USCCB - (SDWP) - 2006 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering: Catholic News Service Articles

2006 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering: Catholic News Service Articles

CCHD-CAFFERTY Feb-13-2006 (370 words) xxxn
Director of New Orleans' Cafe Reconcile receives top CCHD award
By Patricia Zapor Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The co-founder and executive director of Cafe Reconcile, a New Orleans restaurant that trains and employs at-risk teens and young adults, won the Catholic Campaign for Human Development's 2006 Sister Margaret Cafferty Development of People Award.

However, Craig Cuccia was unable to reach Washington Feb. 12 to accept the award because of flight delays caused by a weekend snowstorm.

Cuccia's sister and brother, Jewell Falcon and Louis Cuccia, who had arrived before the storm, accepted the award on his behalf on the opening night of the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington.

Cafe Reconcile in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans was established in 1997 as a candy shop to provide on-the-job training and life skills to students in local hospitality schools and other residents.

Since the full restaurant opened in 2000, more than 250 people have completed the training program, with many going on to careers in the city's top restaurants.

The cafe has been ranked as one of the city's top 10 soul food restaurants and was one of the first restaurants to reopen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Falcon said that when her brother first brought her and their mother to the neighborhood where he planned to open the cafe their reaction was "no way," because of the rundown block with boarded-up windows.

Her brother's dream has been a miracle for the neighborhood and the people it serves, however, and now "my mother and I eat there at least once a week."

In a statement released in Washington, Craig Cuccia said there has been "a real evolution" on the corner where Cafe Reconcile is located.

"We have this idea that you can do something different and better here and not always be exposed to the illegal element of drugs and prostitution that was here before we started," he said.

The award is presented annually by CCHD to honor an individual whose life exemplifies a commitment to the development of people and the elimination of poverty.

It is named for the late Presentation sister who served as director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and as a member of the U.S. bishops' CCHD committee.

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SOCIAL-GULF (UPDATED) Feb-14-2006 (1,040 words) xxxn
Gulf Coast still struggling, speakers at ministry gathering say
By Patricia Zapor Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Social service providers who have been on the front lines of trying to help hurricane victims in the Gulf Coast rebuild their lives painted a moving picture of the joys and frustrations of life in the still-struggling region at a Catholic social ministries conference Feb. 12.

Five months after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit, people in the area struggle daily, said panelists from agencies operating in New Orleans, Houma-Thibodaux, La., and Jackson, Miss.

They spoke at the opening sessions of the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. bishops' conference and 12 national Catholic organizations.

"Katrina and Rita were first a natural disaster, but they were a man-made catastrophe that could have been avoided if those who were supposed to know their business really knew their business," said Leroy Johnson of Southern Echo, a grass-roots community organizing program in Jackson, Miss.

Blame for the chaotic problems following the storms has been aimed at many, he noted.

"It was everybody's fault, but no one's fault at the same time," he said, describing the finger-pointing that has followed. But that approach ignores the underlying social imbalances in the South that were revealed by the hurricanes, he said.

"What happened to 'give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free?'" Johnson asked. "Is that no longer the sentiment?"

Events following the hurricanes in August and September made clear that race, age and poverty form a clear fault line in this country, he continued. Just like the fear that "half of California will slide into the Pacific Ocean" with the right earthquake along the San Andreas fault, "I say if we don't fix this fault, we're going to slide into hell," Johnson said.

One approach to fixing those problems is to make sure that the poor, minority and marginalized people who were hurt the hardest by the disaster are included at every step as plans are made for rebuilding, Johnson said.

Tom Costanza, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in the New Orleans Archdiocese, said life in the region continues to be a struggle.

He said hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced, the economy is "in a shambles," thousands of businesses remain closed, what property is available is getting top-dollar rent, many schools are closed, the fishing industry is still not operating and the resumption of refinery operations is delayed as Louisiana's governor tries to get oil leases signed that return a bigger share of revenue to the state.

Sister Miriam Mitchell, chancellor of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, said her diocese became host to thousands of evacuees after the hurricanes.

"I saw some of the most devastated people I've ever seen in my life," said Sister Mitchell, a member of the Sisters of Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate.

She drew a parallel between the road to recovery for the region with the New Testament story of Jesus' disciples walking along the road to Emmaus, telling someone they believe to be a stranger about the events leading to Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and death.

"What has been hidden in the dark has been brought out into light," by the disaster, she said. Like the disciples in the Emmaus story, people struggling to recover and get on with their lives ask, "How do we make sense out of all of this? Was this a punishment from God? Where is Jesus in all of this?" she said.

Sister Mitchell said like the disciples who realized it was Jesus walking with them, in the Gulf Jesus is found in "all the people who reached out with open arms," and "in the faces of every person who will not be silenced" as they speak out about the inherent racism revealed by the disaster.

She and Costanza told stories of the small victories they take as signs of hope, such as the widow with four children whose home in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans was destroyed while she was hospitalized for open-heart surgery. Her children were sent on their own to Houston, where their whereabouts were unknown to her for two weeks.

The woman and her family have settled in Houma, in a home furnished largely by Catholic Social Services. She now has a job and at Christmas won a car in a charity drawing, Sister Mitchell said.

Costanza thanked the Catholic social services workers from around the country who came to the aid of people from the Gulf Coast. The Diocese of Baton Rouge, La., in particular, literally opened its doors to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which took up residence there until recently to run its operations.

He told of visiting a community of evacuees made up of people from St. Bernard Parish, a mostly white civil entity, and from the mostly black Lower 9th Ward soon after the disaster.

People from the two areas previously would have had little to do with each other, Costanza said, but in the emergency shelter they found a common denominator -- all had been plucked off their rooftops by helicopter and boat. As one evacuee told him, "That trumps other differences."

The following day, Catholic Charities affiliates from the Gulf Coast area also gave a report on recovery efforts through their agencies.

Becky Reiners, coordinator of parish outreach for Catholic Community Services in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, encouraged meeting participants who would be going to Capitol Hill Feb. 14 to tell their congressional representatives that not enough is being done to help recovery in the Gulf.

"Ask them to come see for themselves," she said.

She said people from the most affected areas need to be included in planning for recovery, but that there also has to be a national debate about how to respond to the area's ongoing problems.

JoAnn LeJune, who coordinates some social work for people affected by Hurricane Rita for the Diocese of Lafayette, La., said to date only about 30 U.S. senators and a handful of House members had come to the region to see for themselves.

She also said recovery efforts should include plans for coastal and wetlands restoration.

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SOCIAL-SENATORS Feb-14-2006 (580 words) With photos. xxxn
Senators say social action views influenced by Catholics they admire
By Patricia Zapor Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two U.S. senators told an audience of several hundred Catholic social ministry workers Feb. 13 how observing Catholics they admire has influenced their views of living out one's beliefs.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, described their view of social service being affected by seeing the work of priests, nuns and lay Catholics.

The two senators spoke separately during an annual gathering of Catholic social ministry workers. It is co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and 12 national Catholic social service agencies.

DeWine told of meeting Oblate Father Tom Hagan, who runs an organization called Hands Together, which operates a variety of assistance programs in Haiti.

Hands Together feeds and educates about 4,500 children, DeWine said, but that's still a fraction of the number of those in need in Haiti.

"Yes, those kids still go home to absolute squalor ... and, yes, Father Tom knows that he can't solve the overwhelming poverty in Haiti," DeWine said. "But that doesn't stop him from trying -- and succeeding -- in improving the individual lives of so many."

DeWine said that, as a Catholic who tries to follow his faith, he believes he has an obligation "to stand up and speak out and find solutions to the problems we face -- whether it's getting food to the world's most hungry or getting desperately needed life-saving AIDS drugs to children dying in Africa and Haiti, or giving a voice to the unborn or safeguarding children and families through better health care and safer roads."

Reid told brief stories about getting to know four Catholic activists: a nun who has been arrested numerous times for protesting at the Nevada nuclear test site; a civil rights activist who has worked for desegregation and to protect the rights of immigrants; a priest who is currently in a Georgia prison serving a term for protesting U.S. involvement in training military forces for Latin America; and former Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, who was Reid's high school football coach. Later, Reid served as lieutenant governor under O'Callaghan and he continues to be close to the family.

He said O'Callaghan's example especially has affected his view of one's moral responsibility to others.

"He was a man who lived what Paul said to Timothy -- he lived the Gospel unnamed," said Reid, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He gave the example of O'Callaghan, after he had left office, packing up his car with sandwiches and coffee his family had made and taking it directly to where he knew homeless people found shelter, such as under overpasses.

Both senators also made a few political comments.

DeWine talked about his support for pro-life legislation, for the testing of drugs specifically for use by children and for highway safety improvements.

Reid, who also opposes abortion, didn't bring up his own voting record, but said he believes the country is "in big trouble as it relates to the poor."

"We're taking care of people who don't need it," he said, by giving tax breaks to the wealthy by cutting programs that care for the poor.

"If we are actually representatives for the Lord Jesus Christ, we've got to be concerned about what's happening with the poor in this country," Reid said.

"I will do what I can if you do what you can," he concluded.

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SOCIAL-IRAQ Feb-14-2006 (570 words) xxxn
Hill visits not time to say 'I told you so' on Iraq, activists told
By Patricia Zapor Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Resist the temptation to say "we told you so" when bringing the Catholic Church's perspectives on the war in Iraq to members of Congress, a speaker advised a group of social ministry activists preparing to visit Capitol Hill.

Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S.-led forces, the U.S. bishops and Catholic activists were among those raising questions about the moral legitimacy of such an attack and predicting the sort of ongoing upheaval that has occurred, said Stephen Colecchi, director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Feb. 13.

"Lots of people predicted how bad Iraq could get, including the U.S. bishops and the Holy See," Colecchi said.

But he warned participants in the annual meeting of people involved in Catholic social ministries that reminding congressional staffers of the church's accurate predictions about Iraq might not be the most successful way of persuading them to listen to recommendations for how to handle the current situation there.

The annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering includes a series of briefings about topics of current legislative interest, followed by lobbying visits to congressional offices.

In a briefing about Iraq's transition, Colecchi said that as pressure builds for the United States to withdraw from Iraq the nation's continuing instability makes troops' presence there still important, so the USCCB is recommending a "responsible transition." He said that would include "leaving sooner rather than later," which he declined to define further.

The standards for a smooth transition also should meet certain benchmarks for levels of security, economic reconstruction and protection of human and religious rights, Colecchi said.

At the same briefing, Maryann Cusimano Love, a politics professor at The Catholic University of America and a consultant to the U.S. bishops on international policy, used statistics about the war in Iraq and recent polling data from Iraqis to describe the current environment:

The number of U.S. military troops killed is 2,270; the number of wounded, 16,700.
The number of Iraqi military dead is between 4,500 and 6,000.
Estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed range from 28,000 to 100,000.
The financial cost to the United States is $500 billion a year for Defense Department expenditures alone.
Iraqi security forces have suffered 60 deaths a week in attacks from insurgents, which sometimes number as many as 90 attacks a day.
The unemployment rate in Iraq is at least 30 percent.

Cusimano Love cited a recent public opinion poll conducted for the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes which found that 80 percent of Iraqis believe the United States intends to maintain a permanent military presence in their country.

Sixty-five percent of the Iraqis polled oppose the presence of the U.S.-led troops in their country, and 47 percent actually support insurgent attacks on U.S. forces, she said.

Cusimano Love found some good news in the current political situation in that the country now has a constitution and has successfully held open elections with little violence, and a new parliament convenes in two months.

She said the poll also found that, although they do not overwhelmingly oppose insurgent attacks on U.S. forces, Iraqis do not necessarily support the political goals of insurgents -- 93 percent said they oppose attacks on representatives of the Iraqi government and 99 percent oppose attacks on civilians.

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SOCIAL-POVERTY Feb-15-2006 (660 words) With photos posted Feb. 14. xxxn
'Be faithful to the vision' of helping poor, social conferees told
By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- An evangelical Presbyterian minister told hundreds of Catholics in Washington Feb. 13 to "be faithful to the vision" of helping the nation's poor.

There is not that much difference between the U.S. bishops' 2003 "Faithful Citizenship" statement and his own organization's "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," issued one year later, said the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.

