Sound bites and easy canned answers do not do justice to the needs facing the American public nor to its intelligence. Turn them off! Block them out! Demand honest, direct real-life answers to life’s real questions – like jobs, outsourcing, health care, poverty, immigration and security. And don’t try to use our religion to divide us or manipulate us.
As a Christian approaching what could be the most important set of national elections in my lifetime, I have a serious responsibility to be an authentic Citizen Disciple: involved in the political process, working to turn the country toward greater justice for all, guided in addressing the issues and candidates first of all by the values of Jesus and his vision of the human community in the Reign of God. All Christians do. And I’m sure members of other faiths – and even people with no religious faith but authentic human values – can say something analogous.
During the three months ahead after which we will probably have identified our major presidential candidates, my dream is that we Americans will use all the best resources at our command to choose candidates and support programs that will move us as a nation again toward our best social vision for humanity, building on our best and most sacred national traditions and values.
Among those resources in the Catholic community are:
- a centuries-long living tradition of social vision, principles and values grounded in the teachings of Christ,
- deep engagement with each and all of the issues facing the American people,
- strong national and international networks of organizations committed to working for justice for each and every person, and
- a well-articulated faith vision that supports and invites social engagement with these issues.
To help Christians and Catholics take leadership in the national process of selecting new leadership and setting our national direction into the future, the Center of Concern is offering analyses of the major issues and educational tools to help people deepen their own analysis, make their own evaluation of the programs and candidates, and engage their local communities in those same efforts.
The first set of materials in this new project clarifies the notion of the common good as the context for all the major issues of the campaigns. The policy paper and educational materials argue that each of the issues – from immigration to jobs, from health care to global warming, from poverty to terrorism – is a new and more complicated problem than it was a few years ago precisely because of globalization. Merely national solutions to security, health, poverty, employment, migration, the ecology and the so-called “life issues” themselves cannot provide more than short-term fixes.
All materials in the Center of Concern initiative will be posted at www.coc.org/election2008 and www.educationforjustice.org, and are available free of charge for individual or group use. Future postings in this Center initiative will be made on the 1st and 15th of each month. Topics will include immigration, international relations, jobs and outsourcing, poverty, Iraq and security, health care, and climate change. Other topics may be developed as the primary campaigns evolve into the national campaign. Take a look!
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