical Harm on Hispanic Communities

Taylor Demby
October 14, 2025

 

For Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), NETWORK’s Sr. Carol Coston Fellows share their thoughts on the importance of this observance in the U.S. This reflection comes from University of the Incarnate Word student Taylor Demby.

Taylor Demby, a sociology major at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas and a 2025 Sr. Carol Coston Fellow in NETWORK's Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L.)

Taylor Demby

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to celebrate the richness, resilience, and many contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities across the United States. This month is especially personal to me as a San Antonian and as an ally. Having grown up in a city where Hispanic culture shapes nearly every neighborhood, classroom, and workplace, I have experienced firsthand how essential the Hispanic community is to the fabric of our daily life.

Both in and out of September, it is imperative that we take a moment to honor this cultural legacy that continues to influence every corner of American life. As we honor heritage and achievement, we cannot continue to ignore a serious concern: the rising mental health crises deeply affecting Hispanic communities, intensified by the relentless attacks and exclusionary policies that have shaped their lived experiences in this country.

Data from the CDC’s 2023 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicate a troubling trend: suicide rates among Hispanic individuals in the U.S. increased by 10 percent between 2018 and 2021, while rates for non-Hispanic White individuals declined over the same period. Behind these numbers lie the experiences of families and neighbors: each one reflecting a real human reality shaped by systemic discrimination, the emotional toll of ongoing injustice, and the daily challenges faced by a community trying to navigate a society that continues to overlook and undermine them.

I work at one of the few outpatient behavioral health facilities in San Antonio that accepts Medicaid. In my work, I encounter both the resilience of and the struggles that Hispanic families face when seeking mental health care. Many caregivers advocate fiercely for their children, yet they face barriers that others rarely encounter. Long waitlists, limited insurance coverage, lack of transportation, unforgiving work schedules, and the stigma surrounding mental health can make accessing care extraordinarily difficult. Their persistence inspires me, but it also emphasizes the urgent need for federal policies that expand Medicaid access, reduce wait times and ensure culturally competent, affordable care for all Hispanic families.

Across the country, families face the compounded effects of systemic inequities, limited access to healthcare, and the stress of navigating anti-immigrant policies. These struggles are widespread yet often hidden, reminding us that celebration alone is not enough. We must pair this recognition with meaningful action to create the change our communities need. To me, honoring Hispanic heritage means taking the time to recognize the full spectrum of experiences that shape communities.

In my home state of Texas, where heavy anti-immigrant sentiment and ultra-exclusionary policies have persisted for generations, these challenges are especially apparent. Students at my own university and across the Bexar County area are not immune to this. In San Antonio, reckless immigration policies and cuts enacted through the recent Budget Reconciliation Bill continue to disproportionately affect Hispanic families, impacting workplaces, classrooms, and homes.

These realities highlight the urgent need for culturally sensitive support, accessible care, and open dialogue about mental health and our healthcare system as a whole. By bringing these issues to the forefront, we can mobilize our communities and work to hold legislators and decision-makers accountable, ensuring that the policies introduced protect and uplift Hispanic families rather than harm them.

Hispanic Heritage Month offers advocates and allies like me a unique opportunity to pair celebration with action. Investing in the health and dignity of Hispanic families builds a stronger, more equitable future for all families, regardless of race or class. The forces driving inequity expand across race and region, hurting working people everywhere, and the solutions we fight for benefit us all.

Honoring Hispanic heritage requires confronting these uncomfortable truths: that within the great stories of strength, resilience, and perseverance live the often-unspoken realities of distress, trauma, and pain associated with inequity. We should do more than remember the past. We must contribute to culturally sensitive dialogue that affirms a principle central to my work as an advocate inspired by Catholic Social Justice teaching: human dignity. Every human being possesses inherent dignity and deserves the support to live fully and authentically, without barriers.

Learn more about NETWORK’s Young Advocates Leadership Lab (Y.A.L.L).

NETWORK’s 2025 Labor Day Statement

NETWORK’s 2025 Labor Day Statement

Showing Up for Workers’ Rights


August 27, 2025

When we serve others, when we create, when we work to contribute to the world around us, we as human beings become more fully alive. Work holds a sense of purpose and dignity that feeds the human soul. That, ultimately, is the purpose of work—to build up, not to reduce human beings to mere producers or commodities.  

The Catholic Church continues to show up to advocate for the rights of workers, most visibly in the 20th century tradition by helping unions to come together, organize, and obtain just wages, benefits, and safe working conditions — all benefits that would allow workers to adequately support their families and be contributors to the community.   