In the section "We seek justice and compassion for the poor and vulnerable," "For the Health of the Nation" says, "God measures societies by how they treat people at the bottom," Rev. Cizik noted.

"Too few politicians are concerned with the breadth and depth of evangelical theology on these issues," Rev. Cizik said. "But we're going to educate them," he added to applause from his audience at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. bishops' conference and 12 national Catholic organizations.

He referred to a recent Pew Forum survey which shows that evangelicals are the most internationalist of all the religious communities, "but also the most unilateral." He stressed the need to make partnerships.

When Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress following the 1994 elections, the assumption was that "the evangelicals would take over," Rev. Cizik said. "Nobody can do it in this town, even if we wanted to," he added, "and you can't either. We have to work collaboratively."

Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University and co-chairman of Americans for Peace Now, used last year's Hurricane Katrina to make points about poverty.

"In some ways, it helped frame our discussion of poverty a little differently," said Edelman, best known for his resignation from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department following passage of the 1996 welfare overhaul law.

Katrina, Edelman said, "connected race and poverty, connected poverty and race," and showed "how much poverty is connected to race."

Americans started looking beyond the immediate destruction wrought by the hurricane to see how New Orleans' poor -- and, by extension, America's poor -- got that way, he said.

"There is a tendency among Americans -- too many Americans -- to think that we have only pockets of poverty left," Edelman said, but he offered numbers to belie that thought.

"What crept out (undetected) over the last 30 years is low-wage work. Most of that is disproportionately done by African-Americans, Latinos, American Indians and some Asian-Americans," Edelman said. While America has grown more wealthy, the median wage is $28,000 -- up $1 an hour from 30 years ago, he said.

"An alarming number of the jobs in this country don't pay enough to live off of," he added.

"If the American worker is getting a cold, the inner city has pneumonia," Edelman declared. The poverty rate for whites, he said, was 8 percent or 9 percent, while it is 24 percent for African-Americans and Latinos. The numbers, he acknowledged, are better than they were 40 years ago, "but hardly acceptable.

Hardly. Hardly."

Edelman called for improvements in labor law, the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit and for the passage of more living-wage laws to give workers a better chance to improve their economic standing.

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture, was snowed in by 26 inches of snow in New York City and unable to serve as moderator.

But in an e-mail message to participants, Steinfels said, "We are, at our core, people of hope." She added, "We need some new ideas and some new approaches."

Kathleen Curran, domestic policy adviser to the U.S. bishops, filling in for Steinfels, said, "Our nation's leaders don't seem to share our concern for the poor," noting that the federal fiscal 2006 budget reconciliation bill recently approved by Congress focused on "cutting out programs that serve the poor over the next five years."

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SOCIAL-TRAFFICKING Feb-15-2006 (790 words) xxxn
Speakers call human trafficking a global problem
By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Trafficking in humans -- for slave labor or the sex industry -- is a global problem, speakers told a national conference of Catholic social ministry leaders Feb. 14.

Mary DeLorey, a Catholic Relief Services policy and advocacy official, said that by conservative estimates victims of human trafficking number somewhere between 700,000 and 2 million people around the world and they are "primarily women and children."

"It's a justice issue, it's a human rights issue. It's a mission that belongs to all of us," said Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty of the U.S. bishops' Migration and Refugee Services.

A member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Sister Mary Ellen is manager for outreach, education and technical assistance in MRS' human trafficking program.

Leading a workshop on the causes and impacts of human trafficking, the two women told the group that there is a need to raise people's awareness about the extent of human trafficking, its largely hidden nature and ways to combat it.

"It's going to take a very sustained and widespread effort," DeLorey said. Human trafficking, she added, "is a profound human rights violation and abuse of human dignity."

She described human trafficking as "the forced use of human beings" as objects of commerce. Poverty, lack of opportunity and vulnerability are key factors in who is victimized, she said. She said victims are generally lured by promises of employment, though some may be abducted or sold.

Sister Mary Ellen said the United States estimates that about 16,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, but in the five years since passage of a new federal law against human trafficking, only 947 victims have been certified as such. Of these, "720 were female, 227 were male" and just 10 percent were children, she said.

Under U.S. law international trafficking victims, if recognized as such, are entitled to refugee status, she said, and MRS has been involved in resettling about 150 of those victims.

When underage victims are forced into the sex business, she said, the U.S. mentality about juvenile delinquency often prevents their being recognized as victims. They are seen as teenage prostitutes, or criminals, rather than as the victims of commercial sex with a minor, which is a crime throughout the United States, she said.

If minors caught up in prostitution are viewed as victims rather than criminals, the response will be quite different, she said.

She said the United States is one of only 17 countries that have enacted specific laws against human trafficking.

DeLorey said conflict and emergencies such as natural disasters can open doors of opportunity for international gangs and cartels that engage in human trafficking.

She recalled that when the tsunamis hit the coastal areas of about a dozen Indian Ocean countries in late 2004, separating families and making many children orphans, the warnings by religious and humanitarian agencies about the human trafficking potential caught media attention and forced governments in the region to take preventive measures.

Large numbers of women were trafficked out of Kosovo during and after the conflict there, she said.

She said because of the relationship between conflict and increased human trafficking there is a need to "make sure our own military and peacekeepers are not involved in trafficking."

The spread of HIV and AIDS has led to increased trafficking in children for the sex industry because customers seek younger partners who are HIV-free to avoid contracting the disease, she said. In some parts of the world, she added, there is a myth that someone who has HIV can be cured by having sex with a child.

She said it is necessary to look at the political and economic forces that contribute to poverty, lack of employment opportunities and other conditions that make people vulnerable and increase their risk of becoming victims of human trafficking. As an example, she said, when the United States enters international trade agreements, it should be analyzing what impact those agreements will have on the poor.

There is a great deal of "pressure on countries, especially of the South, to eliminate social spending" to compete in a globalized economy, she said, and with the growing global mobility of capital and goods "there is a race to the bottom in labor costs."

"When social safety nets are removed, it is primarily women and children who are affected," she said.

Sister Mary Ellen said human trafficking is connected with drug trafficking, extortion and other forms of organized crime.

"When you get a trafficker, you get a recruiter, you get an enforcer," she said.

