I’m not alone: A 2018 study from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding found that one-third of Muslims in America are at or below the poverty line. In fact, Black Muslim households are more likely than any other racial group to earn less than $30,000 a year. Of course, Muslims are feeling the economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis, such as soaring unemployment. However, the pandemic is also changing how Muslims will practice their faith. This year, Muslims in the United States must adapt to a Ramadan under the shadow of the novel coronavirus.

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In early April, the Fiqh Council of North America, a body of Islamic scholars from the United States and Canada, wrote “masajids and Islamic centers shall strictly follow the health and state official guidelines for social gatherings and distancing.” These necessary guidelines mean Muslims will not have access to some of the usual spaces for community in Ramadan, including the masjid’s iftars. For Black Muslim hubs, like Philadelphia, where community leaders estimate the Muslim population to be at 150,000 to 200,000 — or 10 to 15 percent of the total population — a Ramadan under lockdown can have drastic impacts on the community.

In Philadelphia, five masjids are responding to the pandemic with Philly Iftar 2020 where volunteers will help deliver iftars. It is one way to ensure that those who normally rely on the masjid to provide iftar are able to still access that service. Qasim Rashad, Amir of the United Muslim Masjid (UMM), located ten blocks from Philadelphia’s City Hall, told TalkPoverty, “We do service a low-income population and we rely upon those who have greater resources to help us do that.”

Outside of Philadelphia, Muslims continue to worry about how their communities will fare. Aicha Belabbes, a Muslim living in Boston, shared that she was furloughed due to the pandemic and it has amplified some of her pre-existing concerns for her community.

“In Boston, there were iftars galore. If you needed food, there was always a place to go,” Belabbes told TalkPoverty. “Now, I think for students, for low-income people, for [essential workers like] delivery drivers, Uber drivers, there’s no longer those places of food. Ramadan served as an escape for so many people who had difficult relationships with their families and things like that and were able to find their safe spaces. Now, that’s no longer the case.”

Belabbes said pre-existing organizations who deliver food to Muslims have been “at capacity during the virus.” In addition, a food bank run out of a local Black masjid shut down after the imam showed COVID-like symptoms. Safiyah Cheatam, a Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist, also told TalkPoverty that go-to gathering spots in her city are no longer viable. Many in Cheatam’s community rely on masjids or Muslim-owned establishments like Nailah’s Kitchen, a Senegalese restaurant, for iftar and she sees a need for relief like the mutual aid grants popular on social media.

Masjids are not the only ones taking on the issue of food access. In Buffalo, New York, Drea d’Nur, an artist and mother of five, founded healthy and halal food pantry Feed Buffalo in 2018. She was inspired by her own experiences using food pantries where there were no halal options and few healthy foods. d’Nur told TalkPoverty, “In the discussion of building healthy communities, we stand on the truth that no one should be exempt from healthy food access despite health conditions or spiritual practices. It was important to me that Muslims have a space that honors the halal standard and that all are served with love.”

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Feed Buffalo is now functioning as an emergency food relief center for at least four hours every day of the week. In addition, the pantry will hold its second annual Ramadan Healthy Food Giveaway, where d’Nur estimates that Feed Buffalo provides 200 healthy food bags to fasting families, and commits to preparing soups for at least 50 families using ingredients from local farmers once a week.

Support for low-income Muslims in Ramadan extends past food alone. For example, while some Muslims may be able to access community by congregating with their families (or whoever else they’re already social distancing with) in their homes, this isn’t an option for everybody. Both Belabbes and Cheatam raised concerns over reports of rising domestic violence rates during the pandemic. Home may not be a safe space or, like myself, you may live alone and be the only Muslim in your family. Rashad shared that the UMM is conscious of this and will continue making plans to look after the spiritual needs of its community. Rashad said, “We want to keep and maintain that spiritual connection because spiritual mental health is important. We want to maintain their connection to Allah and their connection to the masjid.”

