News Archives » missionary oblates of mary immaculate
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…
Oblate JPIC Signs Letter to US Congress Opposing Fast Track Authority for Trade Agreement March 2nd, 2015
On February 17, Missionary Oblates JPIC office joined in an interfaith letter signed by nearly three-dozen faith communities to oppose fast-track authority for the passage of an upcoming international trade agreement by Congress. The letter has been sent to all Members of the US Congress. Fast-Track authority paves the way for Congressional approval of trade agreements such as the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with little or no debate, and with no changes possible to the agreement that has been negotiated by the US Trade Representative, largely behind closed doors. This is an undemocratic process, which potentially denies a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of trade agreement provisions on vulnerable communities, workers and the environment, and which does not provide for detailed public hearings, despite the potential for significant public impacts.
Members of the Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investments who signed the letter write, “Our faith traditions call for community participation in the democratic process because we believe this is the only way to ensure all people have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the creation of good policies. “Fast track” is a broken and undemocratic process because it privileges the views of powerful global corporations in defining the terms of trade agreements, while excluding voices of those adversely impacted. This impedes progress towards a more just world.”
Full text of the letter with signatories (Download PDF)
J.P. Morgan Chase Issues How we do Business Report in Response to Faith-based Shareholders December 19th, 2014
Members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility welcomed today’s release of JP Morgan Chase’s (JPMC) How we do Business Report. The report was, in large part, issued in response to shareholder pressure as a result of the billions of dollars in fines and penalties the company has faced over the past several years.
The report was largely brought about by shareholders pressing for structural changes as a result of the multiple ethical lapses which resulted in billions of dollars in fines and penalties.
Rev. Séamus Finn, of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Board Chair of ICCR, said, “We welcome the report and look forward to the opportunity to review it in greater detail. The report appropriately acknowledges the lapses in ethical conduct that resulted in significant damage to the company’s reputation and details steps taken to reduce the possibility of such lapses in the future. That their actions have broader, societal repercussions beyond the scope of the company seems also to have been recognized. We are hopeful that management sees the value in this type of self-examination as a bridge to begin to restore trust and confidence between Main Street and Wall Street.”
Read the ICCR press release on the JP Morgan Chase report
Faith-Based Shareholders Pushes Bank of America to Reverse Poor Governance Decision November 26th, 2014
Activists protest BofA in Charlotte, NC in 2012;
Credit: photo from Flickr JedBrandt@gmail.com;
Some Rights Reserved
.
The Missionary Oblates have joined other Faith-based investors in asking Bank of America to require the Chair of the Board to remain independent. BOA recently decided to give the title of Chairman to the Bank’s CEO, Brian Moynihan.
BOA’s action rolls back a bylaw change approved by shareholders in 2009 to separate the titles. Faith-based and other large institutional investors, including the California State Teacher’s Retirement System and the New York City Pension Funds, have called for a shareholder vote on the issue. Continuing fines and settlement payments involving the bank since the financial crisis have shareholders arguing for greater oversight of management by the Board. Giving the CEO the additional authority of Board Chair weakens the independence of the Board.
Fr Seamus Finn, OMI who is Board Chair of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, said the bank’s ongoing fines and settlements show that it needs “to take a serious look at the culture of the institution.” He said it would be better if the two roles were separated.
The Oblates have joined the New Jersey-based Sisters of Charity in co-filing a resolution on this issue, and other faith-based institutional investors plan to do the same. Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers has analysts predicting that the bank will put the issue on the ballot for a vote by shareholders.
