The title “Lent 4.5” refers to our pattern of consumption in the sense that from 4.5 acres, each of us would have to find everything we need to support our life: food, home, energy, transportation, clothing, appliances, cars and gadgets. Topics such as Compassionate Living, Food buying and consumption, Water conserving and protecting, Energy efficient and clean, and Transportation, are offered as weekly themes. There are weekly handouts, discussion guides, as well as activities for teachers and children. For more information call: 502-452-2749 or email: lent@earthandspiritcenter.org or visit the website: www.lent45.org

Lent 2012 begins on February 22. The Oblate JPIC initiative invites you to join us in prayer, reflection and fasting for refugees and immigrants around the world. This is an opportunity to deeper our faith understanding for the stranger and for parishes to pray for comprehensive immigration reform.

How you will take action in solidarity with immigrants during Lent? You can help Congress understand that people of faith care about the need for immigration reform. Join with others to sign pledge cards at Justice for Immigrants addressed to your Senators and Member of Congress asking them to support just and humane immigration policies.

The Oblate JPIC office also has new one-page resource materials on Immigration Reform and Human Trafficking. Oblates can contact our office by email or phone for copies of these reflection materials to be mailed to your community. Our contact information can be found in the About Us section of this website. They are also available for widespread use through the Resources section of this website.

We have crafted a two-page flyer on Immigration emphasizing the five principles articulated by the US Catholic bishops in their 20003 Pastoral Letter on Immigration, a short prayer, and suggested resources.

A one-page flyer on Human Trafficking talks briefly about the issue, includes a brief prayer, and lists organizations working to prevent this scourge. This flyer is also formatted as a half-size 2-page resource that may be easier to distribute.

We encourage you to print these and distribute them widely. Both are available in the Resources section of this website, under Parish Resources. Oblates can contact the JPIC Office by phone or email if they would like printed versions for distribution. Our contact information is in the About Us section of this website.

Read Fr. Finn’s latest blog on Huffington Post…

On Thursday, February 23rd at 9PM ET/PT, CNBC will present “Filthy Rich,” a one-hour original documentary reported by award-winning Senior Correspondent Scott Cohn and the CNBC Investigations Inc. team. They follow the money around the globe to Dubai, London, Paris and the United States, which is fast becoming a place for the Filthy Rich to hide their wealth.

One way to hide illicit assets is through shell corporations. While many people are familiar with traditional havens like the Cayman Islands and Panama, the United States is one of just a handful of countries that allow the formation of companies without disclosing the true owner. In many states, forming shell companies is literally a cottage industry. “Filthy Rich” introduces viewers to a Nevada man who claims “there is no better way to cloak your assets from public view” than to set up a corporation through him. He operates a business in his house—which is home to more than 2,000 Nevada corporations—and says he has no way of knowing whether any of them are conduits for dirty money. That is because he takes pride in not asking too many questions and, for an additional fee, also offers to put his name on the official documents.

Cohn questions Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller who takes pride in the fact that his state is now second per capita to Delaware in the number of corporations based there, as well as U.S. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who says states are becoming conduits for foreign corruption.

The Filthy Rich hail from all over the world and CNBC profiles a number of them, including the Obiang family from the tiny West African nation of Equatorial Guinea that used shell companies and California banks to buy tens of millions of dollars’ worth of luxury cars, jewelry, real estate and even Michael Jackson’s crystal studded glove valued at $275,000. The CNBC investigation takes Cohn to Baku, Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic on the shores of the Caspian Sea. In a nation where the average citizen makes $420 a month, the family of President Ilham Aliyev has accumulated property and business interests around the world that are worth millions. The Aliyev children, the youngest of whom is 13, are said to own $75 million worth of real estate in Dubai. Cohn also travels to Paris, the city of lights and playground for the ousted President of Tunisia, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, so Filthy Rich that his regime touched off Arab Spring. Even as his regime began to crumble, Ben Ali and his family were still buying homes in Paris.

