'Pro-life, pro-poor' lawmakers rare but seek them out, activists told

Published: 2006-02-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A major political challenge facing Catholics is finding the rare legislators who are "pro-life and pro-poor," said John Carr, head of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Social Development and World Peace. "We need to find the exceptions and support the exceptions," he said Feb. 13 at a plenary session of the 2006 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering. "We believe that life begins at conception but does not end there," he told 500 people involved in Catholic social ministry programs gathered from around the United States. The theme of the Feb. 12-15 gathering in Washington was "Bringing Good News to a Broken World." The annual meeting also included wrap-around sessions held Feb. 10-11. Carr said that Catholic public policy positions are nuanced and do not fall into the current polarized divisions of right versus left and Democrat versus Republican. "We are not the Democratic Party of prayer," he said. "We are not the religious caucus of the Republican Party."

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