Every day my ministry brings me into contact with immigrants. Some are citizens or legal residents, others have immigration cases in process, and still others have no realistic hope of regularizing their situations under our current laws. I listen to their stories, their worries, their dreams and help where I can.

One special group of immigrants is those we know as Dreamers or recipients of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). About 800,000 young people are currently enrolled in this program. An estimated 1.5 million more could qualify but did not enroll for various reasons, including the fear that enrolling would jeopardize the status of relatives in the country without documents.

Many of us have already written numerous letters and made many phone calls on their behalf. But now, even if we have already done so, we must take action again and write or call our representatives in Congress, or better yet do both—and urge them to protect these youth who were brought to this country illegally as children.

Dreamers have grown up in the United States. Many of them remember no other country. They’ve been educated here and speak English fluently. The youngest are still in high school. The rest have enrolled in college or are employed. Some are PhD candidates, doctors, attorneys, scientists, teachers and mechanics. About one thousand are members of the US armed forces. No one who committed a crime could even apply for DACA.

These are exactly the sort of people we can be proud to call our neighbors and friends. They have long lives ahead of them, lives with which they can make substantial contributions to our society. Leaving aside all the moral and ethical reasons why we should protect the legal status of these young people, for economic reasons alone DACA makes great sense. It is estimated that during their lifetimes these Dreamers have the capacity to add $329 billion to the US economy.

Recent non-partisan polling indicates that more than 75% of US voters want protection for Dreamers. More than 55% also want them to have a pathway to citizenship. Yet these young people are being used as bargaining chips in the larger debate on immigration.

I know some of these DACA recipients personally. They speak of feeling like they are on a seesaw, one week with hope, the next with despair. Their lives are on hold, waiting to see if they will ever receive a favorable response to their dreams. They wonder what they will do if no action on their behalf is forthcoming. Should they return to their country of origin? Or try to blend back into the shadows of the undocumented, losing their work permits, drivers licenses, and their right to be here as students?

I try to put myself in the place of Sylvia (not her real name), who is studying nursing at a state university. The new semester has begun, and she wonders if she will be able to complete it. Even more she wonders what her life would be like if she had to return to Mexico, especially since she only has distant relatives living there and has not been out of this country since she was too small to remember.

Or Jesus (also not his real name), who dreams of specializing in immigration law when he graduates in the next couple of years. Now he interns with a non-profit helping low-income workers protect their rights. What future awaits him?

Or Angel, a high school junior who never enrolled in DACA because he didn’t realize he could. His marks place him in the top quarter of his class, but he realizes he may not be here to graduate unless something changes.

DACA expires on March 5^. Right now, before it’s too late, our members of Congress need to hear from us. We need to tell them that we care about Dreamers and want the DACA program renewed. As important, we want – and our faith demands – a pathway to citizenship so as not to uproot the lives of so many young people who’ve made enormous contributions to our communities and our economy.

In the words of the US Catholic Bishops Conference:

DACA youth are woven into the fabric of our country and of our Church, and are, by every social and human measure, American youth. As people of faith, we say to DACA youth – regardless of your immigration status, you are children of God and welcome in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church supports you and will advocate for you.

If you would like to advocate for the Dreamers, please click here to send a letter to your government representatives.

What makes a budget moral? What is the responsibility of government in drafting a budget? Currently the issues of morality and responsibility swirl around the US and our global world. Why? Is it because of the extensive disparities in economics between those who have a good life and those who do not in the US and in so many other countries? Is it because of the natural and human disasters plaguing our world with politicians apparently powerless?

Morality can be defined as a particular system of values and principles of conduct held by a society such as honesty, integrity, honor and justice. Do the denials, cuts or repeals for programs as the Affordable Care Act, Clean Power Plan, Paris Climate Accord, EPA rules for clean water, air or land as in the Keystone XL or Dakota Access pipelines reflect such values?

The role of the state in public spending should be directed to the common good based upon these pillars: “respect for the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person, promotion of human development and defense of peace.” Taxes and public spending are tools for uplifting and developing all members of a country’s population. All of us have gifts and skills to hone and share for the well-being of the whole. We also have needs in our society to be able to exercise our gifts and skills—education, health, meaningful work and supportive agencies, private and public. Personal and social responsibilities round out a society’s common good goal for wellness of earth and ourselves. Why then do politicians give the middle class all the attention as being in need when all working and non-working members of society deserve help.

Of the proposed federal 2017 budget: 54% is for the military; 3% for social security, labor, unemployment; 6% for education; 7% for veterans; 1% for food, agriculture; 2% transportation; 3% science; and 4% energy and environment. The moral system for this budget is violence—not in people or the earth, upon which we live, work and love.

Sources: USCCB letters of August 31 and November 7, 2017

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 2006

Proposed Presidential budget for 2017 (Obama’s)

I became involved in the Akron Area Interfaith Council (known as the AAIC) in August, 2015. I received a call from a United Church of Christ minister Chuck Auscherman asking if I would participate in a DVD for the AAIC. I had never heard of the organization and couldn’t imagine how I could serve. We agreed to a face-to-face meeting the next day during which he filled me in on the AAIC and this current project. Basically, I was asked to voice on the DVD the official position of the Catholic Church on interfaith dialogue. How blessed I was that Pope Francis had just addressed that issue a few weeks before!

In 1980 faith leaders from the Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, African American, and other Protestant faiths joined together to create the AAIC. These clergy persons were all friends and saw the need to have an organization in place for communication and collaboration as well as the ability to address issues that arise between faith groups.

The mission statement specifically calls the AAIC to coordinate and enable effective interfaith responses to the social, moral, ethical, and cultural issues of the Akron area community as well as to promote freedom of religion, equality, and understanding. Currently, the AAIC has representatives from the Baha’i, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Christian (including Catholic), and Unitarian Universalist faiths. We meet bi-monthly to build friendships as well as to collaborate in addressing specific needs.

Intrigued by the variety of faiths of which I was, for the most part, unfamiliar, I decided to join the AAIC for a year in order to learn more deeply the origins and practices of those I knew so little of. The persons I have met and with whom I have engaged in projects have deeply enriched my life. At this time, not all members of the Council are clergy and there is a good mixture of male and female. I am the first religious sister many of these have encountered. Once we get to know one another, so many walls and barriers are brought down. We welcome one another as children who come from the same God, no matter how God is named and understood.

Two of our largest projects are The Fall Forum and The Hunger Walk. The former is a yearly event that brings topics of current interest to the interfaith community that enlighten and inform. This year the Forum addressed Akron’s opiate epidemic; titled “Join the Voices for Recovery: Strengthen Families and Communities,” it featured presentations by 1) a couple who had lost their son to heroin addiction, 2) Summit County Opiate Task Force, and 3) an addiction recovery speaker.

The Hunger Walk is held annually in early May. Over 20 congregations have joined together to eliminate food insecurity in the Akron area. One hundred percent of the proceeds are donated to the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. Young children, teens, and even family pets participate! The May 2017 walk garnered $26,375.02 for the Foodbank.

I have so appreciated involvement with the members of this Council. It is such a joy to share different faiths with openness and acceptance, learning enriching insights from one another. We are realizing that at the heart of it all is our common humanity originating from the same God although called by various names such as Yahweh, Allah, Baha (All-Glorious), and Krishna. This approach is so needed at this time in our country when there is so much division. The more we share together, the more I find we share in common. In the year ahead, I hope to celebrate a worship service at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Islamic mosque, Temple Israel, and a Hindu temple in order to appreciate each faith’s reverence and love for God.