A common thread among the Filthy Rich is oil, and that forces U.S. officials to walk a fine line. CNBC shows how a succession of administrations—and companies—have been forced to choose between American interests and American values. But with resentment boiling over around the world and the protests of Arab Spring drawing worldwide attention, a crackdown has begun. In France, two non-profit groups—Sherpa and Transparency International—persuaded the nation’s highest court to order a first-of-its-kind investigation that has already led to the seizure of the Obiang family’s fleet of luxury cars. And the U.S. Justice Department is escalating its so-called “Kleptocracy Initiative” launched in 2010. Cohn sits down with a number of U.S. officials including Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer who heads the project chasing billions of assets around the world. The task is massive because as long as there are riches to be had, there will be some who are Filthy Rich.

For more information including slideshows and web extras, visit: filthyrich.cnbc.com.

Scott Matthews is Vice President of Business News Specials. Jeff Pohlman is senior producer. Catherine Corrigan is producer. Nikhil Deogun is Senior Vice President and Editor in Chief Business News, CNBC.

CNBC’s “Filthy Rich” will re-air on Thursday, February 23rd at 10PM ET/PT.

Consistent Life, formerly the Seamless Garment Network, has worked to move the mind of the community to respect every life: the prisoner on death row, the child in the womb, people threatened by war and poverty. Now we are celebrating our 25th Anniversary and looking to shape the future of the Consistent Life Ethic.

Founded in 1987 at a conference of peace, justice and life groups, Consistent Life is committed to the protection of life which is threatened in today’s world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a ‘consistent ethic of life’. We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation and respect in protecting the unprotected.

The 25th Anniversary will be celebrated at a conference hosted by Consistent Life in Chevy Chase, Maryland, March 9-11, 2012. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet and network with a diverse group of national/international Consistent Life Ethic supporters which include about 200 member groups such as: Evangelicals for Social Action, Feminists for Life of America, Secular Prolife, Orthodox Peace Fellowship in North America, Disabilities Perspective and many more.

Major plenary speakers at the Conference include the Rev. Dr. Johnny M. Hunter, National Director of the Life Education And Resource Network (LEARN, Inc.); Dr. Catherine Meeks, a distinguished activist, writer and speaker; and Aimee Bedoy, youth activist and Executive Editor of Life Matters Journal. There will be panels and workshops on Consistent Life Ethic topics such as historical retrospective on the movement, integrating faith and secular views, educations of youth on life issues, nourishing the Consistent Life Ethic in today’s political climate, and plans for the next generation. There will be gatherings of religious and other constituencies, and an optional public witness action.

For further information, please visit the Conference web site or the Consistent Life web site, or contact Bill Samuel at president@consistent-life.org or 301-943-6406.

“…
It seems as if time is up as well in terms of waiting for comprehensive immigration reform, at least if you believe some people in Washington. But it is the American public, including the Catholics, who will decide the final outcome. So many people—so many of you—have worked so hard these past years to achieve what seems like an elusive goal. Yet, we must never give up hope, and I fully believe that one day we will be successful. In the meantime, we must always keep focused as we advocate for immigration reform in this complex and constantly changing landscape in our country today.

This is an important time in the immigration debate in this nation. While Congress has failed to address this issue, our state legislatures and local governments are not hesitating to attempt to fill the vacuum. Instead of one consistent national policy, we are now confronted with hundreds of State and local immigration policies, the majority of which are harmful to immigrant families and communities. 
…
Although the moment seems dark and the prospect of comprehensive immigration reform in Congress distant, I believe that the work the church is doing on immigration on a State and local level—both in the past and in the months ahead—could make all the difference in how our nation eventually solves this problem.

Let me explain. Rather than looking at the moment as a daunting—if not impossible—challenge, we should rather look upon it as an opportunity. You may be asking yourself how fighting a record number of restrictive State immigration laws and local law enforcement initiatives could be an opportunity.

Well, it is clear that Congress will not act on this issue unless a strong national consensus emerges, where the majority of Americans agree on a path forward and communicate that to their federal, elected officials. The only way that will happen is if the American people are educated on the issues and the realities of immigration, and that can only occur if the issue is right in front of them, being debated in their local communities.

This gives us the opportunity to go to Catholics and educate them on the immigration issue, to introduce them to immigrants, and to show how life without the hard work of immigrants would affect them. We can and should take advantage of this moment to organize locally, to improve our advocacy and communication, so that we are prepared when the next chance for immigration reform happens at the federal level.

