Catholic advocates are pressing Congress to make the needs of poor and vulnerable people a priority as legislators hammer out a federal spending plan for 2016. The advocates told Catholic News Service they want to prevent trillions of dollars in social services spending from disappearing over the next decade as Congress seeks to balance the federal budget and reduce the nation's growing debt. In meetings with individual members of Congress, they have stressed that the needs of hungry, homeless and unemployed people must be the country's highest priority. "There are millions of people at stake in these decisions," said Brian Corbin, senior vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA, which has joined with Catholic Relief Services and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in meetings on Capitol Hill. "They all have a name and a face and based on our principle of human dignity, that name and that face and that family, those really are important to making issues of poverty real." In a letter to each member of Congress Feb. 27, the chairmen of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and Committee on International Justice and Peace, reiterated that a budget is a moral document and that the needs of poor people are utmost despite the economic pressures posed by "future unsustainable deficits."
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...