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SFX for Life | A Web Ministry of the Gospel of Life Committee, The Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, Hunt Valley, Maryland |
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SFX for Life | A Web Ministry of the Gospel of Life Committee, The Catholic Community of St. Francis Xavier, Hunt Valley, Maryland |
Subject Area: Legislative/Judicial Issues | |
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Lobby Night is an annual opportunity to speak in person with your elected state officials about issues you care about including: support for pregnant women in crisis, support for Catholic schools, the death penalty, marriage, poverty, and immigration.
It usually begins with prayer and commissioning from the Bishops, followed by issue briefings from Conference staff, then face-to-face meetings with lawmakers, and a dinner reception with legislators.
This was the Maryland Catholic Conference page for this year's Lobby Night:
http://www.mdcathcon.org/lobbynight2009
Fortunately, we were not left to our own devices. We assembled at St Mary's High School. Appropriately, we started with prayer which reminded us that nothing can be done without the Lord, but that all things are possible with the Lord. Several Bishops from the Maryland area were present to lead us in our prayers.
Next, we received inspiration from remarks by Bishop O'Brien through a video recording. Finally, Mary Ellen Russell, Executive Director of the Maryland Catholic Conference, and her crew gave us nuts and bolts instructions for communicating with our legislators which included a review of the written materials we were given setting forth the Gospel of Life positions. We then were released to meet with the representatives from our respective districts at pre-set times and locations.
I met with Delegates Dana Stein and Jon Cardin along with 6 other residents of the 11th district. Delegate Morhaim had a staff member present. Senator Zirkin was not present and was not represented. We were received with respect and attentiveness. We explained our positions on the issues. The Delegates were direct as to their positions. There were areas of agreement and disagreement. Most importantly, however, they heard us. I believe that although this night may not make an immediate difference, it could result in changes of heart down the road. As we know, all things are possible with the Lord.
Kevin Murphy
Special thanks to the Maryland Catholic Conference for this article, which comes from an Email received by one our our members. Hat tip: Karen Wingard
The 2009 session of the Maryland General Assembly ended Monday, April 13. Here is a wrap up of issues the Church and the Maryland Catholic Conference were involved in this year:
The risk of executing an innocent person in Maryland is much less likely after lawmakers passed a bill (SB 279) that raises evidence standards for application of the death penalty. While the measure does not achieve full repeal, which our state's bishops called for, it is an important step forward. The Nonpublic Schools' Textbook and Technology Program saw its funding for next year increased to $4.4 million, up from the current $3.6 million. That is $2 million more for the program than was originally proposed. While critical staff positions in the state's social service agencies were cut, funding for many poverty programs remained intact despite the state's fiscal crisis.
Bills that could potentially have referred ill or elderly patients to counseling from pro-euthanasia groups (HB 30) or encouraged some to refuse medical treatment (SB 221), were defeated. Legislation that would have violated our understanding of the nature of the human person by drawing a legal distinction between one's "gender identity" and one's "assigned sex at birth" died in committee without a vote (SB 566/HB 474). A measure extending unemployment insurance (SB 270/HB 310) to part-time workers, who pay into the system, was signed into law. A bill that would have devastated the Church's educational and social service ministries (SB 238) by making it easier for trial lawyers to sue the Church was overwhelmingly defeated in committee.
More work is still needed in other areas, however. The modest and bi-partisan BOAST Maryland Tax Credit (HB 1259/SB 715) languished in the House Ways and Means Committee because chair Del. Sheila Hixson refused to bring the popular program to a vote. Lawmakers approved the third "limited benefits" domestic partnership bill (SB 785) in a year that grants unmarried couples marriage-equivalency status for the purpose of an exemption from the inheritance tax. A legislative committee defeated a bill that would have allowed women considering abortion the option of viewing a sonogram (SB 195). Legislators directed $15.4 million of state taxpayer dollars to research that destroys human embryos and rebuffed an attempt to direct those scarce resources exclusively to ethical and more effective adult stem cell research.
Thank you for your untiring support of the Church's public policy work through your involvement in the Catholic Advocacy Network. Stay informed and involved by joining the CAN Facebook group or following the staff blog. For more information on legislative outcomes, click here.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a major threat to parents' freedom to raise their children as they believe best--to teach them their religious faith, to discipline them in a Biblical manner, to manage their health care, and much more. Support for a Parental Rights Amendment is an important way to stop this threat.
It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes.
Pope John Paul II
“Catholic” is a word that has real meaning. We don't control or invent that meaning as individuals. We inherit it from the Gospel and the experience of the Church over the centuries. We can choose to be something else, but if we choose to call ourselves Catholic, then that word has consequences for what we believe and how we act. We can't truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act like we're not.
~Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
The Catholic faith is always personal, but never private.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
America: If you want peace, work for justice. If you want justice, defend life. If you want life, embrace the truth - the truth revealed by God.
Pope John Paul II
Christian Love is Not Tolerance. Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it. It does penance for the sins of others, but it is not broadminded about sin. The cry for tolerance never induces it to quench its hatred of the evil philosophies that have entered into contest with the Truth. It forgives the sinner, and it hates the sin; it is unmerciful to the error in his mind. The sinner it will always take back into the bosom of the Mystical Body; but his lie will never be taken into the treasury of His Wisdom. Real love involves real hatred: whoever has lost the power of moral indignation and the urge to drive the buyers and sellers from the temples has also lost a living, fervent love of Truth. Charity, then, is not a mild philosophy of "live and let live"; it is not a species of sloppy sentiment. Charity is the infusion of the Spirit of God, which makes us love the beautiful and hate the morally ugly.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Obedience is a serious matter; to remain united to the Church's Magisterium and particularly to the Supreme Pontiff is one of the conditions of salvation.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Our Lord told His apostles that they would be hated by the world, just as He was. Nearly all of them died a martyr’s death. As warriors in the Church militant, we must never resort to violence. But we must stand up fearlessly against the agents of death, the enemies of human life. Human beings are not Satan, but we know too well that they can come under his spell. They can become willing agents of death, numbed and poisoned in this culture of death. What about you?!
Bishop Robert Finn
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.
G.K. Chesterton
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.
G.K. Chesterton
We do not need a voice that is right when everyone else is right. We need a voice that is right when everyone else is wrong.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
I think the central issue of modern American life is the temptation to accommodate, compromise, get along, and fit in – and then feel good about it. We accept tepidness in the name of pluralism. We put diversity of belief and behavior above truth. We put the individual above the common good. We put "tolerance" above love, justice and real charity. But none of this converts anybody. On the contrary, it provides them with alibis and leeches away their faith.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
Scripture and Catholic teaching do have public consequences because they guide us in how we should act in relation to one another. Loving God requires that we also love the people He created, which means we need to treat them with justice, charity and mercy. Being a Catholic involves solidarity with other people. The Catholic faith has social justice implications - and that means it also has cultural, economic and political implications. The Catholic faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action - including political action - is a natural byproduct of the Church's moral message. We can't call ourselves Catholic, and then simply stand by while immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed, or unborn children get killed...If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public decisions and behaviors, including our political choices.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I've often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God -- and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there'll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world -- and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, "Spare him, because he loved us" - and God will look at you and say not, "Did you succeed?" but "Did you try?"
Congressman Henry Hyde