When the Soviet bloc dissolved, she said, gangs of entrepreneurs who had become experts at working the thriving underground economy under communism turned their expertise to human trafficking.

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SOCIAL-CARR (CORRECTED) Feb-15-2006 (700 words) With photo posted Feb. 14. xxxn
'Pro-life, pro-poor' lawmakers rare but seek them out, activists told
Editors: Corrects wording in sixth paragraph. CORRECTED version of SOCIAL-CARR of Feb. 14, 2006:
By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A major political challenge facing Catholics is finding the rare legislators who are "pro-life and pro-poor," said John Carr, head of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Social Development and World Peace.

"We need to find the exceptions and support the exceptions," he said Feb. 13 at a plenary session of the 2006 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.

"We believe that life begins at conception but does not end there," he told 500 people involved in Catholic social ministry programs gathered from around the United States.

The theme of the Feb. 12-15 gathering in Washington was "Bringing Good News to a Broken World." The annual meeting also included wrap-around sessions held Feb. 10-11.

Carr said that Catholic public policy positions are nuanced and do not fall into the current polarized divisions of right versus left and Democrat versus Republican.

"We are not the Democratic Party at prayer," he said. "We are not the religious caucus of the Republican Party."

Carr outlined several priority legislative issues that he asked the social ministry workers to push for during Feb. 14 meetings with their elected representatives in Congress.

They included:

Opposing budget cuts which harm programs for the poor and vulnerable members of society.
Opposing efforts to expand the death penalty.
Supporting a "serious and civil" national dialogue on how to remove U.S. troops from Iraq in a way which aids a responsible transition toward a stable Iraqi government.
Supporting immigration reform which includes a temporary worker program and provisions for "earned legalization" for illegal immigrants who have proof of employment and a proficiency in English.
Increasing foreign aid programs that stimulate economic development and help fight major diseases such as AIDS.

Catholics must fight to challenge a culture which sees "life as cheap," he said.

Examples of this culture include regarding the "unborn as an imposition, the elderly as a burden, immigrants as a threat, torture as necessary and civilian casualties as collateral damage," Carr said.

Catholics, when they lobby Congress, take only their faith-based convictions that "the poor and vulnerable should not be left behind," he said.

"We don't bring what Jack Abramoff brings -- money, trips, connections," said Carr, referring to the lobbyist who in January pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.

This year's social ministry meeting comes at a time when Washington's political landscape is marked more by scandals and indictments than political leadership, he said.

The Democrats "are the gang that couldn't shoot straight," he said. "They have lost their voice on important things. Where's the new generation of leaders?"

Meanwhile, the Republican-led administration of President George W. Bush needs "a 12-step program for political ineptness," he said.

Carr cited the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

On the positive side, there is a greater recognition of moral values as an influence on politics, he said, but warned that morality can be manipulated.

Be wary of "new words that mask old policies" and politicians "looking through the Bible for a sound bite," he said.

The day before, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized U.S. lawmakers for abandoning the weak to serve the powerful.

"This capital city is driven not by the needs of the weak, but by the contributions of the strong. It focuses -- not on the sores of the modern-day lepers -- but the desires of well-connected and powerful interests," said Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash.

He made the comments in the homily at the opening Mass Feb. 12.

"Too often, our message of human life and dignity, justice and peace is ignored or contradicted in this capital city," said the bishop, who was also the main celebrant.

"Sadly, your works of charity and service are not in the headlines or on the evening news," he told the social ministry leaders.

Noting that the clergy sex abuse crisis has been draining many dioceses of their financial and spiritual resources, he said that this 'is not the easiest time to be leaders of the church's social ministry," producing "impatience, frustration and discouragement."

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SOCIAL-HAITI Feb-15-2006 (560 words) xxxn
'Winner take all' mentality fueling Haitian turmoil, say speakers
By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Much of the post-election turmoil in Haiti stems from a "winner take all" mentality in which opposition political leaders do not understand the concept of working together, several speakers told Catholic social ministry officials.

The Haitian bishops could help the situation by telling rivals "to avoid all-or-nothing politics," said Oblate Father Seamus Finn, director of the Oblate Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation Office.

But bishops' statements so far have been general and not addressed this issue, he said.

Jenny Russell, Catholic Relief Services consultor on Haiti, said that Haiti has a long history of dictatorships.

"The concept of a presidential leader who shares power is not there," said Russell. "What we are seeing in the streets is a country without a democratic history," she said.

The "paradox of the election" is that it shows the "winner take all" mentality and also a vibrant people who want to participate in political decision-making, said Russell.

Russell and Father Finn spoke Feb. 14 at a panel discussion on Haiti during the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington. The Feb. 12-15 national gathering also included wrap-around sessions held Feb. 10-11.

Haiti had presidential elections Feb. 7 with partial results showing that Rene Preval was the leading candidate with almost 50 percent of the vote.

Preval and his supporters, however, have claimed that a slow vote count is being manipulated to deny him the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff election. Street demonstrations by his supporters have turned violent.

News reports from Haiti said that Feb. 15 the interim government halted the vote count and ordered an inquiry into possible election fraud. At the time, 90 percent of the vote had been counted with Preval garnering almost 49 percent of the ballots.

This was the first presidential election since a rebellion two years ago ousted elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest. Preval, a former president, is an Aristide political ally. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Americas with an annual per capita income of $1,500.

Father Finn, who last visited Haiti in December, said that the current turmoil also shows the deterioration of Haiti's civil infrastructures caused by economic and political instability. Father Finn criticized U.S. foreign policy, saying it has been inconsistent and taken a short-term view of economic and political development.

This has hindered the building of the infrastructures needed for a viable civil society.

Often aid has been based on whether the U.S. government likes the Haitian leader in power, he said.

"We have to be willing to think of a 10- to 20-year commitment. But to look for immediate returns on investment is counterproductive," he said.

U.S. policy adds to the economic and political instability which discourages the foreign investment needed to create jobs in Haiti, Father Finn said.

There are 145 Oblates in Haiti, including two bishops, and most are Haitians, said Father Finn.

Thomas Quigley, who handles Caribbean issues for the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace, said that after Aristide was forced out of office in 2004 the U.S. government placed an economic embargo on Haiti.