Belabbes hopes that the larger Muslim community understands issues amplified by the pandemic will not disappear when it ends. Belabbes said, “I’ve seen a lot of people saying, ‘I’ve never had to do things virtually.’ But a lot of Muslims who are marginalized had to do things virtually for a long time. I would like there to be an understanding that in the eyes of Allah, everyone’s equal, and everybody deserves to be seen equally in the community.”

Data on incarcerated Black Muslim women is slim, but reported cases of de-veiling date back at least 14 years. In 2005, Jameelah Medina was accused of being a terrorist by a Los Angeles County Sheriff and forced to remove her hijab. In 2017, Kirsty Powell settled a lawsuit with Long Beach for the “humiliation and distress” she suffered when her hijab was forcibly removed by police. Last year, the Council of American Islamic Relations in Michigan filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of Siwatu Salama-Ra, whose religious rights (including access to a hijab, Quran, and pork-free food) were violated while incarcerated.

These are only a scattering of cases, and more surely linger in the shadows. Unfortunately, not every case is reported, because doing so can lead to retaliation or long legal battles. Multiple groups have taken up fights to introduce changes across the country to address these problems, but the issue of violating Black Muslim women’s religious rights is deeper than policy.

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There is a legal precedent for allowing Muslim women to wear hijab while incarcerated. Along with the First Amendment guaranteeing religious freedom, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in 2000, which included protecting the religious rights of incarcerated people. However, that precedent has been difficult to apply to incarcerated Muslims due to Islamophobia embedded within the carceral system. As noted by CAIR Michigan staff attorney Amy Doukoure, there is no uniform policy across facilities regarding the right to wear hijab. Instead, Doukoure said, “When it comes to county facilities and state facilities, every county and every city has their own policy. Or a lot of them still have a lack of policy.”

This lack of policy leaves a lot up to discretion, which poses unique issues for Black Muslim women. Although Black Muslims make up a fifth of all Muslims in the United States, we occupy a tumultuous space. Black Muslims experience an anti-Black extension of Islamophobia rooted within the “afterlife of slavery”. Theorized by African-American literature professor Saidiya Hartman, it refers to the continued devaluation and dehumanization of Black lives, accomplished through a “racial calculus and political arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago.”

In some cases, the removal of Black Muslim women’s hijab is also linked to public shaming tactics. Educator and activist Angela Davis noted in “Are Prisons Obsolete?” that Black women are subject to regimes of punishment that differ greatly from those experienced by white women. Part of that includes publicly shaming or humiliating Black women, which is seen time and time again throughout the criminal justice system. The very existence of online mugshots and media usage of them is a great example and, for Black Muslim women, poses a unique concern.

In Maine, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office opened an internal investigation in 2016, after at least one Black Muslim woman — who was arrested at a protest — had a mugshot without hijab released to the media. In the opinion of other protesters, the decision to release the mugshots online was intentional.

When working on developing a policy in LA county, Margari Hill, co-founder and executive director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, noted that law enforcement tried to slip in vague wording to leave things up to their discretion, and advocated for having dual mugshots: one with hijab and one without.

That “dual mugshot” policy also exists in Michigan, where Doukoure said women are often told they can’t wear headscarves for identification purposes, adding, “You’re allowed to wear them in your driver’s licenses and you’re allowed to wear them in your passport photos, so why does the Michigan Department of Corrections need a higher standard than every other state and federal government agency?” Despite the Michigan Department of Corrections having a policy around hijabs in general, there is no rule preventing those photos from going online. If they do, it’s essentially impossible to remove them due to the difficulty of communicating with online search engines and convincing them to take the photos down, and the department itself.

The issue of having a mugshot without hijab going online is one I’m familiar with. According to a Ramsey County Public Information Officer, the county’s official policy since March 2014 has been, “We exchange [their hijab] for one of ours (to avoid any contraband issues). We take two pictures, one with and one without. The one without is confidential and never released.”

But similar to the Black Muslim women in Maine, I was arrested while protesting the police. While I was detained, I was told by a male officer that I needed to remove my hijab for my mugshot. I complied, because the process of getting booked and released takes hours. I was too tired to argue. Despite Ramsey County’s own policy, it was the only picture taken. That mugshot was later released online.