Catholic Sisters continue to show up as part of this faithful solidarity, and with the formation of NETWORK over 50 years ago, Sisters took the work to the next level by directly lobbying for pro-labor federal policies, a practice that continues to this day.  

Sadly, in the decades since then, workers have suffered from the methodical and malicious dismantling of labor unions and ruthless attacks on organized labor. There continues to be a coordinated effort to curtail workers’ rights and put profits over people. Wages have stagnated since the 1970s.   

In many ways, the weakening of unions was an early warning sign of the destruction of government we see today. The second Trump administration is on a mission to destroy any function of government that contributes to human dignity: foreign aid, health care, due process, and yes, workers’ rights.  

Nuns on the Bus & Friends pray at Cesar Chavez grave.

Andres Chavez, Bus Riders, and NETWORK staff pray at the grave of labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez in Keene, California on an Oct. 16 stop of the Nuns on the Bus & Friends 2024 “Vote Our Future” tour. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

Those who advocate for the dignity of work in the Catholic Social Justice tradition harken back to Pope Leo XIII, as he addressed the radical changes to the world brought by the Industrial Revolution, condemning unjust wages, unsafe working conditions, unbridled capitalism, and anything that risked reducing workers to less than their full dignified humanity. The document in which he addressed these issues—and championed the right of workers to organize—was called Rerum Novarum, Latin for “New Things.”  

Now in the 21st century, another pope, this one aptly named Leo XIV, has taken up the thread and is applying his predecessor’s moral lens to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). In this space too, Sisters are showing up to help lead the way. NETWORK’s engagement with AI policy is truly a “new thing” in the church’s support for labor rights. We recognize the risks: cogs and boilers have been replaced by artificial neural networks, data centers, and algorithms. More than 130 years since the warning of Pope Leo XIII, technological innovation again threatens to make humans grist for the machines.  

The emergence of AI is yet another reason why it is urgent that workers organize.   

We cannot shy from these challenges. Rather we must lean into hope. We must hope as the generations before us did with the hope of dignified workers’ rights so that all who toil might be able to share in the richness that God intends for all of us. We must join in solidarity with many unorganized and organized workers today who are beginning to realize their power to come together and bravely demand what is rightfully theirs.

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After the Budget Bill: What’s at Stake for Our Common Home — and How We Respond

After the Budget Bill: What’s at Stake for Our Common Home — and How We Respond

Drake Starling
July 18, 2025

From the coasts of California to the coalfields of Appalachia, from Midwestern farms to Gulf Coast towns, families across the country want the same things: clean air, safe water, a livable planet, and a future full of opportunity. That’s why, in 2022, communities of faith and frontline advocates alike came together to help push the historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) across the finish line—bringing with it groundbreaking investments in clean energy, environmental justice, and climate resilience.

But now, much of that progress is on the chopping block. The budget reconciliation bill that just narrowly passed in Congress rolls back key provisions of the IRA, gutting investments in clean energy, rescinding funds for frontline communities, and stalling the just transition we’ve fought for. Why? Because the Republican lawmakers who backed this bill chose to prioritize the profits of fossil fuel executives over the well-being of their constituents. This bill isn’t about fiscal responsibility—it’s about letting polluters off the hook.

In the wake of Congress passing the budget reconciliation bill, we at NETWORK are reflecting on the devastating toll this legislation takes on our environment — and the people and communities who bear the brunt of environmental harm. We know the true cost of this bill: polluted air, unsafe water, and a dangerous step backward in the fight to protect our climate.

A Blow to Clean Energy and Creation Care

The budget reconciliation bill strips away billions in clean energy investments that were once made possible through the historic Inflation Reduction Act. These investments supported wind and solar energy projects, domestic clean manufacturing, and affordable electricity for millions of families. Now, with clean energy tax credits rolled back and critical funding rescinded from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, we face the chilling prospect of stalled innovation and rising energy costs, especially for low-income households.

Clean Water Under Threat

The reconciliation bill also rescinds funds meant to improve water infrastructure and protect communities from toxic pollution. The backers of this bill gutted grants to replace lead pipes, clean up PFAS contamination, and address long-standing water inequities in marginalized communities. This decision endangers public health and disproportionately harms communities of color, Tribal nations, and rural families already facing unsafe drinking water.

Sacrificing Clean Air for Corporate Polluters

Perhaps most abhorrent is the bill’s attack on clean air. The bill’s backers slashed the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and eliminated programs designed to reduce carbon emissions and monitor air pollution near schools and ports. They also weakened enforcement of the methane emissions fee—a critical tool for reducing one of the most potent greenhouse gases—and offered new giveaways to fossil fuel CEOs under the guise of “permitting reform.”

