What's Happening

March 28, 2017, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s March 28, 2017, Executive Order to roll back the Clean Power Plan. 

Statement of Adrian Dominican Sisters on March 28, 2017 Executive Order

President Trump’s Executive Order rolling back the nation’s Clean Power Plan sends a dangerous signal to the rest of the world that the United States is reneging on its pledge to cut carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2025, putting the historic Paris agreement – and the wellbeing of people and planet – in jeopardy.

It will not put all coal miners to work; most mining is increasingly mechanized. It will give a green light to planet-warming carbon pollution, threatening to relegate our children to an irreversible future of extreme weather events, droughts, floods, and untold billions in costs to adapt to these harmful impacts. And it will increase threats to endangered species and vulnerable ecosystems.

As Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si, “Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us.”

True energy independence can only be secured through a clean, renewable-energy based economy. To that end, the Adrian Dominican Sisters recently made a commitment to “sacrifice to mitigate significantly our impact on climate change and ecological degradation.” The commitment was made in recognition of the “violence against Earth community that places our common home in dire jeopardy and intensifies the suffering of people on the margins, future generations and all creation.” 

March 9, 2017, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s revised Executive Order impacting Muslim refugees.

You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 22:20; 23:9; Leviticus 19:33-34

President Trump’s revised Executive Order banning immigrants from six predominantly Muslim countries, and halving the number of refugees the United States accepts, undermines our standing in the world as a nation of liberty that offers refuge to people fleeing from persecution and violence. Intelligence from our own Department of Homeland Security shows that country of origin is an unlikely predictor of potential terrorist activity. 

As American citizens and Catholic Sisters, we deplore what can only be seen as a ban on our Muslim brothers and sisters and a diminishment of our nation’s embracing spirit of liberty for all.