Pro-Life

Human Life Protection Act
Death Penalty Abolition
Doctor Assisted Suicide
Support for Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Each and every human person was created by God, in His image and likeness. We’ve all been redeemed by His Son and are sustained by His love. Because of our divine origin and end, each of us has invaluable worth and unconditional dignity, no matter our capacity, state of life, or past actions. The value of human life is a gift; it is not something that can be lost or gained.

Society’s first duty is to protect and support human life, from the moment of conception until natural death. Our laws should build a culture of life and should protect the most vulnerable among us. Practices that undermine the value of human life—such as abortion, euthanasia, torture, embryo destruction—have no place in a just society. Simultaneously, public policy should strive to create the conditions for life at every stage to be lived in a manner consistent with our God-given dignity.

“It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.”
- Pope John Paul II

Pro-Family

Adoption Reform
Child Welfare and Protection Act
Family Rights and Responsibilities Act
Juvenile Protection from Porn

Marriage and family life is the basic unit of every society. A society is only as healthy, as stable, as energetic, and as imbued with moral values as its families. Take stable families away and Minnesota’s source of responsible citizens begins to dry up.

Both Church and state must link efforts to promote healthy marriages and family life. We support public policies that edify the importance of mothers and fathers in society and their distinct tasks in raising and nurturing healthy children.

Additionally, we seek to educate Catholics on the fullness of marital love by providing resources for strengthening marriages and families in the home, and at the parish and community level. When we have a better understanding of marital love, we see more clearly the nature of authentic social justice and what public policy, on whatever issue, we can and cannot faithfully support.

"Families are the domestic church where Jesus grows in the love of a married couple, in the lives of their children."- Pope Francis
 

First Amendment Rights

The Catholic Church believes that every person is created in the “image of God.” We are made in the image of a community of persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our God-given human rights develop and thrive in community.

Our human dignity is both personal and social. We need one another to grow, to prosper and to reach our full potential.

This basic teaching is not alien to Americans. Our Declaration of Independence pronounces: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The declaration goes on to acknowledge that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted.”

Rights must be protected, upheld, and enabled not only in Minnesota, or even just the United States, but worldwide. Because God created mankind to live free and worship Him, we must help ensure every person is given the freedom to fulfill this core human right.

Education Reform

Education Savings Accounts
Special Needs Tax-Credit Scholarships
Tax-Credits for Homeschool Families
Motto Act
Parental Refundable Credit
Open Enrollment
No Porn - Innapropriate Children Book in Libraries
School Safety Measures

Humans strive for heaven by being part of social communities on earth. Understanding one’s cultural heritage and making contributions to the common good are the responsibilities of any good citizen.

Therefore, education is an inalienable human right, insofar as it is the process of preparing children to pursue salvation and contribute to the good of their earthly community. Parents have the duty of being the primary educators of their kids. Because of this serious responsibility, they have a right to great liberty in shaping the education of their children. While other institutions, including public schools, may share in the responsibility of educating a child, they do so with the implicit permission of a child’s parents, and should never supersede or marginalize parents in the education process.

We support public policies that support the role of Catholic schools and other non-public education institutions in South Carolina, and that affirm the rights of all parents to choose schools that best fit the educational needs of their children. We advocate for the equitable participation of non-public school students in state and federal education programs.

"A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students become saints."- Pope Paul XVI
 

Poor & Vulnerable

Predatory Lending
Fair Banking Practices
Expansion of Healthcare Services

Public policy has a role to play in creating a more just society, where all peoples are able to access what is due to them as creatures made in the image and likeness of God. Private charity is essential, but given man’s fallen state, must be supplemented with laws and initiatives that address the needs of the poor and vulnerable. Our policies should aim to merely to provide material goods to people; they should also help people fully participate.

The preferential option for the poor and vulnerable is not optional. A basic moral test for society is measuring how we treat the most vulnerable in our midst. Poverty is not simply a lack of basic food and financial resources. It also includes deeper deprivations, such as:

• Denial of full participation in the economic, social, and political life of society.
• The inability to influence decisions that affect your life
• A lack of access to basic healthcare 
• An absence of opportunities to help ourselves, through such means as employment opportunities with fair wages

Human Person & Dignity

Protect Minors from Sex Change

God created us male or female. Our biological sex is not an accident. It is a gift from God and shapes how we participate in His self-giving love.

Gender theory, or transgender ideology, ignores the gifted reality of male and female and neglects the dignity of the human person. It continues to spread in our society: in our media and our schools, our laws, and our healthcare standards. The results are disturbing and include psychological distress and self-harm for those indoctrinated into believing that their body and self are at odds with each other.

The Catholic Church opposes the advancemnt of gender theory, especially in places where our youth is affected. Instead of harmful, unscientific approaches to gender and sexuality, we advocate for practices that help people struggling with gender identity disorders find healing and integration. We are also focused on protecting the conscience rights and religious liberties of those persons and organizations who refuse to embrace harmful gender ideologies. 

"God created them in His own image; male and female He created them." - Genesis 1:22

Immigration Reform

Every human person has the right to support themselves and their family. But poverty, persecution, and disaster can make life impossible in one’s native land. The rights and dignity of migrants should be seriously considered when crafting migration policy. The fact that millions of people have entered our country illegally must be tempered by the reality that our immigration system is broken, and has failed to justly respond to the needs of those fleeing perils.

At the same time, however, nations have a right—and a duty—to regulate their borders. And immigrants also have duties to a country that receives them. “Open border” cosmopolitanism is not the goal. Rather, a just and well-regulated immigration system that prioritizes upholding the law, safety, families and relief from suffering is. We must strive for comprehensive reform to our broken immigration system while taking commonsense measures to integrate immigrants already living among us into our communities.

"I was a stranger, and you welcomed me."- Matthew 25:35

Human Trafficking

Safe Harbor Laws

Many vulnerable adults and children have been trapped in modern-day slavery. Human trafficking is a terrible crime against the dignity of the human person involving the “recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons by means of force, fraud or coercion,” as defined by the United Nations Protocol on Human Trafficking.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “the seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason—selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian—lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit.” (2414)

Anti-trafficking laws and programs should be strengthened to discourage the growth of this trade, and support networks for both labor- and sex-trafficking victims should be created and funded. We support legislation that adheres to these efforts and seeks to uphold the dignity and rights of the human person.

“The trade in human persons constitutes a shocking offense against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights. . . Such situations are an affront to fundamental values which are shared by all cultures and peoples, values rooted in the very nature of the human person.” - St. Pope John Paul II

Criminal Justice

Fentanyl Felony
First Offense DUI Interlock
Criminal Reform
Drug Recovery Housing

Our criminal justice system is based on the assumption of free will. If we believe someone has freely chosen ot commit criminal act, they must accept the consequences for their actions. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that civil punishment for crimes must serve three principle purposes: 1) the preservation and protection of the common good of society, 2) the restoration of public order, and 3) the restoration or conversion of the offender. 
Our criminal justice system must protect the innocent, secure the public, and reform the offender. 

"Justice requires that to lawfully constitutued authority there be given that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws." - Pope Pius XI