Election Year/Faithful Citizenship

This election year, and during the years to come, parishes have important opportunities to share the teachings of the Church and encourage parishioners to exercise their responsibilities as citizens and as believers.  The Catholic community in the United States can play an important role in shaping a world more consistent with the lessons of Scripture and the values of Catholic teaching. We can help protect the life and dignity of every human being and promote justice and peace in our world.

For parishes and other communities of faith, sharing Catholic teaching and conducting non-partisan voter education campaigns and voter registration drives are excellent ways to promote faithful citizenship. To help you, the bishops have issued a new statement on Faithful Citizenship as well as a bulletin insert summarizing the statement. These documents are now available at www.faithfulcitizenship.org.

Also on the Web site you will find related documents from the Bishops and the Vatican, as well as planning ideas for parishes and dioceses. In the next few weeks, a wide range of educational resources will be added to the Web site, including resources for religious education programs, schools, youth ministry, young adult ministry, small faith communities, and others.

• E-Postcards with cool images and messages
• An Interactive "Are You a Faithful Citizen?" Quiz
• A "Top 10 Ways You Can Be a Faithful Citizen" poster
• Youth Prayer Ideas
• A Coffee Discussion Guide

 For more information, contact the Office of Social Action:Brian Corbin or Rick Walker or George Garchar
 Or
the Office of Pro-Life, Marriage and Family Ministry: Melinda Knight or Dan Thimons

The Catholic Conference of Ohio also has electronic material and a website devoted to social policy issues focused on Ohio.  Visit E-Focus for more information.

Diocese of Youngstown Legislative Advocacy Network

To obtain more information or a speaker on current public policy issues, and how to become more involved in citizenship through advocacy based in Catholic Social Doctrine, contact George Garchar the Associate Director of Social Action for Community Development and Advocacy, at 330-744-8451.

To join the Diocese of Youngstown Legislative Network, please send an email to:

doylegislativenetwork-subscribe@yahoo.com You will be asked to join YAHOO to become a member of this listserve. If you have any questions, please contact Catholic Charities Social Action office.

 Visit the Legislative Network home page for current alerts and analysis.

For current social policy analysis and legislative priorities of the US Catholic Bishops, visit the Department of Social Development and World Peace website. See Catholic Charities USA website for human services social policy analysis and advocacy. For international development and relief efforts see Catholic Relief Services website and Caritas Internationalis website. For specific information on the Church's position on immigration, refugees and migrants, see The US Catholic Bishops' Justice for Immigrants Campaign. For State of Ohio social policy issues, visit the Catholic Conference of Ohio site.