Groups have attempted to address the lack of policy within their own regions, which illuminated other factors at play. For instance, cultural ways of wearing hijab that are dominant in Black communities are not considered markers of one’s Muslim faith in the same way that they are for other communities.

In the 1960s, the repeal of the National Origins Act and Asiatic Barred Zone led to an influx of Muslim immigrants, which led to the American public beginning to explicitly code Muslims as Arab. As a result, Hill shared that she would often have to demonstrate to law enforcement different ways to wear hijab and the various materials it could come in. She noted that if a Black Muslim did not have the proper “markers” to be considered “legitimately” Muslim — such as an Arabic name or a particular phenotype — then the reaction was accusations that “Oh, you’re wearing [a scarf] for fashion” and “You’re not a real Muslim, you’re a Moos-lim.”

This process of facilities taking it upon themselves to determine who is a legitimate Muslim — and excluding Black women from that — was also noted by Doukoure. In 2018, at the same time CAIR Michigan filed a civil complaint against the Michigan Department of Corrections on the behalf of Ra, the organization filed a second on the behalf of Marna A. Muhammad, who was illegally denied clergy status.

“We believe that because she was an African-American woman serving an African American community, they didn’t find her to be what they consider to be a stereotypical Muslim,” Doukoure shared. Muhammad was with Masjid Wali Muhammad, the oldest masjid in Michigan. “And therefore, they refused to recognize that someone like her could be a religious, spiritual leader that could have clergy status.”

Through the dehumanization of Black people — and our subsequent removal from the religious, as outlined by Delice Mugabo — Black Muslims are rendered invisible within mainstream discussions around Islamophobia, but still perceived as an inherent threat. This anxiety is transferred from colonial times, such as Charles V of Spain’s attempts to exclude “slaves suspected of Islamic learnings” after a revolt. Black Muslims as a threat to social order are well documented within the criminal justice system, where Black militant became synonymous with “problem” and then interchangeable with Muslims. The de-veiling — and general maltreatment — of incarcerated or detained Black Muslim women is a symptom of wider issues relating to anti-Black Islamophobia. Black Muslim women are regarded as inherent threats due to both their Blackness and their Islam.

The issue of de-veiling Black Muslim women within detention facilities cannot be read as simply an issue with policy implementation. Even when the right policy exists in writing, experiences like mine reveal that it is not actually implemented as a standard practice. Instead, people must reckon with the deeper, systemic issues leading to the simultaneous delegitimization and criminalization of Black Muslim women.

Many of us, including the pope, might very well disagree on just what makes a family, but we can all agree that the common good of our society is best served when caregivers don’t need to risk their livelihoods in order to provide care for young people. However, policies like paid sick leave—which allows workers to take time off to care for themselves or their families if someone becomes ill or incapacitated—remain out of reach for too many people.

President Obama recently made headlines after signing an executive order requiring federal contractors to grant workers up to seven days of paid sick leave each year. But the fact remains that out of the 22 wealthiest nations in the world, the United States is the only one without any form of guaranteed paid sick leave for workers. As a result, only about 43 percent of workers have reported the ability to take paid leave to care for a sick family member. Nearly a quarter of American workers report losing a job or being threatened with job loss for taking time off to care for a sick child or relative.

While paid family and medical leave impacts all families, it especially impacts women. Six in every 10 mothers are the primary, sole, or co-breadwinner for their family. This includes both single mothers and mothers with an unemployed spouse or partner at home. And about a third of all children in the United States live in a single-parent household; nearly half of them are already living below the poverty line. Forty percent of their parents are working in low-wage jobs—the types of jobs least likely to offer paid sick leave.

Many working families simply cannot afford to take the time they need to care for their children when they get sick. For a family headed by a sole breadwinner who earns the average wage for workers without paid sick leave, it would take just three days of missed work to be driven below the federal poverty line. With over one in five churchgoers estimated to be living in households that earn less than $25,000 a year, people of faith must come to realize that this kind of instability—and injustice—is a reality for many of the people in their congregations.

