FOR RELEASE: October 16, 2012                                                                       

CONTACT:  Stephanie Niedringhaus, 202-347-9797 x224, sniedringhaus@networklobby.org

Washington DC:  Sister Simone Campbell, NETWORK Executive Director and Leader of Nuns on the Bus, today reissued NETWORK’s invitation to Congressman Paul Ryan to join her and other Catholic Sisters at a Catholic facility serving people in need. The new invitation came partly as a response to Congressman Ryan’s recent appearance at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio, which turned out to be little more than a “photo op,” with no opportunity to speak with the people receiving help there.

The new invitation read:

Dear Congressman Ryan,

On behalf of NETWORK, a Catholic leader in the global movement for justice and peace, I would like to again invite you to spend time with Catholic Sisters and people struggling at the economic margins.

We hope you will join us at a time when people receiving help will be present. As I mentioned in my earlier invitation to you, “…we believe it important that all of us commit ourselves to learning more about the real lives of people who struggle to put food on their tables and meet the basic needs of their families. There is no better way to do that than to spend time engaged in conversations with individuals and families like those we met during our ‘Nuns on the Bus’ tour… Our hope, of course, is that these conversations will lead to a greater understanding of how to help people lift themselves out of poverty – and that this understanding will translate into action to make that happen.”

We hope you will accept our invitation to connect directly with people most in need, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Sister Simone Campbell, SSS
NETWORK Executive Director

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