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Oblate Parish in Roma, Texas Celebrates National Immigration Week January 18th, 2012
Parishioners at Our Lady of Refuge Parish in Roma, Texas commemorated National Immigration Week (Jan 8-14) with a homily on immigration and prayers for refugees and immigrants. The parish staff also used the bulletin insert provided by the USCCB and encouraged everyone to take it home and use it in prayer all week. The issue of immigration is a story close to home for many of the parishioners at Our Lady of Refuge. The parish is very close the Rio Grande River and members include large landowners, local government officials and immigrant families whose relatives may have faced detention and deportation issues before. Thanks to Fr. Bob Wright OMI for leading the parish into celebrating National Immigration Week.
Responsible Purchasing and Investing: A Catholic Priority January 12th, 2012
From buying toothpaste to managing a portfolio – Catholics across the country are taking action to avoid buying from or investing in companies that fail to respect human dignity.
In the 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that the economy should be at the service of people, and not the other way around.
“Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it,” the pope wrote. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”
Going further, Fr. Seamus Finn, OMI has argued that faith-based investors should demand accountability from the companies they invested with or they should divest stock in companies engaged in morally objectionable practices. “With ownership comes responsibility and rights.”
Reflections on Business and Human Rights January 1st, 2012
Read Fr. Seamus Finn’s latest Huffington Post blog on the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights recently endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council. The principles were developed to offer guidance for the implementation of the “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework, first introduced by Special Representative John Ruggie in 2008. They provide very practical and concrete recommendations on how to operationalize the framework, which was built around the following three central pillars:
- States have a responsibility to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including corporations;
- Companies have a responsibility to respect human rights;
- Victims of human rights abuses must be free to access effective remedies.
Investors Urge Senate Leadership to Allow Implementation of Clean Air Act Rules December 19th, 2011
Photo Credits: Likely Impact Congress Blocks Pollution Limit Updates
The Missionary Oblates joined thirty-two faith-based and socially responsible investors in a letter to the Senate leadership urging timely implementation of Clean Air Act rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), most notably, the Cross State Air Pollution rule (CSAPR) and Mercury and Air Toxics rule (Utility MACT). Arguing that the proposed rules would create jobs and save lives, the investors added that, based on their discussions with electric utilities, the proposed rules would not threaten the reliability of the electric system.
Read the letter (Download PDF)…
Faith-based Shareholders Explain their Work on CBS’s The Early Show December 12th, 2011
Rebecca Jarvis, of CBS’s The Early Show, talks with the Rev. Seamus Finn and Sister Pat Daly, from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, about how they help major corporations realize their social duties to make them better.
