Catholics across the state and community organizers have joined forces to launch a campaign that promises to place thousands of Catholic voters at the polls as newly-empowered people of faith.

The California Faithful Citizenship Campaign is a joint effort between eight of the state’s Catholic dioceses and the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), formed in response to the U.S. bishops’ call for Catholics to participate more fully in the political process.

Setting as its initial target the upcoming presidential election in November, the campaign has enlisted the support of 88 parishes, including eight parishes in the Diocese of Sacramento.

Participating parishes are typically in low-income communities with significant immigrant populations and low voter turnout.

“Immigrants, a growing population in parishes, continue to live largely in poverty,” said Jim Keddy, director of PICO California, a coalition of church and community groups. “How they merge into the mainstream culture and economy directly has an impact on what happens to the church as an institution.”

Keddy said the spirit igniting the Faithful Citizenship Campaign is the U.S. bishops’ teachings on the role of Catholics in the public arena, drawn from their document: “Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility.”

The 8,500-word document, released in November 1993, is designed to offer a blueprint for electoral decisions based on basic themes of Catholic social teaching: life and dignity of the human person; call to family, community and participation; rights and responsibilities; option for the poor and vulnerable; dignity of work and the rights of workers; solidarity; and caring for God creation.

The model for the non-partisan campaign is based on a voter registration program developed by the Portuguese American Citizenship Project, a non-profit organization working with Portuguese Catholic churches on the East Coast and areas of California, which has dramatically increased voter participation over the past five years.

“It’s a systematic way to improve voting in local parishes where you can actually measure change,” Keddy said. “It’s one thing to have voter registration going on the steps of the church after Mass and another to be able to say we went from 50 percent of our parishioners registered to vote to 85 percent.”

Another impetus to the campaign was PICO’s review of a recent statewide study that showed immigrants vote far less regularly than non-immigrant whites. Conducted by the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California and released earlier this year, the study concluded that 60 percent of eligible white voters consider themselves regular voters compared to 38 percent of Latinos and 39 percent of Asian Americans.

Researchers found voting among first-generation immigrants especially low.

Leading the way in coordinating the Faithful Citizenship Campaign in the diocese is Elizabeth White, associate director of social service ministry. White was among those attending a statewide meeting and training session of diocesan social action directors and PICO affiliates (Sacramento ACT and Northern Valley Sponsoring Committee) held at the Diocesan Pastoral Center on Aug. 28.

“The key to this campaign is to get Catholics engaged in places where they are not,” said White, who explained the campaign is a long-range commitment which promises multiple dividends in years to come. “You have no power in the Capitol unless you can say, ‘We have registered voters in your district and we have something to say to you.’”

Faithful Citizenship Campaign activities began in earnest in July and August when PICO identified parishes in areas of low voter turnout where clergy and lay leaders wanted to participate and provided them with information about the campaign.

Individual parishes organize the campaign differently. Most form ad-hoc leadership committees. Pastors typically send parish membership lists to the Portuguese Citizenship Project, which processes the list and returns it to the pastor with an analysis of voting in the church.

Parishes may also send voter registration cards to every church member and arrange citizenship classes to be held at local church sites.

Post-election follow-up involves providing parishes with election analysis by the Portuguese American Citizenship Project to measure improvement in voting created by the campaign.

In Sacramento, four parishes targeted to increase Catholic voter turnout are St. Charles Borromeo, St. Joseph, St. Peter and All Hallows.

Msgr. James Church, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo and a leader in Sacramento ACT’s community organizing activities, said an informal parish survey indicated less than a third of parishioners voted in the most recent election.

“Minorities most impacted by legislation have the least participation,” said Msgr. Church, who estimates that of the parish’s approximately 2,500 families, about one third are Filipino and another third Latino. “If we get them involved in going to the polls, politicians are going to listen.”

John Burke, a member of St. Charles Borromeo Parish and Sacramento ACT, noted that involvement in the Faithful Citizenship Campaign is about good citizenship and living your faith.

“Politicians respond to two things: money and votes. At St. Charles, we don’t have a lot of money, but we do have votes,” said Burke, as he ticked off a list of concerns of the south Sacramento parish, including gangs, drugs and urban sprawl.

All four parishes have set up tables providing voter census forms in Spanish and English following several Masses. A letter sent to parishioners Sept. 13 encouraged them to fill out cards indicating voter status. All information provided for the survey is confidential — given only to the pastor and voter registration coordinator.

The Sacramento parishes also plan to set up voter registration tables in the future.

Another parish involved in the campaign is Sacred Heart Parish in Maxwell and its mission churches.

Mariana Huerta, 21, a member of Holy Cross Mission in Arbuckle, like many parishioners immigrated to California from Mexico. But it wasn’t until Alberto Velazquez, lead organizer of the Northern Valley Sponsoring Committee, arrived at Holy Cross to spread the word about the Faithful Citizenship Campaign that Huerta, a citizen since 1995, decided she wanted to vote.

“A lot of the members of Holy Cross are Mexicans — some are citizens, many are not eligible to vote,” said Huerta, who was recruited by Velazquez to work on the campaign. “We want to change the perception from ‘Nobody votes there so let’s move on’ to ‘We’d better give these people what they want or we won’t be elected.’”

Huerta, a student at California State University, Sacramento, is now recruiting other church members to join the campaign. She hands out voter registration cards following weekend Masses in Spanish and looks forward to casting her own first vote in November.

Velazquez involved two more parishes in the campaign in Colusa and Yuba City. At Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Colusa, he discovered that among Latino parishioners, 25 percent are citizens who participate and vote, 25 percent are citizens who don’t vote and approximately 50 percent are not citizens.

“We have to mobilize people to vote and show there is power in the Latino vote to change things in people’s communities,” Velazquez said.

At St. Isidore Parish in Yuba City, Father Manuel Soria, pastor, sees implementing the campaign with his parishioners as a worthy endeavor, since approximately 50 percent are Latino and many are not citizens.

“We want to provide opportunities for people to be more involved and more informed on the possibilities of becoming citizens, more involved in the life of the parish, the community and society,” Father Soria said.

Since the campaign was launched at St. Isidore a few weeks ago, more than 60 people have enrolled in citizenship classes scheduled to start this month.

Father Soria has set as a priority of the campaign reaching out to young people to provide them with incentives to stay in school and take their place as faithful citizens in the community.

Parishioner Laura Perez, 21, has not only signed up to attend citizenship classes, she has become actively involved in parish campaign activities to encourage others to vote.

“I want to make a difference, for people to hear me out and know what I think about issues,” said Perez, who volunteered to facilitate a voter survey and registration following Masses in Spanish. “People complain but don’t do anything about it. I want to do something about it.”

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