It caused U.S.-based companies, including the maker of baseballs used by major league teams, to leave, said Quigley. "Stability is a long way off at the moment. These companies won't go back," he said.

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SOCIAL-FARM Feb-15-2006 (710 words) xxxn
Win-win outcome for farmers, consumers sought for 2007 farm bill
By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The next farm bill isn't due to be passed for another year, but some people are already strategizing various win-win scenarios for farmers, consumers, rural towns and the environment.

Those elements would include utilizing farms as sources for renewable energy, limiting commodity payments and focusing on rural economic development beyond crop subsidies.

The projected federal deficit, though, could alter federal farm policy, conferees were told Feb. 14 at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. bishops and 12 national Catholic organizations.

The 2002 farm bill, which added $73.5 billion in new federal funds over 10 years for rural communities, was written in a time of budget surpluses, said Mark Halverson, minority staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee. (William O'Connor, staff director for the Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee, was invited but unable to attend.)

The budget reconciliation measure passed by Congress earlier in February cut rural economic development funds, conservation programs and renewable energy initiatives, Halverson said, but not crop subsidies.

Subsidies in and of themselves do not constitute rural economic development, Halverson said, pointing to a map showing that in the top 25 percent of U.S. counties receiving subsidy payments, economic growth is below the U.S. norm; there were as many counties recording negative economic growth as those showing above-average growth.

Currently about 10 percent of U.S. farms collect 72 percent of all subsidy money, according to Halverson, and of those 4 percent collect fully half of the subsidies. "We've been interested in trying to reform that," Halverson said.

The figures reflect the growing concentration in farming that was highlighted by the so-called farm crisis of the early 1980s when economics forced 80,000 farmers to quit, retire, sell their land or let their farms be repossessed. But throughout the 20th century, Halverson said, while the U.S. population rose 270 percent, the number of U.S. farms shrank 60 percent.

The scope of the farm bill has expanded over time, Halverson noted, in part perhaps because coalitions were formed around certain issues to ensure its passage. Farm bills have passed by narrower margins over the past 20 years.

School lunch programs, Halverson said, have been a regular part of recent farm bills. While nearly every senator represents farmers, the same is not true of House members. "Framers of the next few farm bills will have to embrace a wider vision of agriculture than in the past," he added.

"The other factor that will play into this will be international trade negotiations," Halverson said. Domestic farm programs, among them crop subsidies, may have to be adjusted depending on what kind of trade agreements are approved in the future.

Randall Dodd, director of the Financial Policy Forum, said trade agreements thus far have hurt smaller farmers, and the U.S. government has not sought to reduce the inequality caused by trade agreements. "We don't see the losers being compensated by the gainers to make a truly equitable farm policy," he said.

"What has happened with NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) is that you can't compete with (and) your scale can't compare with those big mechanized farms in the Midwest," Dodd added. Low domestic prices ruin the small U.S. farmer, and exported commodities because of domestic overproduction ruin the small farmer in the countries importing U.S. commodities.

Dodd, who grew up on a Texas farm and still has relatives farming in Texas, used biblical allusions to stress the fragility of the farm enterprise.

In Chapter 6 of the New Testament Book of Revelation, he pointed out, the third figure of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was agrarian -- famine -- who said, "A ration of wheat costs a day's pay, and three rations of barley cost a day's pay, but do not damage the olive oil or the wine." In Revelation, the figure holds a scale, considered a symbol of a food shortage with a corresponding rise in price.

U.S. farmers "have a tough time offsetting (bad years) even with the good years," Dodd said. "Even in the Bible, Joseph had the advantage, because the seven fat years came first, before the seven lean years."

END

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SOCIAL-WARS Feb-16-2006 (520 words) xxxn
Social ministry leaders told that poverty not main cause of wars
By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The lack of efficient governmental institutions trumps poverty as a cause of civil wars in many underdeveloped countries, said several speakers Feb. 13 at a national meeting of Catholic social ministry officials.

"If you don't have institutions that work, poverty is fuel for the fire," said Maryann Cusimano Love, professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington and a consultant to the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Policy.

Ian Bannon, a World Bank manager specializing in conflict prevention and reconstruction, said foreign aid programs to underdeveloped countries that are moving toward democracy should concentrate on building the institutions needed for a stable, functioning society.

Foreign aid programs need to focus on such things as building education departments in countries where children have not seen a teacher in years, he said.

Hippolyt Pul, a deputy regional director for West Africa for Catholic Relief Services, said that "African wars are among the rich for the rich."

The majority of the people are excluded from decision-making power, he said.

All three spoke at a session on the relationship between poverty and conflicts in underdeveloped countries.

The panel was part of the Feb. 12-15 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, attended by 500 people from across the United States who are involved in social ministry work. The annual meeting also included wrap-around sessions held Feb. 10-11.

Pul said that special interest groups have been allowed "to hijack states" in many African countries and their exclusion of the vast majority of the people from decision-making power creates many of the civil wars.

Economic development is not the full answer to solving the problem, he said.

Peace-building involves incorporating the majority of the people into national life, said Pul.

Africa, rich in natural resources, is not a poor continent, he said.

In 1996, 25 African countries had foreign debt totaling $175 billion while in that same year $193 billion was taken out of those countries, he said.

Bannon said that World Bank studies show that the risk of civil war is highest in newly independent countries in a transition period to democracy.

During the first five years of transition these countries are in the "intensive care ward" as democratic concepts and institutions are not ingrained yet, he said.

"The poor are not the enemy. It's the people that are manipulating them," Bannon said.

The newly formed democratic institutions have to be made accountable to the people for political and economic stability to be achieved, he said.

There are "no magical solutions," he said.

In Africa "the problem will be solved by Africans," Bannon said. Foreign countries and governments can help by "giving them the tools," he added.

Cusimano Love said that faith-based groups should continue pressing for debt relief. Because of the "resurrection politics" of church groups, major advances have been made in debt relief programs although lobbying rich countries on this issue was considered a lost cause several years ago, she said. "We have seen more debt relief in the past six years than in the previous 60 years," Cusimano Love said.

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SOCIAL-IMMIGRATION Feb-16-2006 (620 words) xxxn
Nonpunitive immigration reform urged at Catholic gathering
By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops are seeking comprehensive, nonpunitive immigration reform, Catholic social ministry leaders at a national meeting in Washington were told Feb. 13.

