'Don’t shred the safety net'
Determined to influence public policy, more than 650 California Catholics from throughout the state and several of the state's bishops came to Sacramento for Catholic Lobby Day on April 28.
Speakers in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and at a noon rally on the state Capitol steps called on Catholics to put their faith into action on behalf of the poor and powerless. The California Catholic Conference, Lobby Day's sponsor and the public policy office of the state's Catholic bishops, asked participants to focus on three bills in the Legislature and on the issue of drastic budget cuts again facing the state.
California will hold a special election May 19 to vote on several initiatives that would provide temporary revenues. Current polls indicate that most voters oppose the initiatives. The initiatives' defeat would drastically reduce the state's income.
"We are not here as budget experts," CCC executive director Ned Dolejsi said in his remarks to the crowd that filled the cathedral. "We are here as people of faith, common sense, and hope, and we are here to tell legislators not to shred the safety net."
When the legislators make tough decisions about which programs get funded, Dolejsi said, Catholics must remind them to take care of the poor and vulnerable.
On the 11th annual Catholic Lobby Day, the CCC focused participants' efforts on three bills affecting the acutely vulnerable: newborns up to a month old, poor families who need food stamps and children who are prisoners in the California correctional system. Presenters discussed the bills in a morning assembly at the cathedral.
Speaking on AB 1048, the bill that would expand existing law to permit a newborn's surrender up to 30 days after birth, was John Watkins, coordinator for social justice for the Diocese of Oakland. Watkins is the foster father of three-month-old John Douglas Garcia Watkins, a child born on Jan. 26 of this year and surrendered by his birth mother on Jan 28. Watkins and his wife, Christine, are in the process of adopting the infant.
Watkins argued that the current 72-hour window for surrendering an infant doesn't take into account barriers of language and transportation, the lack of public awareness regarding the option of surrender, and the timing of post-partum depression, which can set in after the 72 hour window has passed. "AB 1048 is about helping women in crisis, helping babies, and saving lives," he said.
To illustrate the necessity of passing SB 399, the young offenders re-sentencing bill, Jesuit Father Michael Kennedy had 15-year-old Peter Wolf stand next to him as he spoke. Wolf, a freshman from Loyola High School in Los Angeles, held a plastic garbage bag while Father Kennedy, co-chaplain of Sylmar Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, read excerpts from letters written by incarcerated boys Wolf's age. After reading aloud from a boy's letter, Father Kennedy would drop it into the garbage bag.
"These boys are thrown away," Father Kennedy said. "They are 15 and 16 years old, and they are never, ever, ever going to leave prison."
Father Kennedy noted that the United States is the only country in the world that incarcerates kids for the rest of their lives. Young people make mistakes, but they can change, he said. SB 399 would allow for the review and re-sentencing, after 10 years of incarceration, of youth who were sentenced before the age of 18 to life without parole.
Speaking on AB 1057, the CalWORKS and Food Stamp Program, was Maria Rangel, the director of the nutrition program at Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Stockton. The grant-funded outreach program assists people in the registering for food stamps. Rangel noted that over 10 million Californians are either currently hungry or don't know where their next meal is coming from. In today's economy, that number is increasing, she noted, and many families are applying for food stamps for the first time in their lives.
"Only half of the families in California eligible for food stamps use them," Rangel said. "The program's bureaucratic hassle and red tape is itself a barrier to families' receiving benefits." AB 1057 would simplify the food stamp program administrative process, in part by changing the reporting requirements from quarterly to every six months.
All three Lobby Day bills have won approval from their respective policy committees and have now moved to the appropriations process, the CCC said in a May 1 e-mail update.
Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton called on Christians to show compassion and solidarity with the poor and vulnerable.
In his homily during a bilingual Mass in the cathedral, Bishop Blaire urged the faithful to action. "Indifference is as deadly as violence," he said. "We are not in the world to observe, but to serve."
Lobby Day participants were far from indifferent.
Leticia Medina, a member of Church of the Epiphany in San Francisco and a first-time Lobby Day participant, said she relished the chance to express her Catholic faith in a way that might affect all Californians. She said each issue on the CCC's agenda was important, even the relatively less exciting budget process.
"Legislators may end up taking money from the pot to decrease services for the poorest people," Medina said.
Jeanne Ledbetter, parishioner at St. Dunstan Parish in Millbrae, traveled to Sacramento for her first Lobby Day experience with her husband and two other St. Dunstan parishioners. She said though each agenda item resonated with her faith, she was particularly drawn to the safe surrender issue.
Ledbetter said she wished more life issues were on legislators' agendas. She urged the CCC to promote a wider range of life-related issues, including abortion funding and medical conscience laws, even if these issues are not currently before the legislature in the form of a bill.
"We should not just be dealing with existing laws," Ledbetter said. "We should not be following. We should be leading."
Bringing information back to the community is one of the central goals of Lobby Day, observed the CCC Executive Director Dolejsi.
Lobby Day is the kick-off event, he said, but the goal is to involve people in shaping public policy all year long. He urged people to join the Catholic Legislative Network, a newsletter and email alert system that tracks policy issues in California legislature. The network is a joint project of all 12 California dioceses.
"We have to find ways to empower laypeople to bring their voices to these issues as people of faith," he said.
By Denise MacLachlan, Catholic Herald
Catholic San Francisco reporter Michael Vick contributed to this story.
