Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation » action alert

Urge Congress to Extend Unemployment Insurance

christina — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:19:33 +0000

Take Action Now!!

Millions of American families are relying on federal unemployment insurance in this tough economic climate. Nearly two million Americans will lose their unemployment insurance in January alone – and over 6 million in 2012 – if Congress lets the extension expire on December 31st.

Congress must act now to extend unemployment insurance. Tell your congressperson to renew the Federal Unemployment Insurance program through 2012.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other members of Faith Advocates for Jobs Campaign have taken a leadership role in advocating for the extension of unemployment insurance in the halls of Congress. Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said in a December 12 letter to Congress: “For millions of American workers and their families, economic hardship continues and grows. The US Catholic bishops have long advocated that the most effective way to build a just economy is the availability of decent work at decent wages. When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families.”

Bishop Blaire wrote that the current “pervasive economic pain” includes a median length of joblessness of 10 months, and over four job seekers for every opening. He wrote that Pope John Paul II called such conditions in “a real social disaster” and that the pope said the “obligation to provide unemployment benefits” to workers and their families is a fundamental principle of “the right to life and subsistence.”

Your elected officials need to hear from you on this matter. Send an email from the Interfaith Worker Justice website.

One-page bulletin inserts of this Action Alert are available:

Download English version with graphics

[click here for English version without graphics]

Download Spanish version with graphics

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Action Alert: Let’s Avoid Another Financial Crash!

christina — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:23:35 +0000

Ask your Members of Congress to increase funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Rapid action is needed to get Congressional funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – the agency set up to prevent another financial meltdown. The Senate has found money for other programs, but is severely underfunding the CFTC. Please use the link provided here to email your Senators to ensure that we avoid another financial crisis: http://bit.ly/slq116

Why does this threat to the CFTC’s funding matter? Without enough money, the government will not be able to implement the financial reforms passed last year and Wall Street banks will continue to gamble dangerously, once again placing the entire global economy at risk.

Click here to ask your Members of Congress to increase funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Background:

Your action is required to help avoid another financial crash. We received very bad news on November 15 when the House-Senate conference committee released its proposed budget for 2012; unfortunately this budget fails to include the needed increase in funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the agency that manages derivatives markets, the central cause of the financial meltdown.

The president requested an increase in the CFTC’s budget to $308 million because if financial reforms are implemented, the size of the market regulated by the agency will expand seven fold (from hundreds of billions of dollars to hundreds of trillions of dollars.) The proposal from the conference committee is to ignore the CFTC’s new responsibilities and maintain its budget at $205 million.

Without an increase in funding, financial reforms passed last year cannot be implemented and Wall Street banks will continue to gamble dangerously, placing the entire global economy at risk once again.

Please send a message to your Congressional Representatives and Senators today urging greater funding for the CFTC.

A couple of examples of programs whose funding was increased include:

NASA: Funding will grow by about $155 million above current levels. The agreement preserves $529 million for a new space telescope project that had been not funded in the House bill.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP): This positive-sounding project is set to receive a whopping $1.4 billion even though much of the money will be used to clean up massive lakes of manure created by confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Many environmental and farming groups ask why taxpayer money should be used to clean up these messes. See a New York Times article on this here. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13feed.html

Clearly the additional money needed for full CFTC funding can be found within a multi-trillion dollar budget. Comprehensive financial reforms are crucial in order to avoid another global financial meltdown. Saving pennies by starving regulatory agencies today will only lead to much more expensive crises in the future.

Please send a message to your members of Congress right now by clicking here and filling out the form at the bottom of the page.

This alert was created collaboratively with the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment and the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center.

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Faith Advocates for Jobs Can Help the Unemployed and Their Families

christina — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:38:41 +0000

The Faith Advocates for Jobs website is up and running: www.faithadvocatesforjobs.wordpress.com. Please check it out.

It contains all you need to know about FAJ and how you and your congregation can participate in their campaign to support the unemployed and the underemployed. Advocate for policies that will put people back to work and help transform our nation’s struggling economy! The unemployed and their families need you.

Urge Senators to Ratify the “New Start” Treaty

christina — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:54:57 +0000

Pax Christi is asking members to Urge our Senators to approve the New START anti-nuclear treaty this year! As Catholics, we are motivated by our faith to protect people from indiscriminate and disproportionate weapons, including nuclear weapons.

Why is New Start so important?

• New START will reverse the US’s diminishing knowledge of Russian nuclear weapons. It has been almost a year since the expiration of the original START treaty, and since then there have been no inspections into either side’s nuclear arsenal. Under the new treaty, there will be 18 short-notice inspections each year.

• New START is a precursor to progress on additional weapons reductions. This includes reductions of tactical nuclear weapons, which are not covered by New START.

• Delaying New START will harm ongoing non-proliferation efforts. This treaty demonstrates our commitment to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. If the U.S. allows it to fail, we will lose momentum and the authority to lead on nuclear non-proliferation.

• Delaying New START will have a damaging impact on our relationship with Russia. This will affect a number of areas, including limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities and supplying troops in Afghanistan. The Obama administration has worked to “reset” relations with Russia, and New START is a crucial component of that effort.

Send your Senators an email
Call your Senators via the Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Organize friends, family, neighbors, and community leaders to make their voices heard.

What is the Catholic Church saying about the treaty?

This week, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, chair of the US Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace, sent a letter urging the Senate to approve New START. In the letter he said:

The Church’s concern for nuclear weapons grows out of its commitment to the sanctity of human life. This commitment led to the development of just war criteria, including the principles of discrimination and proportionality. Nuclear weapons are a grave threat to human life and dignity. Nuclear war is rejected in Church teaching because the use of nuclear weapons cannot insure noncombatant immunity and their destructive potential and lingering radiation cannot be meaningfully proportionate. Pope Benedict XVI said in a January 2006 statement, “In a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims.”

Read the letter…

Help Illinois Abolish the Death Penalty

christina — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:25:02 +0000

On November 30, an important victory was achieved in the Illinois State House Judiciary Committee when the committee voted to recommend passage of SB 3539 – the Death Penalty repeal bill. The bill – SB3539 creates a new fund supporting law enforcement training and services for families of murder victims. The bill is now headed to the State’s House floor for a vote.

Last week, the Oblate JPIC office joined other religious leaders and organizations in supporting abolition of the death penalty in Illinois. The JPIC office provided action alerts and educational resources on the death penalty repeal effort to Oblates and associates in the Illinois area. We asked them to call state legislators urging them to repeal the death penalty. There has been a positive response by Illinois Oblates and associates to this campaign. Ending the use of the Death Penalty is an important issue within the Missionary Oblates JPIC Consistent Life initiative.

The Illinois State House has adjourned without taking action on the bill, but state legislators will return to work in early January 2011 for yet another “lame duck” session. There is an urgent need to keep the pressure on. Your friends and family who live in Illinois can still take action to end the use of the death penalty at Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Please Take Action to Affirm the Dignity of Human Life

christina — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:40:23 +0000

Teresa Lewis is scheduled to be executed September 23, 2010 in Virginia. She was convicted in 2002 of persuading two men to kill her husband and stepson. Teresa Lewis has been on death row in Virginia since June 2003.

Now 41 and a mother and grandmother, Teresa Lewis would be the first woman executed in Virginia since 1912.

In solidarity with the Virginia Catholic Bishops, the U.S. Catholic bishops and the Papal Nuncio, we ask you please to contact Governor McDonnell and urge him to commute Teresa Lewis’s sentence to life in prison.

TAKE ACTION HERE : CONTACT VA GOVERNOR TO STOP EXECUTION SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER 23.