Kevin Appleby, public policy director of Migration and Refugee Services, an agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sharply criticized the "many harsh provisions" of a recently passed House immigration bill and urged support for the Secure Immigration and Orderly Immigration Act introduced in the Senate by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Appleby gave one of numerous public policy workshops that the social ministry leaders from across the country attended as they prepared to go to Capitol Hill Feb. 14 to meet with their senators and representatives to discuss legislative issues of concern to the church.

The workshops and Hill visits were part of the Feb. 12-15 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. bishops' conference and 12 national Catholic organizations. Related wrap-around sessions were held Feb. 10-11.

The McCain-Kennedy bill would provide a way for the millions of undocumented workers in the United States to come forward and sign up for "earned legalization," he said.

He said the proposed legislation would let people who sign up and pay a fine remain in the country and, after six years of working, learning English and not breaking the law, earn a green card as a legal resident alien. After earning a green card they could begin the normal procedures needed to apply eventually for citizenship.

Appleby said some will label any nonpunitive approach as an amnesty, but earned legalization is not an amnesty. "In this prescription they have to earn, over time, the right to a green card," he said.

He said the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, which the House approved Dec. 16, is a harsh, unacceptable and ultimately ineffective effort to address illegal immigration only from the enforcement side.

That bill broadens the definition of aggravated felony as grounds for deporting the undocumented, undermines rights of asylum and expands government powers to expedite the return of the undocumented, he said.

One of the most "outrageous" provisions in the House bill, he said, would make it a crime to knowingly assist an illegal immigrant -- a provision that could be used to convict church or humanitarian workers who offer shelter, food or other services to people in need.

Since the United States began building its Mexico border barrier in 1993, he said, the nation has spent more than $25 billion on border enforcement and "in the same time period the number of undocumented people has more than doubled."

"We're not against border enforcement," he said, but it should be done "in a way that minimizes human suffering."

He said the earned legalization provisions of the McCain-Kennedy bill would not force the undocumented to return to their country of origin and stay there until an application for legal immigration is accepted, which could take years.

"Seventy percent of the undocumented have been here five years or more," and the Senate bill would contribute to stabilization of the U.S. labor force, he said.

He argued that it would also contribute to U.S. security, since it would encourage the millions of undocumented to move "out of the shadows" to sign up and be regularized.

Appleby said the current immigration law "is broken and needs to be fixed," and the bishops' conference seeks a comprehensive reform that would treat undocumented immigrants living in this country humanely and with dignity, providing them a way to legalize their situation and achieve permanent status. A comprehensive reform would also give high priority to family reunification, he said.

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SOCIAL-HAITI (UPDATED) Feb-16-2006 (620 words) xxxn
'Winner-take-all' mentality fueling Haitian turmoil, say speakers
Editors: Edits throughout to reflect Preval victory; corrects year in 21st paragraph. UPDATED version of SOCIAL-HAITI of Feb. 15, 2006:
By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Much of the post-election turmoil in Haiti stems from a "winner-take-all" mentality in which opposition political leaders do not understand the concept of working together, several speakers told Catholic social ministry officials.

They spoke Feb. 14, two days before presidential candidate Rene Preval was declared the winner after his supporters took to the streets claiming an election fraud was under way to deny Preval's victory.

But bishops' statements so far have been general and not addressed this issue, he said.

Jenny Russell, Catholic Relief Services consultor on Haiti who spoke in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the agency, said that Haiti has a long history of dictatorships.

"The concept of a presidential leader who shares power is not there," said Russell. "What we are seeing in the streets is a country without a democratic history," she said.

The "paradox of the election" is that it shows the "winner-take-all" mentality and also a vibrant people who want to participate in political decision-making, said Russell.

Russell and Father Finn spoke at a panel discussion on Haiti during the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington.

The Feb. 12-15 national gathering also included wrap-around sessions held Feb. 10-11.

Haiti had presidential elections Feb. 7 with partial results showing that Preval was the leading candidate with almost 50 percent of the vote.

Preval and his supporters, however, claimed that a slow vote count was being manipulated to deny him the absolute majority needed to avoid a runoff election. Street demonstrations by his supporters turned violent.

On Feb. 15 the interim government halted the vote count and ordered an inquiry into possible election fraud. At the time, 90 percent of the vote had been counted with Preval garnering almost 49 percent of the ballots.

On Feb. 16, Preval was declared the winner after negotiations involving Preval, the interim government conducting the elections, foreign observers and diplomats.

Father Finn, who last visited Haiti in December, said that the current turmoil also shows the deterioration of Haiti's civil infrastructures caused by economic and political instability.

Father Finn criticized U.S. foreign policy, saying it has been inconsistent and taken a short-term view of economic and political development.

This has hindered the building of the infrastructures needed for a viable civil society.

Often aid has been based on whether the U.S. government likes the Haitian leader in power, he said.

"We have to be willing to think of a 10- to 20-year commitment.

But to look for immediate returns on investment is counterproductive," he said.

U.S. policy adds to the economic and political instability which discourages the foreign investment needed to create jobs in Haiti, Father Finn said.

There are 145 Oblates in Haiti, including two bishops, and most are Haitians, said Father Finn.

Thomas Quigley, who handles Caribbean issues for the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace, said that after Aristide was forced out of office in 1991 the U.S. government placed an economic embargo on Haiti.

It caused U.S.-based companies, including the maker of baseballs used by major league teams, to leave, said Quigley.

"Stability is a long way off at the moment. These companies won't go back," he said.

END

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SOCIAL-PALESTINIAN Feb-17-2006 (420 words) xxxn
Don't cut aid to Palestinians because of Hamas, say speakers
By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Opposition to a Hamas-controlled Palestinian government should not involve cutting off needed aid to the Palestinian people, said several Catholic officials during a panel discussion at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington.

The speakers expressed concern that $150 million in foreign aid for Palestine in the 2007 federal budget could be cut or eliminated as a result of U.S. government opposition to Hamas because of its use of terrorism and its opposition to the existence of Israel.

