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Fortnight For Freedom May 19th, 2012

On April 12, the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a document, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” outlining the bishops’ concerns over threats to religious freedom, both at home and abroad. The bishops called for a “Fortnight for Freedom,” a 14-day period of prayer, education and action in support of religious freedom, from June 21-July 4.

Bishops in their own dioceses have been encouraged to arrange special events to highlight the importance of defending religious freedom. Catholic institutions are encouraged to do the same, especially in cooperation with other Christians, Jews, people of other faiths and all who wish to defend this cherished freedom.

The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country.

Please see the USCCB website for more information on organizing a special event in your parish.

 

Tell Congress: End Too-Big-To-Fail. Make Banking SAFE May 17th, 2012

The top five banks now control 52 percent of the financial industry’s assets; they had 17 percent in 1970. The six largest banks control assets equal to 62 percent of the nation’s gross national product. They may be not only too big to fail, but also too big to save.

The biggest of them, Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase, has $2.1 trillion in assets and more than 239,000 employees. The bank’s recent bad bet that now amounts to $3 trillion, is a clear indication of the need for serious reform.

Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Keith Ellison have introduced a measure to cut too-big-to-fail banks down to size. The SAFE (Safe, Accountable, Fair and Efficient) Banking Act would put in place an important element missing from the financial reform legislation of two years ago: a cap on how big banks can get. The bank lobby defeated all efforts to include a limit on their size.

Now the six largest banks – led by JPMorgan Chase – are collectively larger and more concentrated than they were before they blew up the economy, with the assets they control growing from $6.1 trillion before the collapse to more than $8.5 trillion today, according to Federal Reserve data.

Wall Street lobbyists have successfully delayed and diluted regulations that were supposed to flow from the Wall Street reform bill. And the big banks have ways to push their way around any barriers.

We need a fail-safe. If a bank can’t be too big, then it can’t be too big to fail.

Among the provisions of the Safe Banking Act are that no bank could hold more than 10 percent of all of the insured bank deposits in the country, nor could a bank holding company have non-deposit liabilities greater than 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

By the standards in the SAFE Banking Act, four existing banks are currently above the size cap—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo—and would have to shrink. This would be a major step in making banking sober—and boring, as it should be—once again.

Click here to tell Congress: Break up the big banks! Pass Sen. Sherrod Brown and Rep. Keith Ellison’s SAFE Banking Act. 

Thanks to the Campaign for America’s Future for the information on this bill. 

Interfaith Moral Action On Climate April 20th, 2012

Interfaith Moral Action on Climate is a broad-based interfaith coalition formed to raise up the need for urgent action on climate change. Believing that the threat posed by Climate Change is a moral issue, IMAC has planned a series of events to coincide with Earth Day. To avoid conflicting with other events planned in Washington DC for Earth Day weekend, and because they will be visiting members of Congress, IMAC has scheduled the group’s activities for Tuesday April 24.  If you are in the area, we encourage you to become involved. The Missionary Oblates JPIC Office is an endorsing organization. Full information is available on the IMAC website.

Download a flyer for the April 24th A Day for the Climate in Washington DC 

Schedule of activities:

Sunrise – 9:15 am Vigil • 8:30 am Interfaith Service with Bill McKibben, Ibrahim Ramey, Indigenous leaders, Luci Murphy Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

10:30 am “Cry of the Earth: A Service for Healing the Climate” with: Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Dr. Carroll Baltimore, Sr. Simone Campbell/SSS, Rev. Richard Cizik, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Mohawk Clan Mother Louise McDonald, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, and others at the NY Ave. Presbyterian Church,1313 New York Ave., NW; Bring some earth from your local community to be healed at the Service

12 noon Multi-faith Procession to the US Capitol

• Upper Senate Park, 200 New Jersey Ave. NW
• Wear religious garb if possible

1 pm Brown bag lunch for yourself and to share

1:30 pm Commissioning Vigil at the Capitol

2 – 4:30 pm Constituent Visits with Ethical Report Cards

• meet with members in the House and Senate (Sign up for this separately on the IMAC website)

4:30 – 6:00 pm Closing, Sharing & Benediction

• Lutheran Church of the Reformation, 212 East Capitol St.
• (behind the Supreme Court)

People of faith and good will around the country who cannot join us on April 24 are urged to have vigils in their local communities.

Connecticut State Senators Repeal Death Penalty Law April 9th, 2012

On April 5, the Connecticut State Senate voted 20 -16 in favor of repeal of the state’s death penalty law. The bill would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole as the state’s harshest punishment for future crimes. The legislation would not affect sentences of the 11 inmates currently on Connecticut’s death row.

The bill now goes to the Connecticut House of Representatives, where it is considered to have a high level of support, and then to Governor who has said he would sign it into law.

Other states have passed similar measures; among them are Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey. In California, faith leaders are leading a campaign to gather enough signatures for an initiative to throw out the death penalty by voters on the November ballot.

The Catholic Conference of Connecticut and Religious communities are pleased with the passage of the repeal of the death penalty. The Conference is engaging in a campaign through its website and in advocacy messages in parish bulletins asking parishioners to contact their elected representatives, requesting that they support the bill.

 

Land Grabs in Africa Leave Communities Impoverished April 5th, 2012

The problem of land grabbing in Africa and Asia by investment firms and multinational corporations is a serious and growing problem. Governments make deals with large multinational companies while thousands of poor farmers are left with inadequate compensation, low wages, polluted water and exposure to toxic agricultural chemicals that cause health problems.

While problems with land grabs abound, SOCFIN Agriculture. Co. is a particularly egregious company. Owned by French billionaire Vincent Bollore, SOCFINAF Group owns and operates plantations of rubber, oil palm and coffee in Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia. SOCFIN recently has secured 6,500 hectares of farmland for rubber/palm oil production in Sierra Leone.

The Oakland Institute, a California-based think-tank, has detailed a pattern of coercion, lack of consultation, and failure to fairly compensate Sierra Leonean landowners who have been pressured into ceding their land to the corporate giant. Watch this video on SOCFIN’s Sierra Leone’s operations:

Click here to read more »

Torture in Your Backyard: National Religious Campaign Against Torture March 20th, 2012

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) has released a 20-minute film, Solitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard, as a resource for parishes and religious congregations to learn about the destructive use of prolonged solitary confinement and to engage people of faith to call for an end to prolonged solitary confinement in their state. The film features several former prisoners discussing the mental harm they endured as a result of being held in solitary confinement and highlights how the religious community in Maine helped secure a seventy percent reduction in the number of Maine prisoners held in solitary confinement. The Missionary Oblates JPIC office is a member of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT)

 

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