This desire to care for our children is a human instinct, a family value, and a faith practice. The scriptures appeal repeatedly to God as a nurturing parent who always comes to the aid of their children. Most of us are familiar with the imagery of “God the Father,” and scripture pushes us further. God the Mother speaks through the prophet Isaiah to promise: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” In the Christian New Testament, Jesus remarks at how often he has “desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

Faith advocates have endorsed more just, family-friendly workplace policies for years. It’s now time for people of faith—whether in the pulpits, in the pews, or in politics—to stand up, speak out, and actively promote paid sick leave as a real family value and faith practice that impacts every working family. In a real “culture of care,” when parents inevitably get that call from the school nurse, they can leave their desk, or register, or assembly line and offer the care their children need. State and federal elected officials and business leaders—especially those claiming to be pro-family and pro-faith—should take the steps necessary to make access to paid leave a reality for all working families.

Unlike some, I don’t see official Washington as a soulless place. Many here are hungry for something better than the politics we have now. One reason Pope Francis’s visit resonated so deeply was that he repeatedly called us to our better selves. He believed all of us—including our political leaders—could heal the “open wounds” that surround us, and that gave many of us hope.

One of my favorite passages from Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si’, reads: “Our goal is … to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.”

As he also said to the prisoners he met in Philadelphia: “Any society, any family, which cannot share or take seriously the pain of its children, and views that pain as something normal or to be expected, is a society ‘condemned’ to remain a hostage to itself, prey to the very things which cause that pain.”

Just prior to the pope’s visit, I led our fourth annual “Nuns on the Bus” trip. Our goal was to meet with people in communities from St. Louis to Washington, and gather stories of their suffering and their work for the common good. We are now sharing these stories with our elected officials, and an iPad of the collection was also given to Pope Francis during his visit.

Today, in contrast to the pope’s vision of justice, we see a disconnected Congress mired in hyper-partisanship, so removed from the lives of people like those we met on our tour that some legislators actually consider shutting down the government a useful strategy. Never mind how many people would be harmed by a loss of services and pay, or the pope’s calling on Congress “to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good.”

Rather than scolding Congress for its shortcomings, however, Pope Francis chose to raise up four Americans as representative of who we really are. Everyone could readily identify Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, but many of us were deeply touched when he included the lesser-known Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

An ardent pacifist, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker movement that continues to feed and shelter people in poverty. Thomas Merton sought to bring people together, promoting peace and dialogue so we could truly become one united family. Both led controversial lives and represent the “bruised, hurting and dirty” church that Pope Francis seeks, “rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (Joy of the Gospel 43).

With some urgency, Pope Francis has called all of us—especially our lawmakers and key economic players—to create an economy of inclusion, one in which all can thrive and no one is shut out. He once wrote that “growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.” (Joy of the Gospel 204).

Even though the pope didn’t mention them explicitly, there are actions Congress can take right now to help fulfill his vision. Legislators should raise the minimum wage and make permanent key improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit that are set to expire in 2017, while expanding the EITC to include younger childless workers and noncustodial parents who are presently taxed into poverty. Congress can also make sure that all people have access to healthcare by strengthening rather than attacking the Affordable Care Act, and encouraging all states to expand Medicaid coverage. As the pope told Congress, “Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a ‘culture of care’ and ‘an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded’….”

The son of immigrants, Pope Francis often reminds us that immigrants deserve to be treated justly and with compassion. “The rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected,” he said last week. “…When the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past.”

When I think about our nation’s current broken immigration system, I think about Katherine, a 15-year-old we met in Kansas City during our bus tour. When her parents went to pay a traffic ticket, they were deported. She and her five siblings moved in with their grandmother, a major financial burden on the family. Most heartbreaking was when Katherine’s 11-year-old sister attempted suicide because she thought one less child would help makes things “better” for her distraught grandmother.

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With that kind of suffering so prevalent among so many people who are trying to build a better life for their families, there is no excuse for congressional failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. They must do so now.

