Peace & Justice

For those of us on the front lines of Catholic health care delivery, health care is everyone’s right as surely as the right to breathe and the right to eat. It is why we so strongly believe healthcare reform is necessary now.

And while not every American believes health care is a right, no righteous person would deny emergency medical care to anyone needing it. It is this contradiction that is resulting in one of the most politically controversial fights in our nation’s history.

The first anniversary of the economic collapse is not one anyone wants to mark, but we note it this week.

A year ago the news of Lehman Brothers’ collapse and AIG’s near collapse stunned our nation, led to a global economic crisis and was followed by an infusion of hundreds of billions of bailout dollars to preserve the country’s financial system.

Our Catholic Charities’ clients had made us well aware that an economic downturn was already underway, but we could not have fathomed what was about to occur last September. Nor could we envision the thousands of families who would seek assistance for the first time: they were now poor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Catholic Charities aid rose in 2009 and still rising in 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------