Building a Common Future

Commentary: While I value the perspective of my fellow whole-life advocates and highly regard their work, I have no plans to petition the Biden-Harris administration to make abortion illegal. And this is not because I favor abortion.

Watch: NCR's Olga Segura hosts a conversation with Dwayne David Paul of the Collaborative Center for Justice and Michael Vazquez of the Human Rights Campaign about the advice they'd offer to President Joe Biden.

Commentary: To build back better, we must restore our economy so that working people and families are centered, and equality, justice and equity are prioritized for the good of all.

Commentary: I am that rarity, a Catholic Native American. With Joe Biden as president, I can now breathe, relax and have faith again in our government. But now the real work must begin. From a Native American rights perspective, I ask that our rights be once again honored and respected.

Commentary: At the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency, we urge an effort to restore and advance the American tradition of pluralism, and to call on all of us to honor each other's dignity.

Commentary: Biden knows the benefits of the Catholic education he received. We need him to acknowledge that Catholic schools contribute to our nation's greatness and the U.S. is a better place because of them.

Watch: NCR's Heidi Schlumpf and Michael Sean Winters join Sr. Simone Campbell and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine for a conversation about the inauguration of President Joe Biden and NCR's Building a Common Future series.

Commentary: President Joe Biden's record shows he highly values Catholic social teaching, and it is in social teaching that we will find common ground to build sensible policies toward LGBTQ persons, a part of the body of Christ.

Commentary: Donald Trump had no grasp of the value of democracy and no ability to employ the symbolic power of his job to fulfill his responsibility as head of state. Joe Biden needs to fill that void.

Commentary: The hundreds of thousands of lives lost to COVID-19 are not the only tragedy from this pandemic, which is exacerbating the already undeniable realities of hunger, poverty and food insecurity in the U.S.

Commentary: Our country's more than 13,000 school districts continue to run up against a wall that suggests we shouldn't educate every child equitably and humanely. It's time for us to live out our stated values.

Commentary: The majority of U.S. Catholics, including President-elect Joe Biden, understands that supporting pro-LGBTQ policies is in direct alignment with Catholic teaching on the common good.

In this video, executive editor Heidi Schlumpf talks with Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, about President-elect Biden's first 100 days.

Commentary: As president, Joe Biden should take the opportunity to save lives and make transformational change through executive action on firearms background checks and throughout the new administration.

Commentary: As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office during a devastating pandemic and defining moment for our country, it is time to protect and empower workers to exercise our right to organize and bargain.

Commentary: Going back to our pre-pandemic days is not good enough. Together, we must make the changes necessary to close the wealth gap that existed long before this pandemic.

Commentary: From the perspective of Catholic social teaching, one area in which Joe Biden might begin to address the divide and promote the common good would be a genuine engagement in the issues of rural poverty.

Commentary: The Biden administration must tackle systemic racism with the same urgency we would apply to rescuing someone who is drowning — people of color are in immediate, daily danger.

Commentary: The new administration needs to listen to the lived reality of people around the U.S. It is out of this politics of encounter that we can recover the sense of solidarity and commitment to the common good.

Commentary: As Joe Biden launches his administration's approach to international relations, he would do well to draw upon the values of Catholic social teaching and to absorb the insights of Pope Francis.

Commentary: The community policing model, recycled by politicians like Joe Biden for decades, promotes a dangerous vision of community that further marginalizes already vulnerable and overpoliced communities.

We say: Joe Biden's biography and political outlook are attuned to the fact that we as a nation must learn again how to look after one another. As Catholics, we can give advice to our president-elect.

Building a Common Future: As I await President Joe Biden's inauguration and think of the millions abandoning the dangers of one home in search for the safety of another, I recall the opening of Gaudium et Spes.