Local individuals and groups can make a real difference. They are able to instill a greater sense of responsibility, a strong sense of community, a readiness to protect others, a spirit of creativity and a deep love for the land. - Pope Francis
In November 2018, the town of Paradise and surrounding areas in Butte County were ravaged by the worst wildfire in state history. Paradise itself was virtually obliterated and nearly 90 lives were lost in the Camp Fire, one of the nation’s deadliest.
At the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Tijuana, people see a big house at the top of a hill adjacent to a skyline-dominating steeple.
The big house is Casa Migrante. Next to it is the church of San Felipe de Jesus and a third building.
For more than 30 years, after people have grappled with the border’s harsh reality, Casa Migrante is a place where they can get immediate help and begin to re-establish a normal life.
After 30 years behind bars, Doris Frey stood at the threshold of freedom and hesitated. Life on the outside was now a life unknown.
“They opened the gate and I just stood there…What’s waiting for me out there?” recalls Frey.
Deeply buried in our society’s glittering bustle one of the most sordid crimes against humanity continues every day almost unnoticed – the sale of young girls for sex.
Pope Francis warned earlier in the year that, “modern forms of slavery are far more widespread than previously imagined, even – to our scandal and shame – within the most prosperous of our societies.”
An estimated 40 million people around the world are enslaved today. Most are held against their will for cheap labor, but a substantial number are held against their will for sex.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation manages more than thirty prisons in the state with a combined inmate population of over 130,000. The California Department of State Hospitals also runs five state hospitals, housing mental health patients who have some involvement in the criminal justice system.
As part of restorative justice, it is important that people living in these facilities have their religious needs met. Catholic Chaplains do just that.
“...Let us consider this: we are all immigrants on the journey of life, none of us has a fixed abode in this land, we all must go.” – Pope Francis (03/21/2015)
(PDF bulletin inserts in English and Spanish.)
Years before Pope Francis wrote about care for our common home in his encyclical, Laudato Si, the Diocese of Stockton was already practicing its own kind of environmental stewardship. Created in 2005, the Environmental Justice Project at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Stockton, has been tirelessly working for more than 10 years to help steward God’s creation.
(PDF bulletin inserts in English and Spanish.)
Today too, children are a sign. They are a sign of hope, a sign of life, but also a “diagnostic” sign, a marker indicating the health of families, society and the entire world. Wherever children are accepted, loved, cared for and protected, the family is healthy, society is more healthy and the world is more human. – Pope Francis
Parents of at risk youth ride a tidal wave of emotions: hurt, sadness, guilt, confusion. In a state of defeated silence, they come to Padres Unidos to understand critical parenting skills and how best to communicate and work with their children.
(PDF bulletin inserts in English and Spanish.)
Taxes. They come each year with precise predictability, yet are met by many with angst and foreboding. The fear of having to pay an unexpectedly large tax bill or for tax preparation services can be budget crushing, especially for low-income wage earners and others who constantly face financial hardships.
(PDF bulletin inserts in English and Spanish)
When Diana Campos first came to live in the U.S., she was only an infant.
“I was born in Mexico and arrived in the U.S. a year later. I have lived here my whole life,” said Campos.
“Growing up undocumented I became accustomed to what it felt like to be an Americanized Mexican living in a society that did not fully accept me. I graduated from high school in 2012 and found myself with acceptance letters to colleges that I could not attend. I found myself driving in fear of being pulled over without my license. A lack of a work permit made me feel useless and my future looked dark,” she said. “I was stripped of basic rights, I, as a person of faith, knew every person was born with.”
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