Alliance News - Monthly Archive
The Maryknoll Global Concerns office has published "Loving our neighbor in a shrinking world," a 12-page booklet addressing crucial foreign policy issues that should be considered during this year's campaign cycle. Included are reflections and questions for candidates on the following topics: economic justice, migration, climate change, peace and security, and HIV/AIDS. Copies are available from the Global Concerns' Washington, D.C. office by emailing ogc@maryknoll.org or calling 202-832-1780. English and Spanish-language PDF versions are found at their website, www.maryknollogc.org.
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Commentator Rev. Richard Ryscavage recently wrote an editorial that appeared in the New Haven Register on January 24. The commentary asks our leaders to move beyond "simplistic solutions and ugly rhetoric" when working towards comprehensive immigration reform.
Father Ryscavage is a professor sociology and international studies at Fairfield University and director of its Center for Faith and Public Life. Read on to view the editorial.
Washington, DC- As the president prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address on Monday, Catholic and Evangelical Christian leaders urged President Bush to salvage his moral legacy. At a press teleconference on January 24, Catholic and Evangelical leaders called on the president to change course on the most pressing moral issues of our time - war, torture, climate, and U.S. and international poverty.
To read remarks by Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, click here.
To read remarks by Sr. Anne Curtis, Leadership Team, Institute of the Sisters of Mercy, click here.
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good joined by Faith in Public Life issued a statement calling for presidential candidates and their supports to stop the divisive religious rhetoric on the campaign trial. The statement, Keeping Faith: Principles to Protect Religion on the Campaign Trial, is signed by more than two dozen Christian scholars, pasts and social justices leaders.
Click here to read a Press Release and the Statement: Keeping Faith
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) is one of the endorsers of a ballot initiative designed to reform the health care system in Michigan. The initiative asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would require the state legislature to cover the state’s 1.5 million uninsured residents and make health care plans more affordable and efficient.
On Jan. 8, press conferences were held around the state to kick-off the campaign to raise the thousands of signatures needed to get the measure on the November 2008 ballot. Vicky Kovari, National Field Director for CACG, spoke at two of the press conferences along with other community, healthcare and medical, union, and faith-based leaders about why this initiative is needed.
Catholic Relief Services will host a group of eight women religious on a trip of solidarity with Iraqi refugees in the Middle East from Jan. 11 to 20. Three Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Commentators and members of our participating organizations are part of the group who will visit Syria and Lebanon.
Sr. Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Sr. Anne Curtis of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Leadership Team, and Sr. Marie Lucey, Associate Director for Social Mission at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious are among the group that will travel to Lebanon and Syria to assess the plight of refugees and witness the efforts of CRS and other Catholic organizations to assist them.