Catholic in the City: A Woman's Journey to Living Out Her Faith

This last week I shadowed the Center for Immigration & Citizenship Legal Assistance at Catholic Charities. Interesting enough parts of the Arizona SB-1070 law took affect on Thursday. It was a great week for me to ask a lot of questions and learn a lot about our broken immigration system. I have avoided the topic of immigration in previous blogs because of the tense political climate in the US around immigration for as long as I have known. So rather than feed the frenzy I am going to just tell a few stories. Nine months ago Catholic Charities was introduced to a refugee Cuban family consisting of two people, a mother and her adult son. Legally, after one year and one day of being a refugee in the US (with proper documentation) refugees can petition for legal permanent resident (LPR) status. The paperwork process for Catholic Charities and the clients in these cases are usually not difficult because refugees have been with Catholic Charities for quite some time and Catholic Chariti

This is the end of my second week at Catholic Charities in Albuquerque and I am loving it. I am learning a lot. My first week I shadowed the Center for Self-Sufficiency and Housing Assistance. This last week I shadowed the Center for Refugee Settlement and Support. I am shadowing all of the Centers at Catholic Charities so that I can go out and educate the community on Catholic Charities and Catholic Social Teaching - the tenants that are the mission and vision of the organization. For me to give these presentations around the Archdiocese of Santa Fe I myself need to know what Catholic Charities does, hence, my 5-6 weeks of shadowing and researching. This week at the Center for Refugees my heart has been broken. A refugee according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines a refugee as a person who has fled his/her country of origin/residency and who is unwilling/unable to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, polit

It's been a while since I have posted a blog! So many good things have happened in the last few months that have made me quite busy! I got married to the love of my life, Mike. We went on a wonderful honeymoon to Maui. I discerned to leave Newman as the Director of Campus Ministry to pursue my passion and deep calling for social justice. And by the grace of God, tomorrow, I am starting a new job with Catholic Charities as the parish and faith community outreach liaison. In this position I will be teaching Catholic Social Teaching and spreading the mission of Catholic Charities to both Catholic & other Christian Churches in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. I immensely feel the love of God. One new thing that I am involved in is starting a Cristo Rey High School in Albuquerque! There are 24 successful Cristo Rey High Schools in cities throughout the country. These schools provide a private, Catholic, college preparatory education to students who otherwise cannot afford this type of