Latest OMI JPIC News
Best Wishes: JPIC staff Leave for ICCR. May 21st, 2015
It is with mixed feelings that Oblate JPIC staff and comittee members say farewell to Christina Herman and yet happy to see her extend career boundaries with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) based in New York as their new program director. Christina worked as for the JPIC office since 2006.
Our Best Wishes to Christina as she joins ICCR!
Latest Issue of the Oblate JPIC Report May 20th, 2015
Spring/Summer 2015 issue of JPIC Report is now available on line.The report features timely updates on:
- Cardinal Francis George OMI on Oblate JPIC vision.
- Oblate personal Reflection on Selma 50th Anniversary.
- JPIC visit other U.S Oblate ministries.
- Catholic Teaching Confronts “Right to work”
- A farm in the City?
- Call to End Immigrant Family Detention & Happenings…..
Enjoy reading it and let us know what you think.
Read it here: Spring_Summer_2015_Final
Encouraged by Pope Francis’ Work, Rabbis Call for Vigorous Action on Climate Change May 14th, 2015
As of the morning of May 13, 2015, more than 300 rabbis have signed a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis, calling for vigorous action to prevent worsening climate disruption and to seek eco-social justice. The Rabbis were encouraged by the work of Pope Francis on the issue, in particular, the much anticipated papal encyclical on the environment due out this summer.
The letter is addressed: To the Jewish People, to all Communities of Spirit, and to the World: A Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis
Gary Huelsmann Awarded Liberty Bell Award May 5th, 2015
Gary Huelsmann with his two daughters, Mariah and Chloe, at the Awards ceremony.
Congratulations are in order for Gary Huelsmann, long-time friend of the Oblates, and Chair of the OMI USA JPIC Committee. The Madison County Bar Association honored him last week by with their annual Liberty Bell Award. The Liberty Bell Award was established more than 40 years ago to acknowledge outstanding community service. Each group presenting the award is free to establish its own criteria. Many groups present it to a layperson, a man or woman who has promoted better understanding of the rule of law, encouraged greater respect for law and the courts, stimulated a sense of civic responsibility, or contributed to good government in the community. It is often presented to an individual lawyer or judge or to an entire community organization.
Gary is the CEO at Caritas Family Solutions, a faith-inspired social services agency devoted to the care and treatment of individuals and families, accessed through a network of regional offices, that is committed to promoting a just and caring community in the southern Illinois region.
Faiths See Climate Change as a Moral and Practical Threat May 4th, 2015
Faith groups are mobilizing on climate change, seeing it as an existential threat to creation. Pope Francis will issue a papal encyclical on the environment this summer, which is expected to highlight both the need to reduce man-made carbon emissions, and for wealthy countries to help poorer nations deal with it, as they have done little to create the problem.
Meanwhile, the Church of England is putting its pounds and pence where its mouth is: The body that administers the worldwide Anglican Communion last week announced it is divesting from thermal coal and tar sands.
Islamic finance has played a major role in clean energy investment so far this decade.
Divestment from these most carbon intensive forms of energy is also good financial management. With pressure growing both from businesses concerned about how to operate in a world disrupted by climate change, and increasingly vocal popular movements, a price on carbon to discourage its use, is becoming more likely. Alongside this is the fact that renewable forms of energy – wind, solar, geothermal, and the like, are increasingly cost competitive. If the damages to health and the climate were factored into the price of carbon fuels, renewables would already be a clear winner.
Click here to read more »