And it will, no doubt. Different laws, particularly enforcement-only initiatives, played out in fifty States are bound to fail, since they will not fix a broken federal immigration system. Immigrants, over 70 percent of whom have been here five years or longer, are not leaving; they are just hiding in fear. The American public will begin to understand that the issue must be addressed comprehensively, on a federal level, and a consensus will emerge. As Winston Churchill once said, “Americans eventually do the right thing, once they have tried everything else.”

Our voice, the voice of the Catholic community, and of so many other communities as well, must be part of that consensus and help to shape it. That is why we must continue to fight the battle locally and remain a voice of faith in the debate.

We also must continue to fight because of the real suffering that is occurring in immigrant families and communities. There are four million U.S. citizen children who have one or more undocumented parents. The combination of Federal-State enforcement partnerships and federal enforcement actions has led to an unprecedented separation of families. Nearly a quarter of those deported in the last year were part of a family with a U.S.-citizen—most likely a child. They also have led to a record number of deportations over the past three years, as is evidenced by over one million persons who have been deported during that period. 
…
Lest there be any confusion, I think it is important to say that the Catholic Church understands and readily acknowledges the role that enforcement and the rule of law play in our system. Nonetheless, as many here in Utah and across the country might argue, we do not believe enforcement alone is the answer. Rather, it must be coupled with humane reforms in our legal immigration system that will allow immigrants to play by a fair and equitably administered set of rules. That is not the case in our current system — only the federal government can achieve this balance. 
…
In his address to the New World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Immigrants in 1985, Blessed Pope John Paul II, of happy memory, stated: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to migrate to other countries and to take up residence there. The fact that he is a citizen of a particular state does not deprive him of membership in the human family, nor of citizenship in the universal society, the common, world-wide fellowship…” While Catholic teaching does place limits on this right, the Holy Father clearly sees the importance of recognizing a dignity in all human beings, given to them by God himself. This means that nation states have an obligation to facilitate legal migration to the greatest extent possible in order to protect and honor human dignity. This is particularly true in our country where we have been so blessed.

What is more, we are not only called to honor our fellow human beings but to love them, as Christ himself has mandated. This is especially true of the immigrant, of those who have travelled great distances, endured countless hardships and established themselves in our society as trustworthy neighbors.

We have just concluded the Christmas season, celebrating the birth of our Lord the Savior. As an infant, He and the Holy Family fled Herod as refugees. As an adult, He was an itinerant preacher — a migrant Himself — with “no place to lay His Head.” He taught us that in the stranger, we see Him. Do not forget that when you are witnessing before the public square on behalf of our immigrant brothers and sisters, you are witnessing for Him, “for whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, you do unto Me.”

God bless you.”

The movement claims “the right to be consulted, to be respected and heard in decisions about its development model, for socially-just participation in economic growth, the prohibition of mining in the headwaters of rivers, and a stop to mining with cyanide and mercury that is causing so much damage to land and water.” The marchers are proclaiming their human right to water, and drawing support from churches and civil society alike in a several day march from Cajamarca to Lima. The Great National Water mobilization began on February 1st and will conclude with a convocation in Lima on February 9-10.

Read a full description of the mobilization (in English translation):

“SMALL STREAMS MAKE THE GREAT RIVER OF LIFE”: THE GREAT NATIONAL WATER MOBILIZATION”

Materials in Spanish are also available under News in the Spanish section of this website

El movimiento afirma que “el derecho a ser consultados, deben ser respetados y escuchados en las decisiones sobre su modelo de desarrollo, por socialmente justa participación en el crecimiento económico, la prohibición de la minería en las cabeceras de los ríos, y un alto a la minería con cianuro y mercurio que está causando tanto daño a la tierra y el agua. “Los manifestantes están proclamando su derecho humano al agua, y aprovechando el apoyo de las iglesias y la sociedad civil por igual en una marcha de varios días de Cajamarca a Lima. La gran movilización Nacional del Agua comenzó el 1 de febrero y concluirá con una convocatoria en Lima el 9-10 de febrero.

Lea una descripción completa de la movilización…

Click here to download the PDF