2025 Public Policy Agenda
2025 Public Policy Agenda
In faithfulness to our mission “to bring the healing, help, and hope of Jesus Christ to those in need with a compassionate, caring presence,” Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis (CCSTL) advocates for public policies that assist those we serve and others facing similar social, economic, and cultural challenges in pursuit of human flourishing. This public policy agenda affirms a core value at CCSTL that states every person is made in the image and likeness of God, possessing inherent human dignity. In 2025, we will focus our advocacy efforts on CCSTL’s lines of service to our community as follows:
Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance
Recovery from a disaster is a long-term project that requires resources and case management. CCSTL will stand in solidarity with those who are the victims of a natural or other major disaster by advocating for Missouri to establish and fund a disaster preparedness plan that is able to address immediate needs following a disaster, and by working with federal, state, and local authorities to provide the funds, supplies, and support needed to allow victims to recover and get their lives back on track.
“I express my closeness to the populations stricken in recent days by natural disasters. … May the Lord receive the victims in his peace, console their relatives and support those who come to their aid.”
— Pope Francis, Sunday Angelus prayer, February 20, 2022
Providing Housing and Preventing Homelessness
The lack of affordable housing is one of the greatest challenges facing each of the 11 counties within the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Recognizing that housing is a basic human right, CCSTL will work to reduce homelessness by supporting programs such as the low-income tax credit program, advocating for additional funding to address homelessness, including through direct appropriations and Medicaid waivers, and opposing laws authorizing criminal sanctions for homeless individuals based solely upon their unhoused status.
“There is no social or moral justification, no justification whatsoever, for the lack of housing.”
— Pope Francis, address at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, District of Columbia, September 2015
Care for Families and Children
CCSTL is committed to helping build strong and healthy marriages, families, and children. We will advocate for revisions to the NAP and YOP tax credits to make them more attractive to donors. We will also work closely with state child welfare and foster care agencies, requesting increases in funding for residential foster care and other services we provide to children and families in crisis. We will also advocate for policies to assist families facing unplanned pregnancies and domestic violence.
“The family, the natural community in which human social nature is experienced, makes a unique and irreplaceable contribution to the good of society.”
— Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 213
Senior Care and Residential Living
Our seniors deserve to spend the last years of their lives living in a manner that respects their dignity as fellow members of the community. CCSTL will advocate in support of programs such as the circuit breaker tax credit program that allows seniors to remain in their homes. We will also support policies that provide seniors the healthcare they need as they age, opposing efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide.
“The throwaway culture says, ‘I use you as much as I need you. When I am not interested in you anymore, or you are in my way, I throw you out.’ It is especially the weakest who are treated this way — unborn children, the elderly, the needy, and the disadvantaged.”
— Pope Francis, Sunday Angelus address, January 29, 2023
Multicultural Community Services
The Archdiocese of St. Louis is home to migrant communities that need and deserve our support. CCSTL will work with federal, state, and local authorities to support migrants and refugees seeking to make Missouri their home, including supporting legislation that would allow DACA students to pay in-state tuition at Missouri universities. We will also support efforts at the federal level to reform the immigration system in concert with the U.S. bishops.
“Immigrants are to be received as persons and helped, together with their families, to become a part of societal life.”
— Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 298
Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Good health is a combination of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. CCSTL will advocate to sustain and increase funding for mental health and substance abuse services and treatment, and support efforts to increase access to mental healthcare services in underserved and rural areas of the Archdiocese.
“It is necessary to ‘fully overcome the stigma that mental illness is often tainted with.’”
— Pope Francis, address in Rome, June 25, 2021
Workforce Development and Reducing Poverty
The poverty rates in certain urban and rural parts of the Archdiocese of St. Louis are well above the state average. We will work with state and local authorities and other stakeholders to promote job readiness and training programs that increase access to employment for those seeking jobs. We will also support state funding for “benefits cliff” legislation passed in 2023 and oppose legislation that would cut funding for or impose work requirements on Medicaid or food stamp (SNAP) recipients.
“Human work not only proceeds from the person, but it is also essentially ordered to and has its final goal in the human person.”
— Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 272
Community Education and Advocacy
For democracy to flourish, ordinary citizens need to understand our system of government and their important and unique role in sustaining it. CCSTL will educate fellow Catholics and people of good will on the basic tenets of democracy, and the role citizens play in making it work. We will also encourage people of faith to participate in democracy by making their voices heard before local, state, and federal authorities on issues of importance to CCSTL and the Archdiocese.
“We Christians cannot play the part of Pontius Pilate and wash our hands. We must participate in politics because politics is one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good.”
— Pope Francis, address to the Jesuit Schools of Italy and Albania, June 7, 2013