By Jeffery Patterson, Executive Director, Texas Catholic Conference

When the final gavel brought the 82nd Texas Legislature to an end, folks around the Capitol collectively sighed in relief.   Yet, in truth, the end of session marked only the start of the work that our communities and our parishes face in addressing these stark new fiscal realities.

The session started inauspiciously, with a $27 billion budget gap and a lot of uncertainty.  In six months of heated debate, lawmakers made a number of difficult funding decisions and nearly every agency saw its budget restructured.  Now the implications and consequences of those decisions  are filtering out across the state to agencies and directors, school boards and students, hospitals and  doctors, courts and police, nonprofits and religious organizations, and countless others who keep our state functioning.

What does this mean to people of faith?  Well, prayer is always first and foremost.  But, as Catholics, we are also obligated to pursue a moral and reasoned approach to taking action in our daily lives, especially when it involves our normative civic responsibilities.  This is the core to which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has attached the term “Faithful Citizenship.”  Each of us possesses and nurtures a strong conscience grown from our faith which recognizes the moral quality of our actions and obliges us to follow what we know to be just and right.

Optimally, our Catholic faith should be virtually indistinguishable from our community responsibilities as Texans.  As people of both faith and reason, we are called to bring truth to political life and to practice Christ’s commandments. As  Pope Benedict XVI, proclaimed in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, “charity must animate the entire lives of the lay faithful and therefore also their political activity, lived as ‘social charity.’”

Texas' current financial situation challenges us to exercise 'social charity' as faithful citizens engaged in the public issues of our time. In the coming weeks and months, countless state legislative committees and agency commissions will host public hearings about the current state of budgetary and programmatic issues.  School boards, county commissioner courts, city councils, nonprofit charities, and religious organizations also will be seeking your time, effort, and involvement in meeting the needs of your schools, communities, and parishes.  Perhaps most importantly, the upcoming elections offer an opportunity to express your voice and your vote in supporting candidates and causes addressing these common challenges.

Now is the time when we should reaffirm our commitment to educating ourselves, keeping informed, and praying for guidance for our complex moral and social issues.  Our faith offers an integral unity that calls Catholics to defend human life and human dignity whenever they are threatened. Our concern for the poor, for the protection of family life, for the pursuit of justice, and for the promotion of peace, are all fundamental priorities of the Catholic moral tradition.

Of course, in ensuring a faithful approach to fulfilling these obligations I encourage everyone to subscribe to the Texas Catholic Voice, a free e-newsletter produced by the Texas Catholic Conference which provides information on public issues relevant to our faith as well action alerts and other materials regarding  the Texas Bishops' positions on important moral and social issues. While at the Texas Catholic Conference website, feel free to look around at some of the other materials we have to offer and opportunities to participate in "faithful citizenship."

For more information on the Texas Catholic Conference visit www.TXcatholic.org. You can learn more about Faithful Citizenship at www.faithfulcitizenship.org.