Their content usually informed me, sometimes inspired me, and always engaged me. The fact is that people have more power than they realize. In my years in the House, from 1971 - 1981, it was the massive outcry of the people after the Saturday Night Massacre which impelled the Congress to launch its inquiry into Watergate and President Nixon. It was the thunder of the Peace Movement that resulted in the defunding of the War in Vietnam by the Congress. And it was the impetus of the first Earth Day in 1970 that brought about the environmental revolutions in the Congress and in the country in the 1970's.
People of faith can play a crucial role in shaping public policy.
In fact, the churches in the U.S. have always been crusaders for the common good. The churches were a basic source of the Abolitionist movement beginning around 1800. The churches led the movement to obtain federal civil rights legislation, and religious bodies formed an essential link in the movement to end the war in Vietnam. We have a duty to communicate the Church's highly developed set of principles on social justice to federal and local legislators. Citizens should be knowledgeable and proactive on moral issues on which those who represent them in the Congress must vote.