A number of Catholic organizations have developed opportunities to take individual actions to protect groups of people that are particularly vulnerable as a result of Covid-19. As you reflect during this time of transformation, I invite you to prayerfully consider signing on to any or all of these initiatives.
The Pledge to Protect
Pax Christi is inviting us to sign a personal pledge to listen to and support those who are most vulnerable, and to advocate for policies that protect them.
Advocate with your Member of Congress to provide $12billion in foreign assistance for coronavirus relief. We are seeing reports from all over the world that developing countries are facing a severe crisis in employment and food security as a result of the coronavirus-related global economic contraction. Congress is negotiating its next coronavirus relief bill right now, and the most recent version did not include any foreign assistance.
“I renew my urgent call to respond to the ecological crisis, the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor cannot continue. Let's take care of creation, a gift of our good Creator God.” ~Pope Francis
This month we became organizational members of Education for Justice, which means we are entitled to up to 50 individual logins accessing the site’s vast database of justice resources for education and prayer.
The Society of the Sacred Heart joins 150 other Catholic organizations in urging Congress to direct COVID-19 funding to prioritize the needs of the poor and vulnerable as well as care for God's creation.
Video conferencing usage has spiked during this pandemic, and while Zoom has gotten most of the press, there are some other options out there. One of them also happens to be open source: Jitsi. We've begun some early work on integrating Jitsi into an easy to use module for Backdrop CMS.
The Jubilee year was meant to restore equality among all of the children of Israel, offering new possibilities to families which had lost their property and even their personal freedom. Pope John Paul II
With in-person events cancelled for the foreseeable future, our partners at Catholic Climate Covenant have launched a virtual campaign "to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the 5th anniversary of Laudato Si’ ":
The quote at the bottom of March in our desktop calendar has been striking to me all month as the pandemic continues to unfold. Now that we've just turned the page to April I wanted to post it here:
"Weaving involves two threads, one horizontal and the other vertical... Our broken, suffering world is bound together by fragile threads that, together with others, we can strengthen."
Each of us shares responsibility for the protection and care of the most vulnerable, especially our children. Globally, children find themselves in places of increasing risk, facing the challenges of migration, poverty, violence and unequal access to educational opportunities.