A COVID relief bill

 Last August, Pope Francis said that the current pandemic “has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected everyone is. If we do not take care of one another, starting with the least, with those who are most impacted, including creation, we cannot heal the world.” 

With that in mind, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued some guidance on what a COVID relief bill should contain. In doing so, they noted that the USCCB “has consistently advocated for Congress to address peoples’ need for food, housing, health care, employment and income support, and safety in prisons and detention facilities.” They said that relief legislation passed by Congress last year has been a lifeline for families and individuals struggling to make ends meet. Still, they say, more is needed to reach all sectors of society and ensure that help lasts for the duration of the economic crisis.

In the area of hunger and nutrition, the bishops praise increases to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which they say is a proven way to combat this food insecurity, delivering resources directly to low-income households. They also call for continued investments in vital nutrition programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) which will also help respond to food insecurity that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

 

To help the millions more at risk of losing their homes due to the resulting economic crisis, the bishops are requesting robust investments in Emergency Solutions Grants, emergency rental assistance, housing counseling services, and mortgage payment assistance as well as greater eviction and foreclosure preventions will help address the health and housing needs of America’s lowest-income renters and people experiencing homelessness.

 

Because millions of people have lost their health insurance coverage during the pandemic, individuals have a need for affordable healthcare coverage. Necessary efforts to provide such coverage should ensure no federal funding goes to health care plans that cover abortion, the bishops said. Expanding Medicaid resources for states and tribes is an important tool to respond to public health needs while avoiding cuts to healthcare or other vital services. We also need to address racial inequities in healthcare, which existed in many forms before the COVID-19 crisis and “have manifested in disturbingly disproportionate rates of coronavirus infection and death in patients of color.” Additional resources to methods of care for low-income and historically marginalized communities are examples of the type of investments needed. The bishops note that, as is even more clear in a pandemic, the exclusion of some from health care threatens the health of all.

 

To learn more, and to see what other issues should be addressed in any COVID relief bill, go here.

One of the world's most solvable problems

Calling hunger "one of the world's most solvable problems," the Vatican's representative to the United Nations said that it is "a shame that so many of the poor people in the world continue to find themselves helpless victims of chronic hunger." Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, spoke to a U.N. General Assembly meeting on sustainable development goals.

He also described world hunger and malnutrition as "all the more egregious when we grasp the reality that malnutrition remains the world's biggest health risk -- claiming more victims each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined."

The archbishop called the lack of access to adequate food and nutrition "a moral and humanitarian crisis exacerbated by manmade policies and practices" such as failing to provide access to markets for producers in developing countries, diverting food resources from consumption to energy production, waste of food resources and armed conflicts.

"In face of the world's hungry, the grotesque spectacle of foodstuffs being forcibly destroyed in order to preserve higher market prices for producers, primarily in developed countries, constitutes a reprehensible practice which prioritizes economic profit over the needs of those starving,"

You can read more here.

Freedom from hunger?

An alert reader sent us a link to yesterday's News Briefs from Catholic News Service, which reported on the Pope's statement on hunger:

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for immediate and long-term relief for the world's hungry, saying the right to adequate nourishment is a fundamental part of the right to life. The hunger crisis that affects millions of people today is a sign of the deep gulf between the haves and the have-nots of the world and calls for changes in lifestyle and in global economic mechanisms, the pope said in a message marking World Food Day Oct. 16.

. . .

"Freedom from the yoke of hunger is the first concrete manifestation of that right to life which, although solemnly proclaimed, often remains far from being effectively implemented," he said. The theme of this year's World Food Day focused on food prices, and the pope said current pricing volatility reflected the tendency toward speculation on food commodities. He said a new global attitude is needed. "There are clear signs of the profound division between those who lack daily sustenance and those who have huge resources at their disposal," he said. Given the dramatic nature of the problem, reflection and analysis are not enough -- action must be taken, he said.

The entire news brief is here. It is the fourth item listed.