In his encyclical, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis writes, “An authentic faith . . . always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it. We love this magnificent planet on which God has put us, and we love the human family which dwells here, with all its tragedies and struggles, it hopes and aspirations, its strengths and weaknesses. The earth is our common home and all of us are brothers and sisters. If indeed the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics, the Church, cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.” (Evangelium Gaudii, 183)
We as Catholics must be involved in understanding the issues that confront our world today. In the light of the gospel, we need to reflect on what is going on in our society and use the means available to us to make our voices heard.
Here, on our website, we will invite you to “Take Action” in letting your voice be heard on issues that come before our local and national leaders. The issues that we invite you to reflect upon and give voice to are issues that come to our attention either through the New York State Catholic Conference” and through the “United States Catholic Conference of Bishops.”
- Summer, 2024: Equal Rights Amendment
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We want to alert you of the threat to Catholic values within the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to our New York State Constitution. The ERA may appear on the ballot for a popular vote, as soon as November 5, 2024. This state constitutional amendment, among other things, provides minor children with the fundamental right to abortion, chemical and later-term, as well as the fundamental right to engage in transgender medical interventions. The ERA empowers Courts to either uphold laws that ignore parental notice or consent or invalidate laws that require parental notice or consent for both of these life-ending or life-altering procedures. The ERA potentially erodes protections for churches and other religious institutions to teach beliefs that run contrary to these newly created fundamental rights. The so-called ERA reads as though it simply promotes ‘freedom and justice for all,’ but it potentially harms children, families, and religious institutions; its impacts are far reaching. NY statutes already protect against the horrors of discrimination as does our current NYS Constitution. The ERA goes further, by not only eroding parental authority and crystallizing ‘rights’ for children that could be dangerous for them, but by threatening the ability of churches and other religious institutions to promote principles misaligned with radical reproductive and gender ideology. The Coalition to Protect Kids-NY is a ballot issue committee missioned to defeat passage of the ERA. Click here to learn more about the Coalition to Protect Kids-NY
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