It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week the minimum wage family leave health insurance Social Security Medicare retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.

Parents need all the help they can get. The strongest as well as the most fragile family requires a vital network of social supports.

Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over the social relations and institutions of men to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

So when the only domestic social policy is tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans we say 'Where is faith being put into action here?'

In light of these facts Republicans have put forth a variety of proposals to make Social Security remain solvent for future generations. But up to this point Democrats have chosen to oppose our good faith efforts and insist that indeed there is no problem.

Whoever removes the Cross and its interpretation by the New Testament from the center in order to replace it for example with the social commitment of Jesus to the oppressed as a new center no longer stands in continuity with the apostolic faith.

My mother's family were full-on Irish Catholics - faith in an elaborate old fashioned highly conservative and madly baroque style. I sort of fell out of the tribe over women's rights and social justice issues when I was just 13 years old.

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.

By concentrating on what is good in people by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice and by asking them to put their faith in the future socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.