Finally, we all know that racism is at the core of many of our problems. When I think about the crisis of systemic racism, I think about the pain of African American mothers whom I met in Saint Louis during a conversation with “Mother 2 Mother.” This discussion group meets regularly to talk about the differences between raising black and white children in the U.S. One woman spoke about the horror of seeing Michael Brown’s body in Ferguson: “I remember the blood triggering me to a state of anger like I had never been there before because I could only imagine if that was our boy, if that was our grandboy… What’s the difference between Michael Brown and my grandson? Nothing.”

If #BlackLivesMatter to our politicians, they must respond to the unique challenges confronting communities of color, including fear and racism within our police forces that have led to the unjust killings of black and brown people, housing discrimination, food deserts, a lack of opportunities in jobs and education, and much more. By honoring Dr. King, the pope reminded us how this civil rights icon moved our nation toward justice. We can and must continue in that quest.

Let us live out Pope Francis’s message to bridge divides and transform our economy and our politics. We the People know that our country must move toward justice for all. I pray that Congress heard what Pope Francis said and will work with us to make that happen.

In anticipation of the Pope’s arrival in Philadelphia, TalkPoverty visited with Tianna Gaines-Turner—a member of Witnesses to Hunger and a leader in the anti-poverty movement—to talk about what the fight against poverty looks like through her eyes.

This is what she had to say.

I am a devout Catholic so I will want to talk about religion. And there are other issues near and dear to me such as immigration and worker’s rights. But since my time with the Pope will be brief, I will focus on one issue—poverty.  Pope Francis is a champion of the poor, and this is a subject I know well. I am among the one million people in New Jersey living in poverty.

For more than a decade, I have worked as a cabin cleaner at Newark Liberty International Airport. I can barely afford to pay the rent for a modest apartment I share with a roommate in Newark, much less buy a ticket to fly on any of the airplanes I clean every day. Meanwhile, airline profits and CEO pay are soaring.

As a Catholic, I believe that “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” I know that we need to fight for just wages. So even after working a night shift of labor-intensive work, with aches and pains in my body, I’ve participated in marches and rallies with my union brothers and sisters. I also testify regularly at public meetings to call on NY/NJ Port Authority officials to follow through on their promise to raise the wage. We are still waiting. In the meantime, airport workers must work two or even three jobs to pay the bills because the $10.10 per hour we earn still leaves us below the federal poverty level for a family of four. And it’s not just airport workers—it’s fast-food workers, retail workers, and home care workers. That’s why the Fight for $15 movement has inspired so many of us to stand and fight together. Because “those who mourn, will be comforted.”

On the train, I am wearing a beautiful traditional dress from Peru, my native country. This dress reminds of me of that bittersweet moment when, tearfully, I said goodbye to my family and friends so that I could come to America and give my five children a better life. I will tell the Pope about this arduous journey and how my faith has carried me through difficult times—times when I went without food so my children could eat. I will tell him that despite hunger pains, faith has nourished my heart and soul. My faith in God gives me the strength to carry on and fight not just for myself, but for all low-wage workers who clock-in and out of work every day but still don’t earn enough to make ends meet. As the Pope said, “the poor shouldn’t be sacrificed on the altar of money.”

“Poverty in the world is a scandal,” Pope Francis said. “In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry.”

Does the Port Authority hear our cries? Does America?

I keep pinching myself; it still seems like a dream that the Pope is coming to visit our clients and staff. But will that visit do anything to change the reality of hardship for these folks?

There’s a beautiful passage near the end of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, Laudato Si’, that I would like to use as a frame for why I say yes:

“One expression of this attitude is when we stop and give thanks to God before and after meals…That moment of blessing, however brief, reminds us of our dependence on God for life; it strengthens our feeling of gratitude for the gifts of creation; it acknowledges those who by their labors provide us with these goods; and it reaffirms our solidarity with those in greatest need.”

I love this passage because it neatly sums up for me of the central truth: you must see the joy and dignity in every aspect of life. Part of embracing that truth requires us to reevaluate how we approach our lives.

I fully expect Pope Francis to challenge us. I have seen many headlines framing this as adversarial – “The Pope vs. America,” as one headline in Politico read recently. Yet, these articles misunderstand the Pope’s intentions – we hardly consider the guidance of a loving father to be “parent versus kid”, right? I don’t presume to put words in the mouth of the Holy Father, but he often reminds me of the popular mantra, “Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.”

