Social Justice

Priority Issues

Racial Justice, Human Trafficking,
Gun Violence, and Juvenile Delinquency.

“May the Spirit of God accompany us all, govern and assist us so that in all places we fulfill His Holy and Perfect Will.”

-Saint Katharine Drexel

"Love does not consist of great sweetness of devotion, but in a most fervent determination to strive to please God in all things."

Saint Katharine Drexel

Voting Rights Resources

Voter suppression laws that disproportionately impact people based on their race or ethnicity, gender, age, or income are developing all over the country at an alarming pace. If we don’t fight back, more and more Americans will become disenfranchised and lose their voice in our democracy.

These “Resource Groups” may assist voters to fight back against proposals across the country that make it harder to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot. Whether it’s extreme identification requirements, questionable purges of voters from the rolls, voter intimidation, new and extreme voter registration processes, or anything that makes voting harder, they are there to lead the fight against it.

www.aclu.org/issues/voting‐rights

www.advancingjustice.aajc.org/election2020

www.brennancenter.org/issues

www.commoncause.org

www.866ourvote.org/resources

www.fairfight.com

https://www.lwv.org/

www.letamericavote.wpengine.com/about

https://naacp.org/find-resources/know-your-rights

www.ncai.org/policy‐issues

www.socialjusticeresourcecenter.org

www.thekingcenter.org

www.spreadthevote.org

www.whenweallvote.org

www.vote.org

 

Legislative Resources

Here are a few simple things you can do to make sure your correspondence gets to the White House, your U.S. Representative, or U.S. Senator as quickly as possible:

Sending a letter to the White House:

  • If you write a letter, please consider typing it on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of
  • If you hand-write your letter, please write as neatly as possible with an ink
  • Include your return address on your letter as well as on your
  • If you have an email address, please share it with us
  • And finally, please be sure to write on the outside of your mailing envelope the complete address to make sure your letter gets to them as quickly as possible:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500

Sending a letter to your U.S. Congressman:

Find Your U.S. Representative

Not sure of your congressional district or who your member is? This service will assist you by matching your ZIP code to your congressional district, with links to your member’s website and contact page – https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative.

Find Your U.S. Senator

Not sure who your Senate member is? This service will assist you by matching your State to your Two (2) Senators, with links to your Senator’s contact page –

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Contact Your Elected Officials

Locate your City, County, and Town Officials

The SBS Social Justice Committee’s Book of the Month recommendation is:  

“NIGHT” by Elie Wiesel

Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiecea candid, sometimes horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author’s original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man’s capacity for inhumanity to man. “Night” offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

The book is available as an Audiobook, Hardbound, Paperback or Kindle at Amazon using the link below.

Night (Night): Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel, Elie Wiesel: 9780374500016: Amazon.com: Books

Please see the below Alert from the Sisters of Mercy asking members of Congress urging them to cosponsor the Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act.

Sincerely, 

SBS Social Justice Committee

Childhood, given its fragile nature, has unique and inalienable needs. Above all else, there is the right to a healthy and secure family environment. … They have the right to be children.

—Pope Francis, Message for the 103rd World Day of Migrants & Refugees, 13 October 2016

Help Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth

Dear SBS and ASBS,

Please click here to write to your Congressional representative and senators, urging them to cosponsor the Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act.  Due to legal categories for immigration applicants, children in urgent need of protection who already qualify for permanent residence must wait years to receive permanent residence. The Protect Vulnerable Immigrant Youth Act would remove the cap on the number of children we can protect in this way. Contact your legislators today!

 

Working together to welcome everyone,

 

Mercy Justice Team

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
Assembly 2022
In Communion, we embrace God’s Promise

Attentive to God’s call we move forward, promoting racial, social, and ecological justice through collaboration among ourselves; with and for others.

Document of SBS “Share the Bread” …address to a greater extent the structual causes of social injustices. …relationship between racism, economic injustices and militarism and to see their interconnectedness locally, nationally and globally.

One of Catholic Social Teaching’s principles, The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, says “The economy must serve people, not the other way around.  Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.  If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organize and join unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.”

How can we help ensure the dignity of work and rights of workers?   We can purchase fair trade products; in the upcoming holiday seasons, when cocoa and chocolate are staples, we can purchase online or locally fair trade products from one or more of the companies listed at the end of this reflection.

By purchasing fair trade products, we avoid chocolate produced through the exploitation of child labor. Fair trade is a system of certification that aims to ensure a set of standards are met in the production and supply of a product or ingredient. For farmers and workers, fair trade means workers’ rights, safer working conditions and fairer pay.

Fairtrade changes the way trade works through better prices, decent working conditions and a fairer deal for farmers and workers in developing countries.
https://www.fairtrade.net/about

sistersagainsttrafficking.org

 

 


Social Justice Committee: Gary Scott, ASBS, Chairperson; Sr. Faith Okerson, SBS Leadership; Joyce Hadley, ASBS; Hilda Wiltz, ASBS; Kathy Scott, ASBS; Madeline Tymes, ASBS; Ernest Tymes, ASBS;  Sr. Geraldine Mikulec, SBS; Sr. Patricia Rogan, SBS; Sr. Patricia Downs, SBS

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