"We are concerned that the Palestinian people will be totally abandoned," said Gerald Flood, a counselor for the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace. William O'Keefe, senior director for advocacy for Catholic Relief Services, said that Palestinians need humanitarian aid regardless of who is leading the government.

LaVita LeGrys, associate director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Government Liaison, said the recent Hamas victory has stirred moves in Congress to restrict Palestinian aid.

They spoke at a Feb. 13 panel on foreign aid.

Foreign aid budget proposals by President George W. Bush include $150 million for Palestinians to promote democratic reform, the rule of law and economic revitalization. The budget does not specify to whom the money would go. After the landslide Hamas victory in January elections for the Palestinian legislature, the Bush administration added a note saying that the aid situation was subject to review.

Flood said that if the government is worried about giving money to Hamas it should channel the funds through nongovernmental organizations working directly with the Palestinian people.

Theodore Rectenwald, U.S. bishops' Africa policy adviser, urged the government to spend more foreign aid funds on AIDS prevention programs in Africa. Right now the concentration is on providing curative medicines, he said.

While medicine is needed, "the only way to make sure we are not still spending money on treatment 50 years from now" is through prevention programs, he said.

About 75 percent of HIV/AIDS cases are in Africa, said Rectenwald.

Many men are dying leaving women to look after children, he said.

AIDS deaths are also a main reason there are so many orphans, and older children are often left to care for their younger brothers and sisters, he said.

In Mozambique about 17 percent of the orphans are children whose parents died of AIDS, he said.

In the case of girl orphans, many are forced to turn to prostitution to take care of themselves and their siblings, said Rectenwald.

END

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SOCIAL-PUNDITS Feb-17-2006 (880 words) xxxn
Pundits critique politics at Catholic social ministry conference
By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Political pundits Mark Shields and David Brooks regaled a national gathering of Catholic social ministry leaders with jokes and one-liners Feb. 15 as they delivered serious underlying messages on politics and society.

The occasion was the closing luncheon of the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, a four-day conference that brought together about 500 experts and leaders of Catholic diocesan and national social ministry organizations.

Brooks, a New York Times columnist and political commentator on PBS' "News Hour," looked around the room and said he hadn't seen so many Catholics in one place since his last visit to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He led off the discussion with a long verbal caricature of elite, success-driven families in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Md. -- where he described "ubermoms" (supermoms) who left successful careers behind after marriage to be full-time mothers devoted to making sure their children are highly educated and motivated.

Brooks threw out one-liners about things like pacifist toothpaste -- "It doesn't kill the germs, it just asks them to leave" -- and kale after-school snacks -- for when the child says, "Mom, I want a snack that'll prevent colorectal cancer."

But amid those comments, he made a case for the view that the basis for success in the United States today is not blood lines or inherited wealth but "inherited meritocracy" -- the raising of children in a framework of attitudes and values that prepare them to succeed in the face of the challenges of contemporary life.

Shields, a syndicated columnist, "News Hour" commentator and host of CNN's "Capital Gang," contrasted the individualistic and partisan political atmosphere in Washington today with some of America's finer moments of investing in the future.

"It has not always been this mean (in Washington politics). It has not always been this ugly," he said. "And it's important for us to celebrate our successes as well as to look with concern and anger at continuing injustices."

He noted that it was in the midst of the nation-rending Civil War that the U.S. system of land-grant state colleges was started -- a system that has produced "more Nobel Prize winners than all the universities in Europe combined."

The GI Bill of Rights after World War II, when only 2 percent of the American people had gone to college, opened higher education to hundreds of thousands of Americans and produced a new generation of engineers, doctors and other professionals, he said.

"There was a sense of future preference" in those initiatives, with Americans making sacrifices for the sake of a better life for the next generation, he said.

Shields quoted the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether we provide enough to those who have too little."

He contrasted that with the election-winning rhetoric of President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

The Reagan slogan "embodied that sense of individualism" that has become a dominant feature of U.S. politics, he said.

In contrast to the omnipresent partisanship on the current political scene, he recalled the story of Democratic Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana during the six-week Dixiecrat (Southern Democrat) filibuster against the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The previous year Democrats had overwhelmingly approved the Civil Rights Act and the Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, had run a campaign that left Republicans widely perceived as far out of the American mainstream.

Shields said that at the end of every day's filibuster Mansfield stood in the background as Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican minority leader, took the spotlight in news conferences supporting the voting rights bill and denouncing the filibuster. After two weeks of that, he said, one Democratic senator's chief of staff confronted Mansfield and asked him why he was letting the Republican leadership steal the limelight day after day instead of asserting Democratic credit for the bill.

Mansfield, he said, replied that after the Republicans' 1964 debacle, "anything that is seen as evidence that the Republican Party is supporting the Civil Rights Act, is part of the mainstream, is not only good for the Republican Party, it's good for the United States."

Such episodes exemplify "the idea that there was a time in America when people cared about something larger than narrow political advantage," Shields said. "We have had great achievements, and we have to celebrate them, because that's the only way we can reinvigorate" a new sense of direction in U.S. politics.

Decrying the "rampant individualism" in the current political atmosphere, he said Republicans have deregulated and privatized the economy while Democrats "have privatized and deregulated the culture" by their individualistic emphasis on personal autonomy.

Speaking of the "feverish pursuit of money" that has come to dominate Washington political life, Shields said the "relentless" need for campaign contributions plays a major role in how politicians schedule meetings every day.

He said that when the social ministry leaders visited their senators and representatives "you may be the only face of Christ ... the only voice for those who are left out and forgotten and neglected and afflicted" that their legislators might see that day.

END

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WASHINGTON LETTER Feb-17-2006 (820 words) Backgrounder. xxxn
Climate change: Everyone talks about it; what can be done about it?
By Mark Pattison Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- If, as the old saw suggests, everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it, what can anyone do about weather patterns that morph not only over seasons but generations? That phenomenon is known as climate change.

It used to be known as "global warming," but the term climate change takes not only temperature into account, but also rainfall, ocean currents, farming, forestry and a host of other conditions affected by the weather.

Perhaps not everybody is talking out loud about it, but climate change is on the minds of more and more people -- including those gathered for two Catholic-sponsored forums in Washington a day apart.

Speaking at The Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law Feb. 13, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, reported the anecdotal evidence of climate change as experienced by indigenous populations in the state's northernmost regions.

