Welcome to Monday. As we head toward the Jan. 20 inauguration, NCR will publish a series of essays from prominent Catholic political and cultural leaders on what issues the Biden administration must prioritize in its first 100 days. The first essay is written by Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, asking President-elect Joe Biden to focus urgently on the care for refugees and asylum seekers.
Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, an exact year after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the United States.
In less than a year, more than 18 million cases have been confirmed in America, millions have lost their jobs, and thousands have pulled from retirement savings. The pandemic has tragically highlighted our nation's inequalities, but it did not create them.
"Building our common future: It's what the United States, indeed, the entire world needs right now," we write in our editorial. "Doing so involves a fight against the ideological curse that besets America today, the idea that if individuals simply pursue their own interest, defend their own freedom, and ignore or even deny the existence of any 'common' good, all boats will rise, the government will shrink as it should, and the people will be free from the shackles of imposed moral orders."
The NCR editors are allergic to any suggestion that ours is a "Christian nation." But that doesn't mean that we, as Catholics, can't give advice to our president-elect. To do so, NCR has inaugurated a series of essays from prominent Catholic political and cultural leaders on what issues the Biden administration must prioritize in its first 100 days.
You can read more of the editorial here.
More background:
In his essay for NCR's series on Building a Common Future, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia recalls the moment five years ago when Pope Francis spoke before Congress, with Kaine and then-Vice President Joe Biden in attendance.
Francis talked about our world facing a refugee crisis, a crisis that Kaine says has not abated.
"While the urgency to care for displaced persons hasn't diminished in the past five years, our government's capacity to welcome them in a Christ-like manner regrettably has," Kaine writes. "Children at the border are ripped from their mothers' arms. Migrants are detained in unlivable conditions where COVID-19 rampages. Young adults brought here as children have been thrust into a years-long legal limbo with the elimination of DACA in 2017. Hundreds of thousands of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients in our country remain in jeopardy as a result of efforts to terminate their protections. And religious bigotry masquerades as national security with the banning of travelers from multiple African and Muslim-majority nations."
You can read more of Kaine's essay here.
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Final thoughts
In preparation for the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking on Feb. 8, Global Sisters Report is hosting a conversation with Srs. Gabriella Bottani and Jean Schafer, both leaders among Catholic sisters working against human trafficking. You can register to attend this virtual event here.
Until Tuesday,
Stephanie Yeagle
NCR Managing Editor
[email protected]
Twitter: @ncrSLY
