Hispanic Leader Calls on Catholic Immigrants to Transform American Politics

(Photo : Knights of Columbus)

At this year's annual conference of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL), Supreme Knight Carl Anderson of the Knights of Columbus will deliver a speech to the 100+ Hispanic business and civil leaders in attendance. His message is that Hispanic Catholics can and should come together to transform American politics by taking into consideration a number of key issues when voting during this election year.

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Anderson's speech is scheduled to take place on Friday August 24^th at 7:00PM at the Family Center of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, located at 7377 SW 64^th Street in Miami, FL. Key themes to be featured during his speech will be immigration and acknowledgement of political policies that are at odds with the core Catholic beliefs shared by many immigrants.

In his speech, Anderson will tell CALL that, as Hispanic Americans, "we should work to ensure that future generations of immigrants find a country that supports their values and not one that asks them to surrender their religious values at the border as the price of their admission."

He will call on CALL to consider strongly the many issues at hand when voting and discourage these leaders from voting for politicians whose policies are contradictory to core Catholic beliefs.

Anderson plans to point out to his contemporaries that "we all want and deserve a real solution" on immigration, which has not yet come to fruition despite work by politicians on both side of the political spectrum working toward achieving a fair balance. This issue is a major one at the core of the Hispanic Catholic population. It's progressed to the point that as many or more Mexican immigrants are returning to Mexico as are coming into the United States, according to recent Pew Foundation findings.

Anderson has garnered the attention of Pope Benedict XVI, who earlier this month demonstrated his support for the Knights of Columbus through a letter addressed to the Supreme Knight from the Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone.

"His holiness is confident that the [Knights of Columbus] Supreme Convention will carry on this distinguished legacy by providing sound inspiration, guidance and direction to a new generation of faithful and dedicated Catholic laymen," Tarcisio wrote.

The Knights of Columbus are a 1.8 million member strong group of individuals founded by immigrants and the sons of immigrants in the United States in 1882. They are dedicated to the principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. The group has also established councils in Mexico in 1905, in Cuba in 1909 and in Canada in 1897.