Socially Responsible Investment Coalition Brings Conscience Into the Larger Networks

Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio belongs to a larger responsible networks.  It is connected with schools, hospitals, churches, retirement center, shelter and community center for the vulnerable, and other non-profit organizations because of its mission.  Apart from it influencing organizations through its social networks to spread God's mission, it is also consuming the economic resources through investments.  In this respect, the congregation connects conscience and economics.  The world is created as an interconnected systems.  The world is a living organism in itself that it can function with how it is connected to other systems.  Through policies and structures, we are sustained by the kind of world that we uphold and support.  The Congregation intends to create a more just and sustainable world through corporate responsibility through its membership with the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition (SRIC).  

Guided by a Finance Committee of experts, the monetary assets of the Congregation are invested in corporations so that they will increase in value. In addition, the Congregation retains a diverse number of asset managers and consultants that, through fiduciary responsibility assist us in the responsibility to be congruent and align our portfolios with Catholic Directives, our mission, and the common interest to make positive impact in today’s world.   

In 1982 Sr. Frances Lorene Lange, CDP and Fr. Mike Crosby OF Cap founded a Texas Group now known as the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition (SRIC).  The San Antonio CCVI’s joined ten other religious congregations as founding members.  SRIC has grown to 20 organizational members and a number of individual members and participated in numerous efforts to bring about responsible corporate behavior through the power of shareholder resolutions as well as corporate dialogues.  Sr. Leticia de Jesus Rodriguez represents our Congregation in SRIC activities, our membership serves as a collaborative structure in the good stewardship of our common funds. Also, Esther Ng, our former CFO, is an active individual member in this group.

SRIC is a member of a larger coalition called the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.  ICCR is a coalition of faith and values-driven organizations who view the management of their investments as a powerful catalyst for social change. Founded in 1972, its membership comprises nearly 300 organizations including faith-based institutions, socially responsible asset management companies, unions, pension funds and colleges and universities that collectively represent over $200 billion in invested capital. SRIC participates in ICCR dialogues. The participation and leadership of other ICCR members in corporate dialogues is instrumental to SRIC’s shareholder advocacy.

A Social, Ecological and Economic Conscious Network

Being part of the larger socially responsible organizations creates an intentional social-ecologically economic minded people matched with a heart.  A social connections can only be sustained with a heart.  This is the power of mission.  We do not exist on our reason for one's existence.  We do not exist on our own interest but we are able to exist because of the world that helps us thrive.  Reflect on the connections that you have and how are you being part of the traditional world and the shift to our call towards transformation for it to be socio-ecologically economic conscious.  Everything is connected.  We can only thrive as much as we are connected with the rest of the world with a sense of responsibility and not basing our existence on how cheap things are but how much love the world needs and how much love that God can give for Creation in a particular time, given the resources that we have and by God’s graces. 

In 1971, eight years after Pacem in Terris, Blessed Pope Paul VI referred to the ecological concern as “a tragic consequence” of unchecked human activity: “Due to an ill-considered exploitation of nature, humanity runs the risk of destroying it and becoming in turn a victim of this degradation”. He spoke in similar terms to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations about the potential for an “ecological catastrophe under the effective explosion of industrial civilization”, and stressed “the urgent need for a radical change in the conduct of humanity”, inasmuch as “the most extraordinary scientific advances, the most amazing technical abilities, the most astonishing economic growth, unless they are accompanied by authentic social and moral progress, will definitively turn against man” (LS 4)

During this Laudato Si' Week (May 17-24), we are encouraged to reflect with a mind and heart that we live in a finite world in a finite time with a lot of possibilities.  These possibilities can give us an opportunity to put our hope into actions that are larger than ourselves to thrive not only for the sake of one but for the sake of young, future generations, the indigenous, and the vulnerable members of our society.

This is an invitation for all to reflect on what social networks are you connected and how is your participation on these networks spread the mission for not only one's sustainability but the sustainability of aGod’s Creation, a mission of any social human being.  Let us bring conscience into our planet. 

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https://sric-south.org/