Our Faith Calls Us to Respond

At NETWORK, we believe in a government that protects the dignity of all people and cares for our Common Home. The decisions made in this budget bill are not just policy choices — they are moral choices. Pope Francis was clear: “The climate crisis is not merely an environmental issue; it is a social issue.” But once again, the lawmakers voting for this bill were willing to sacrifice our communities—our health, our economic stability, and our futures—all in the name of profit and corporate greed.

What We’re Doing Now

We’re not standing idly by. In response to this dangerous legislation:

  • We are mobilizing our faith partners to act boldly, including through writing op-eds and letters to the editor and holding district meetings with lawmakers who supported these cuts.
  • We are defending what’s left of the Inflation Reduction Act by lobbying Congress to protect and restore funding for clean energy tax credits, energy efficiency programs, and environmental justice initiatives.
  • We are educating our supporters and all people of goodwill through webinars, briefings, and faith-based materials that explain what’s at stake — and how our Catholic values compel us to act.
  • We are building coalitions with environmental, labor, and faith-based partners to resist further rollbacks and to demand a just transition to a clean energy economy that centers workers and frontline communities.

This moment is difficult, but it is not the end. We are grounded in hope, fueled by faith, and committed to justice. Together, we will continue to advocate for policies that protect creation and promote the dignity of all people.

NETWORK Lobby's blog ends with an image that reads Act Boldly, Act UrgentlyTake Action

Contact your elected officials. Tell them that slashing climate, clean air, and clean water funding is unacceptable. Urge them to reject future rollbacks and to support legislation that heals both people and the planet.

Because justice demands it. And faith compels it.

Rescission: What Will They Think of Next!?

Rescission: What Will They Think of Next?!

Weaponizing an Obscure Procedure Will Further Undermine Our System of Government

Jarrett Smith
July 11, 2025

Last week, the reconciliation bill passed Congress and was signed into law by President Trump on the Fourth of July. Now, only a few days after people in the U.S. grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and watched fireworks light up the sky, Capitol Hill is debating another budget bill. However, this time, it is to claw back previously approved funding for programs President Trump does not like. 

President Trump has proposed that Congress take away $9.4 billion in spending that was previous passed in the House on June 12. How can this happen, you ask? Well, Article I, Section 8 and 9 of the Constitution gives Congress the “power of the purse,” as we saw when Trump’s illegal efforts at the start of his second term to impound federal spending met with successful legal opinions. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean he’s out of options. 

Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, an administration can use specific processes for how and when a president can refuse to spend money that Congress has already appropriated. Under the statute, the president must send a “special” message to Congress explaining his reasons for impounding certain funds. One of his options is “rescission,” which is an option to cancel funding completely. For it to happen, both the House and Senate must approve the president’s request within 45 days. Unfortunately, it requires only a simple majority to pass. 

The Impoundment Control Act came about in response to President Nixon abusing his power of impoundment to block spending for programs he didn’t like. And now we are seeing similar White House action. The same stuff, different day! 

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes of President Trump’s rescission proposal: “The proposed cuts would significantly damage life-saving global health programs, peacekeeping efforts, and economic development abroad, and would hurt domestic community TV and radio stations supported by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).” Lives are at stake with this funding, including in rural areas in the U.S. that can only receive emergency information from the public broadcasting system. 

Catholic Cares Coalition and NETWORK Lobby have worked many years to develop vaccination logistic systems in developing countries.  The hard deliberate work the faith community engaged in can be leveraged for future disease outbreaks including the next pandemic. However, the rescission package sets back this work for decades. 

No one should be surprised about these funding claw backs. This is yet another insidious move from the Project 2025 playbook to dismantle all the parts of the government that right-wing political extremists like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought want to eliminate. This manipulation of a procedural move designed to prevent overreach by a former president is yet another example of how the president’s agency heads want to unravel the fabric of our society. 

Finally, it also undermines the ability of our government to do things such as pass annual appropriations to fund the government. What reason will Democrats have to negotiate with Republicans on anything if they know Republicans will just claw back the funding?   

Under the budget reconciliation bill recently passed by Congress and signed on July 4 by President Trump, we witnessed unprecedented cuts to health care (including Medicaid and the ACA), child nutrition, and other life-saving programs. Now in addition to these cuts, we further damage our country’s capacity to do good and access good, accurate information through news media. It’s a betrayal of trust and our system of government. This is an attack on our country’s history and tradition.