Latest OMI JPIC News
A Painting of Mary Immaculate January 19th, 2017
Letter of the Superior General for the Closing of the Oblate Triennium January 19th, 2017
Dear Brother Oblates,
Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Mazenodian Family,
Greetings of peace in this New Year of Our Lord, 2017!
With praise and thanksgiving to God for grace upon grace we have received in celebrating our 200th anniversary as a missionary society founded on January 25, 1816, I officially declare the closing of our Oblate Triennium on January 25, 2017. These three years have been an intense pilgrimage of grace in response to the 2010 General Chapter call to a profound personal and community conversion to Jesus Christ. In the years to come we will continue to reap the fruits of this communal journey of conversion. I am grateful to all the Units that made this a special event through so many meaningful initiatives. Many thanks go also to the whole Mazenodian Family and Oblate Youth for your involvement, spirit of celebration and prayer throughout the Oblate Triennium! Read the full letter.
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month January 18th, 2017
President Barack Obama has proclaimed January 2017 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in the United States, calling upon businesses, national and community organizations, families, and all Americans to recognize the vital role we must play in ending all forms of human trafficking. Many with groups are bringing attention to this issue through prayer and educational resources. Below are links to some of these resources.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB):
National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month & Day of Prayer Tookit:
“Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. We must unite our efforts to free victims and stop this crime that’s become ever more aggressive, that threatens not just individuals, but the foundational values of society.” Pope Francis
- U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking provides several resources on its website including prayer services and an interfaith toolkit produced and distributed by the Washington Inter-Religious Staff Community Working Group on Human Trafficking (WISC).
- The Catholic Health Association is sponsoring a Twitter Chat on Human Trafficking, Feb. 2nd, 1-2:00 PM Eastern. Contact Jody Wise for details: wisejo@trinity-health.org.
Fr. Seamus Finn among Presenters at the Rome Roundtable 2017 January 18th, 2017
The Global Foundation gathered for its Rome Roundtable 2017 on January 14th and 15th
and convened participants from the business and investment community, religious leaders, civic institutions, academia and civil society to evaluate responses and measure progress on United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The fifty invited participants were asked to report on progress since the last roundtable and to discuss additional commitments and actions that they would undertake during the coming year.
Visit this website to read the Vatican Radio report on the event and Pope Francis’s address to participants.
My comments were focused on the numerous challenges and debates that have taken place over the last century about development. The UN sponsored decades of development that focused on different dimensions of the topic and how they might be appropriately addressed and then the encyclical letter, “Populorum Progressio” (On the Development of Peoples), of Pope Paul VI, in 1967 built on the teaching of the Catholics tradition and the Second Vatican Council on the issues. This encyclical remains as a foundational point of reference for the Church’s understanding of development especially with the introduction and definition of the concept of “integral human development”. More recently through a United Nations process in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals were adopted as a benchmark and guide for action in countries and communities across the world.
The adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the General Assembly in 2015 has set a clear agenda for the work of development until 2030. In our panel presentation my colleagues, Mark Cutefani, CEO, Anglo American and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape town reported on the collaborative multistakeholder project that has been organized by the Mining and Faiths Reflection Initiative to address development issues in mine site communities at local and regional levels.
Investors and Public Health Groups Voice Support for Affordable Care Act January 18th, 2017
Amid calls from some lawmakers and the President-elect for an immediate repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a coalition of 119 faith- and values-based investors and public health groups strongly defended the gains made under the law and urged restraint.
In a letter sent today to President-elect Trump and members of Congress, the group, led by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, praised the expansion of quality and affordable health insurance under the ACA to more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans, and warned that a repeal of the health care law would have a “destabilizing effect on jobs, businesses and our economy, and would further jeopardize the health and financial security of millions of Americans”.
Read the full article on Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility’s (ICCR) website.
