4 min read By Brian Flagg, Our U.S. Congressman, Raul Grijalva, is standing tall in his opposition to the biggest trade deal of the 21st century. It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. If this aint pure unadulterated evil, I don’t know what is. Barbie Urias and I attended a packed Grijalva-organized town hall last Saturday on this subject. There was a very informative panel discussion that included Rebekah Friend, President of the State AFL-CIO, Sandy Bahr from the Sierra Club and former State legislator Phil Lopes. This pact seems to legalize multinational corporations’ ability to super-exploit, be it workers, the environment,

4 min read Barbara is a leader of The Just Faith group at Our Mother of Sorrows and has done food pick-ups for Casa Maria for many years. By Barbara Padilla-Bassett, Yes I too have read the Joy of the Gospel and find it refreshing to hear Pope Francis implore us to live the Catholic Social teachings in our parishes and everyday lives. My parish in particular has even re written their mission statement to align more with Francis’ wishes for a more mission minded church. But as a Catholic woman I cannot look past the fact that even though these are monumental