by Porsia Tunzi
The Sisters of Mercy’s Institute Justice Team has published a free, 16-page, non-partisan voters’ guide with the hope of promoting public discourse about the 2012 presidential and state elections in the United States.
The guide offers thought provoking, interpretive questions for people to consider while they contemplate their voting choices. The guide is built upon six areas of interest captivated by the mission and concerns of over 3,600 Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. These areas include: poverty, earth, immigration, nonviolence, racism and women.
For more than 180 years, the Sisters of Mercy, founded by Catherine McAuley, have sponsored or served in more than 200 organizations in the United States, Central and South America, Jamaica, Guam and the Philippines.
“The public discourse needs the voice of Mercy to inject compassion into the conversations on policy and on national priorities,” the Institute Justice Team states in the introduction to the guide.
At first the target audience for the guide was simply for the Sisters of Mercy, but it has spread throughout high schools, colleges and universities associated with the “Mercy family.”
“We are gratified on how well the guide is being received,” Marianne Comfort, a member of the Institute Justice Team, told NCR.
Professors have commented on the guide’s helpfulness and balanced perspective, Comfort continued.
The guide has been able to “get students to think of what they would want to ask candidates and get them thinking about their values and if those values align with any of the candidates,” Comfort told NCR.
To read the full guide, visit their website.
