Latest OMI JPIC News
Religious Leaders Support Normalization with Cuba May 4th, 2015
Photo credit (see below)
Thirty U.S. religious organizations signed onto a letter to Congress urging an end to the decades-long embargo with Cuba. The Rev. William Antone, U.S. Provincial, signed on for the Missionary Oblates USP. The letter refers to the long-standing ties of many of the faith organizations to religious bodies in Cuba, and cite their call for normalization of relations and an end to the embargo.
Photo credit: Krasivaja at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
Two Years After Rana Plaza… May 1st, 2015
Two years after the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, concerns linger. These include the timeliness of major remediation efforts, the establishment of factory health and safety committees, and corporate commitments to a victims’ fund. A coalition of global investors representing $2.5 trillion in assets – including the Missionary Oblates – have sent letters to corporate members of the Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety (Accord) and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (Alliance). The letters request that companies disclose their efforts to safeguard the lives of workers in Bangladesh garment factories.
Read the investor letter here…
Faith-based Investors Help VOICE to Secure Needed Funding from GE April 28th, 2015
Faith-based and socially responsible investors enabled leaders from VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement) to use their proxies to attend the GE AGM in Oklahoma City on April 22. VOICE was interested to attend the AGM to press GE to commit to $1 million in funding for the Metro IAF/VOICE Equity Restoration Fund. The faith-based activists had already secured $1 million from J.P. Morgan and $1.5 million from Bank of America.
Their effort was successful, which the faith leaders learned in an email from the company just as they were boarding their flight to Oklahoma. The grant will serve to leverage $10 million+ from religious and other social investors to help finance the rehabilitation of blighted and abandoned properties, construction of new homes, the development of affordable rental housing, and other community restoration activities in Prince William County, VA.
The Oblates, through Fr Seamus Finn, OMI have been working with VOICE for several years on this initiative designed to help those crushed by the mortgage crisis in 2007-08.
Read the letter from GE committing to this grant funding.
The Vatican Announces Summit on Climate Change April 22nd, 2015
Thanks to Catholic Rural Life for the information in this post.
The Vatican announced this week that it will host a one-day conference on climate change on April 28, featuring some of the world’s leading climate scientists. The conference is titled Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity and is subtitled “The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Development.”
The conference will highlight “the intrinsic connection between respect for the environment and respect for people—especially the poor, the excluded, victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, children and future generations,” states a Vatican announcement.
The purpose of the conference, according to the Vatican announcement, is to help build a global movement across all religions for sustainable development and climate change throughout 2015 and beyond.
Besides climate scientists, the one-day summit will include participants from major world religions. The aim here, says the Vatican, is to “elevate the debate on the moral dimensions of protecting the environment in advance of the papal encyclical.”
The Pope’s much-anticipated encyclical on the environment is expected in late June.
Click here to read more »
Invested in Change: Faith Consistent Investing in a Climate-Challenged World April 14th, 2015
“Invested in Change: Faith-Consistent Investing In A Climate-Challenged World” is a document produced by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), intended to catalyze discussion around practical solutions needed to speed the shift to low-carbon and sustainable energy alternatives. It is offered as an open invitation to companies, investors and advocates to share their gifts in the collective work to build more sustainable and climate-resilient economies, businesses and communities.