As the leader of one of the Washington-region’s largest nonprofits working in human services, I am fortunate enough to count some of the region’s most successful business leaders as friends and dear supporters of Catholic Charities. These are people who care deeply about the well-being of their neighbors and turn to Catholic Charities to help out.

And I am blessed to count many of our homeless neighbors as friends I’ve met at our weekly St. Maria’s Meals Dinner Van.  Many of these folks struggle with some combination of unemployment, addiction, isolation, estranged family relations, behavioral health, and plain bad luck.

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Pope Francis, in echoing centuries of Church teaching, reminds us that we cannot make distinctions between our homeless neighbors and business leaders.  He will tell us it is the little things, along with the larger structural factors, that make an impact for both good and bad. How we treat our family impacts how we treat strangers. How we treat our co-workers reflects how we treat those who can offer us nothing in return. How we treat litter reflects how we see the value of the earth, the sources of our food, and the cleanliness of our water.

Which brings me back to the fun we have every Wednesday at St. Maria’s Meals and to some of the friendships between our volunteers and clients. I’ve seen people who were previously disengaged from society start to take small steps towards coming back in. These are people who would not have otherwise come across each other, and I can say with certainty we have all enriched each other’s lives. It starts over a meal.

Many Pope-watchers in Washington expect and hope for concrete policy or strong direction from Pope Francis on any range of issues or topics. Perhaps they will hear something to that effect, but that’s not for me to speculate on. What I do know is that when Pope Francis says goodbye to the Speaker of the House of the US Congress and makes the one-mile drive to meet with 300 homeless residents over lunch, his actions will provide a model for all of us.

But what makes Pope Francis so much more popular than Congress? Undoubtedly a mix of qualities you don’t find among many elected officials: his humility, his joy, and his embrace—sometimes quite literally—of the elderly, the disabled, the immigrant, and the prisoner. But don’t be fooled by his distinctly un-politician-like authenticity or his defiance of partisan labels—Pope Francis is a savvy political strategist.

In public appearances and written commentary, Pope Francis often weighs in on the pressing political issues of our time. He has shared opinions that are grounded in hundreds of years of Catholic teaching—on the economy, immigration and refugee crises, institutional corruption, the environment, and armed conflict. He has flexed political muscle in some of the most intractable international relations challenges of modern time, praying for peace with leaders from Israel and Palestine and helping to secure newly restored diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. And his encyclical on the environment—released this summer in order to influence December’s United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference—implores world leaders to help reduce carbon emissions in their countries to curb the effects of climate change.

When he visits the US this week, we will see Pope Francis’s politics come to life. He will visit the White House, Congress, and the United Nations, as well as DC Catholic Charities, a school in Harlem, and a Philadelphia prison. He will walk a path from our nation’s seat of power to the margins of our society, inviting us to follow him and, in the process, asking us to partner with him in building a more just society.

In fact, you can already see political will being stirred by Pope Francis’s call. The Vatican is leading by example in responding to the global refugee crisis and housing refugee families from Syria. In Chicago, Archbishop Blaise Cupich has reaffirmed Catholic support for just wages and has challenged right-to-work laws that weaken unions. And, in light of the Pope’s encyclical, more than 150 leaders from Catholic institutions of higher education have pledged to make ecological justice central to their work.

When Pope Francis visits the US this week, we must resist the cynicism of critics who think his political call to transform structures of injustice is unbecoming of a spiritual leader. As he insists, “A good Catholic meddles in politics.” And we must push back against tired rhetoric from politicians who talk about social ills more than they work to solve them.

Pope Francis’s visit is a challenge to us all to build a nation that more fully embraces the dignity of our homeless, our workers, our families, our immigrants, and our incarcerated sisters and brothers. If, like the Pope, we can be faithful and fearless, our prophetic witness can stir the political will to fundamentally reshape our society. Take notes while Pope Francis is here, and when he leaves we’ll have an inspired to-do list.