What is Catholic Charities' role in helping to shape public policy?

Our prime role is to educate our parishes and others in the community with whom we have contact and with whom we collaborate around those principles. As a result we have held two forums, one in East Harlem and one in Port Chester over the past year, to educate concerning immigration reform. We have also participated in some of the recent activities, a forum at which Senator McCain spoke earlier in the spring at the headquarters of Local 32BJ, and the immigration rally at City Hall on April 10. We have met with our various elected federal officials for New York state to encourage them to support initiatives that accord with those principles. Since the immigration issue has been on the front burner of Congress for the past few months it was particularly timely that we went to Washington to speak with Senator (Hillary) Clinton and with Senator (Charles) Schumer's staff and with some of the representatives, including Rep. (Vito) Fossella from Staten Island and Rep. Serrano from the South ...