What's Happening

April 1, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – In his 2018 book, Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement, Clifford N. Rosenthal makes references to the key role Adrian Dominican Sisters played in the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) movement – and in bringing the Sisters’ social justice focus to finance. 

The author notes the Congregation’s establishment in 1974 of the Portfolio Advisory Board (PAB), which, rooted in Catholic social justice teachings, brings social justice to finance through shareholder advocacy with corporations and community investment (page 73). 

He also cites the Congregation’s “leading role among faith-based community investors” when, in 1982, it awarded a $30,000 low-interest loan to the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (CDCU). He notes that, of all community investors, “the Adrian Dominicans were distinguished by their strong engagement: they wanted to see the impact of their investment first-hand, and where needed, to try to help out with workouts when organizations ran into trouble” (pp. 121-122).

Finally, he cites the recent critique of CDFIs by Adrian Dominican Sister Corinne Florek, OP, consultant to the PAB and Director of the Religious Communities Investment Fund and the Mercy Partnership Fund. Sister Corinne has called on CDFIs to remember their original purpose, to grant loans to community organizations seen as too risky for commercial banks, and not to get side-tracked by focusing on the strength of their own financial performance.

For more information on the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ efforts in corporate responsibility and community investment, visit the PAB website. 

March 30, 2019, Adrian, Michigan – Sister Magdalena Ezoe, OP, pianist, will offer compositions by Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) during a concert at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, April 7, 2019. Part of the First Sunday Music Series, Sister Magdalena’s concert is at St. Catherine Chapel on the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse Campus, 1257 E. Siena Heights Drive, Adrian. 

The concert features Prelude in A major, two waltzes of Opus 64, Nocturne in E Flat Major, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Etude in E, Opus 10. Sister Magdalena will also perform Nocturne in C# Minor and Waltz in A Minor, both of which were discovered after Chopin’s death. 

Born in Tokyo, Sister Magdalena came to the United States to study at Barry College (now University) in Miami, Florida, where she met and later joined the Adrian Dominican Sisters. She taught music for 37 years at Siena Heights University and has composed parts for the Catholic Mass, hymns, chamber music, and music for the organ and the piano. 

All are welcome to this free concert.