Texas Catholic Conference

I spent Monday making a quick trip to Austin, to attend a meeting of the bishops of Texas. We meet a couple of times a year to discuss matters related to the Texas Catholic Conference. What is the Texas Catholic Conference, you ask? Well, under the auspices of the Catholic Bishops of Texas, the TCC works to help coordinate matters of state-wide concern to the Church. The TCC has departments involving Catholic Schools, Religious Education, Charity and Justice, Family Life, and Tribunal Affairs. Persons who work in these areas in their local dioceses meet periodically to coordinate strategies and to discuss matters of ongoing concern to the Church.

Pictured above at yesterdays meeting (they were sitting across from me, and hence easy target for the picture), left to right, Bishop James Tamayo of Laredo, Bishop Patrick Zurek of Amarillo, Bishop Mark Seitz, Auxiliary Bishop of Dallas, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, and Jennifer Carr Allmon, Associate Director of the TCC.

The TCC is also the principal way the Bishops of Texas express our common perspective on matters of public policy in the State of Texas. This is an expression of our responsibility to promote the common good of all people in our communities, state-wide. Thus, the bishops work to articulate the position of the Church on matters of before the Texas Legislature. In fact we spent a good amount of our time yesterday discussing the upcoming agenda of the Texas Legislature.

It is worthwhile to check on the TCC website periodically, (http://www.txcatholic.org/index.php) especially for information and action alerts on public-policy issues being discussed in Texas. It is a good way to keep informed about our concerns as Catholics in Texas for the protection of human life and dignity, justice for immigrants, matters involving our criminal justice system in Texas, as well as family life issues, education issues, health and human services, and of course our ever-present concern as Catholics for the poor and forgotten in our society.

We all have a responsibility to stay informed about what is happening in public policy in our State, and in our nation, to work to promote policies that build up the good in the areas I just mentioned. The TCC is a valuable resource for all Catholics in the State to help us all do just that, build up the good.