For information regarding Catholic Charities' views and/or actions regarding current legislative issues, please contact Pat Dougherty, Senior Director of Advocacy, at (314) 367-5500 ext. 148 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

You can also engage in legislative issues by utilizing the tool below provided through Catholic Charities USA's website. To access this tool directly, click on the following link: http://capwiz.com/catholiccharitiesusa/home/.

Click here for a list of elected officials by region.

Click here for important issues, recent votes, current legislation, and more.

Click here to see election results compiled by state.

As Catholics, we are called to love our neighbor. Our response to those in need can take the form of direct assistance: food, clothing, housing, providing appropriate counseling and treatment services, etc. However, our responsibility does not end there. We are also called to address the larger questions: "Why are so many of God's children hungry, or homeless, or dressed in rags, or at war?" We have a responsibility, in other words, to use our eyes of faith to examine the larger root causes of social injustice.

Guided by the moral vision of the Scriptures and the Church's social teaching, Catholics have a responsibility to engage in the struggles for social and economic justice. We are called to bring our gospel values to bear on the public policies that shape our neighborhoods, communities, our nation and world. In 1971, the World Synod of Bishops called advocacy on behalf of social justice a "constitutive element" of the preaching of the Gospel. In 2003, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reiterated this point in their pastoral statement Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility when they wrote: