Making My Catholic Voice Heard

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Looking at American society today, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the social issues that run counter to Catholic teaching: abortion, the death penalty, physician-assisted suicide, shunting aside the needs of the poor, to name just a few.

It’s also easy to put all these intentions into a prayer and say, “I’ve done my part.” But even as far back as St. James, that attitude was scorned. If a sister or brother doesn’t have food or clothing, he asked, what good is it to respond with “Go in peace” rather than by seeing to their needs?

Today, one take on that question easily could be, “What good is it to pray for an end to abortion if we don’t provide a desperate mother with the resources to care for her child once it is born?” Are we willing to help parishes in our diocese implement the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Walking with Moms in Need” program, which helps connect pregnant and parenting women with the resources they need? Even more than simply preparing a list of resources for a mother in need, are we willing to help her access those resources by assisting her in filling out the necessary forms to show she’s qualified to receive them? Are we willing to arrange transportation to medical appointments, or facilitate day care or grocery shopping or pitch in with any of the other chores that face such a mom?

“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” St. James wrote in his epistle.

Unfortunately, sometimes Catholics are perceived as spouting words against abortion but failing to offer any help to struggling mothers. Sometimes we’re seen as being “pro-birth” rather than “pro-life” – caring about a child in the womb but not once he or she is born, as Deacon Greg Werking noted in his homily at last Saturday’s Respect for Life Day, a diocesan event held at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church and online.

But Catholics are called not just to pray but also to show God’s love, to be God’s eyes and hands, the deacon pointed out.

“Want to show God’s love to a young mother?” he asked. “Be there when she’s scared. Be there when she is lonely and feels abandoned.”  

One very quick way to help young mothers is to contact your state representatives to ask them to support HB220, which would expand Medicaid coverage for pregnant and postpartum women with a household income less than or equal to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which equates to someone earning roughly $12 an hour at a fulltime job. To put this in perspective, currently, a single woman in Utah who earns $8.92 or more an hour doesn’t qualify for Medicaid, even though on that wage she couldn't afford rent in today's housing market.

Several other bills in front of the legislature also provide the opportunity to raise your Catholic voice in the public square. There’s a proposal to end the death penalty in Utah – Church teaching is that no human being can be artificially denied the opportunity to reconcile with God. For those who argue that the death penalty is simply justice, it’s worth noting that from 1999 to 2016 prosecutors in Utah sought the death penalty in 165 cases. Of those, only two resulted in death sentences, “so to say it’s justice for families is to say that 163 families got no justice,” my colleague Jean Hill says.

It’s simple to contact your legislator: their contact information is at le.utah.gov. Jean recommends keeping your message to legislators polite and brief, listing no more than three reasons why you're asking him or her to support or oppose a particular piece of legislation.

Jean suggests contacting legislators by email or text rather than snail mail because the session ends at midnight March 4.

I’ll also be contacting my legislators to ask that they support Governor Spencer Cox’s request for an appropriation of $128 million to go toward deeply affordable housing, so that people who make minimum wage can afford a place to live; and $100 million for permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless. As Catholics we are called to uphold the dignity of each person, and it is difficult for a person to maintain dignity with no place to lay his or her head.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.