Village elders have told her "the ice pack is less stable, the snow pack is returning later and leaving earlier, changing the migratory patterns of animals," Murkowski said.

"You think Alaskans would welcome a little bit of warming," said Murkowski, who told of children who still go to school even when it's 40 below zero outside. "But there is so much at stake. ... Some have called Alaska 'the canary in the coal mine' when it comes to climate change."

To relocate the 250 residents of one threatened Alaskan village to higher land would cost $100 million -- a huge sum, Murkowski admitted, but it is worth the cost because the town's residents and their ancestors "have been living there for thousands of years."

One huge sum Murkowski was not willing to commit to was the price tag for the Kyoto Accord on climate change, which was rejected by the Bush administration. She said the White House was right not to sign the treaty. It mandates that governments reduce greenhouse gases to bring temperatures down by 0.6 degree Celsius -- about one-third of 1 degree Fahrenheit -- at what she considers an unacceptably high cost in jobs and dollars.

Michael McCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs for the Climate Institute and formerly executive director of the National Assessment Coordinator's Office, said the earth warmed by 0.8 degree Celsius over the 20th century, and that 2005 was the warmest year yet on record -- surpassing 1997, when temperatures were bolstered by a cyclical trend of Pacific Ocean warming.

McCracken, who spoke during a Feb. 14 forum at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, estimated that 150 towns in the United States, Canada and Russia that are near the Arctic may need to be moved if warming trends continue. Warming, he added, is felt more acutely where the temperatures are most extreme.

In response to a question posed at the forum, McCracken said that, even if the world stopped burning oil today, the effects of greenhouse gases would be felt "for a few decades," and even widespread reductions would not show up on the thermometer until "the middle of the century."

In the absence of federal participation in international initiatives such as Kyoto, individual states and regions are combating warming on several fronts.

Also at the forum was Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She said eight East Coast states -- from Delaware to Maine, but not including Massachusetts or Rhode Island -- have entered into a pact that caps power-plant emissions at a certain level yet allows facilities exceeding pollution-control targets to trade their "surplus" emissions to plants within the region that haven't yet reached the cap. This is known as a "cap-and-trade" program, and one Senate proposal seeks to implement a cap-and-trade system nationwide.

Twenty-eight states have climate action plans, Greenwald said. Among them is California, which wants to return to its 2000 emissions levels by 2010, to its 1990s levels by 2020, and to cut emissions 80 percent by 2050. New Mexico seeks to return to its 2000 emissions levels by 2012 and be 10 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.

Ten states have a vehicle greenhouse gas emission standard. That standard could be in jeopardy, Greenwald noted, if California's law fails a court challenge; the other states have modeled their laws after California's.

Greenwald said 22 states and the District of Columbia have renewal portfolio standards, committing to either a percentage or an amount of electricity powered by renewable energy being produced in their areas. One of these is Texas, where a plan to create 10,000 megawatts of power through renewable sources was signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. Another 22 states have public benefit funds to support energy efficiency and/or renewable energy.

As Murkowski said at Catholic University, "We can't afford to wait to take action."

END

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SOCIAL-BUDGET Feb-17-2006 (670 words) xxxn
Federal tax and budget cuts seen hurting poor, vulnerable
By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The newly approved 2006 federal budget and the budget proposals for coming years will cut programs for the poor and vulnerable even as tax cuts and higher defense spending increase federal deficits, Catholic social ministry leaders were told Feb. 14 at a national conference in Washington.

Ellen Nissenbaum, legislative director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the Bush administration's fiscal year 2007 budget proposal calls for deep cuts in domestic discretionary programs, some cuts in entitlement programs and tax cuts that will increase the deficit.

"This fails the test of fairness, and it certainly fails the test of fiscal responsibility," she said.

Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, said the 2006 budget reconciliation bill, just signed into law the previous week, institutes changes in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program that will lead to less Medicaid funding and make it much harder for states to meet requirements for federal funding.

Nissenbaum said that, out of the legislation enacted since 2001 that has contributed to the federal deficit, in the 2005 deficit 48 percent was due to the administration's tax cuts; 36 percent to defense, homeland security and international programs; 8 percent to entitlements; and 8 percent to discretionary domestic spending, not counting homeland security.

The Catholic social ministry leaders attending the workshop were being briefed on the human impact of federal budget decisions in preparation for visits to their senators and representatives on Capitol Hill later that day.

The legislative briefings and Hill visits are a regular feature of the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, which this year attracted about 560 speakers and participants. The gathering was co-sponsored by five agencies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and 12 national Catholic organizations engaged in peace and social justice concerns.

Weinstein said the Medicaid cuts in the TANF program will allow states to charge more for medical care and/or reduce benefits. Nearly 28 million children could be affected by the changes, she said.

She said reduced funding for child support enforcement could lead to $8.4 billion in uncollected support that is owed to children over the next decade.

Child welfare cuts will make it harder for relatives to receive assistance for providing foster care for their kin, she said, and cuts in student loans will make students pay billions of dollars more for their education.

One of the more significant changes in TANF is changing the benchmark year for states' caseload reduction credits from 1995 to 2005, making it much more difficult for many states to reach work participation requirements for funding, she said. Under the work participation requirement, states can qualify for block grants and other funding if 50 percent of all families have a job or participate in vocational education, job training or similar activities for a certain number of hours a week; for two-parent families, 90 percent work participation is required.

Weinstein said many states that currently meet the requirements because of credits for caseload reductions since 1995 will have to increase their number of work-participating families significantly in order to meet the new benchmark of reductions since 2005.

According to one chart Nissenbaum showed the group, in 2006 Americans in the lowest 20 percent of household income will receive an average of $23 each as a result of the Bush administration tax cuts; those in the middle 20 percent will receive an average tax break of $748; those in the top 20 percent will average $5,406. The 2006 tax break for those in the top 1 percent of earned income will average $39,020, and for those whose annual income exceeds $1 million, the average tax break will be $111,549, according to the chart, based on data from the Tax Policy Center.

She said a new pay-as-you-go "reform" in the budget process "applies only to entitlements, not taxes," meaning that new strictures are placed on entitlement funding, but tax cuts can be extended or new ones added without budgetary restrictions.

END