cmf@un
Newsletter of the Claretian Ministry at
the United Nations
Dear Brothers,
Greetings from the United Nations! This fall, the visit of Pope
Francis to the UN energized and validated the hard work of many
men and women who serve there. We are proud to be members of
the UN as a recognized Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
with Department of Public Information (DPI) status. This spring,
we hope to receive a positive response to our request for Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC) status. This will allow us to engage
as an NGO with consultative status. We understand that for some
religious communities that a response to this request has taken
several years. We hope to hear something from the UN soon.
As the UN is indeed a global platform, we cannot go it alone;
we are most effective when we partner with other UN organizations,
both religious and non-religious. Currently, we are members of
the Religious at the UN (RUN) and the NGO Mining Working
Group. We are also in the process of seeking membership with
VIVAT International, a group consisting of various religious orders
partnering for social change in the world together.
The Claretian UN Committee was reconstituted in January
2016. The members are: Sahaya Rubiston, Dominic Jos, Francisco
Javier Reyes, along with Tom Joyce and myself. This committee
serves in an advisory capacity to the UN Team, which, at present,
consists of only me. Father General will be naming a UN team soon,
however; and I welcome this as, with the provincials permission, I
have accepted a position at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago
as an Assistant Professor of Preaching & Pastoral Ministry and
Director of Intercultural Outreach. In order to maintain some
stability with our UN presence, I will continue to serve in an
advisory capacity.
Still pending is the issue of housing in the New York City area.
Despite our many attempts to find suitable housing, we have been
unsuccessful. The Archdiocese of New York mentioned recently that
perhaps in 2017 a parish might become available. In the meantime,
we continue to look for other options.
Finally, the work of our Congregation at the UN has
tremendous possibilities, and we continue to grow the CMF
presence at the UN. n
Eddie DeLeon, C.M.F.
April 2016
UN on the Web
The UN provides a great deal of
information on peace, human rights,
and social/economic development at its
website. Un.org. This basic site leads
to other agency sites, current news and
press releases, documentations issues,
photos, and the like. It also gives access
to the headquarters other than New
York (e.g., Geneva for human rights, the
International Labor Organization and
refugees/migrants). Its web.un.org streams
live sessions of the General Assembly
and Security Council, meetings, videos on
issues, interviews, and the like.
The most important site for CMF@
UN work is the Economic and Social
Council (un.org/ecosoc) which deals with
sustainable development.
These sites give the United Nations
perspective that often differs from
those of member states and NGOs.
For a religious critiquenegative or
supportivecheck out vivatinternational.
org, a collaborative project of a number of
men and women religious communities, or
franciscaninternational.org, both of which
have recognition with ECOSOC. n
Tom Joyce, C.M.F.
 cmf@un
UN Development Goals: the Next 15 Years

We must put people at the center of everything we do. No calling is more noble,
and no responsibility greater, than that of enabling men, women and children, in
cities and villages around the world, to make their lives better, asserted former
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the Millennium Report which was published
for the preparation of the Millennium Summit.

In 2001, at a Millennium Summit, the behind Millennium Development Goals has

UN set sustainable developmental goals for
2015. All 189 member states committed to
achieving the eight development goalsthe
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): to
eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve
universal primary education; to promote gender
equality and empower women; to reduce child
mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; to ensure
environmental sustainability; and to develop a
global partnership for development.
The UN published countries progress
toward the eight MDGs in annual reports
starting in 2005, and last year released a progress
report on the MDGs as the final deadline
approached. It declares that the international
community had reason to celebrate: the MDGs
have helped to lift more than one billion
people out of extreme poverty and its many
different dimensions. Globally, the number of
people living in extreme poverty plummeted
by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in
1990 to 836 million in 2015, with most progress
occurring since 2000. In the developing regions,
the primary school net enrollment rate has
reached 91 percent, up from 83 percent in
2000; furthermore, the developing regions as a
whole have achieved gender equality in primary,
secondary, and tertiary education. Maternal
mortality has declined by 45 percent worldwide
since 1990, with most of the reduction occurring,
again, after 2000. Globally, 147 countries have
achieved access to safe drinking water and 95
countries have attained the sanitation target,
while 77 countries have achieved both. Hence,
needless to say, there have been many success
stories around the globe since the MDGs
were established. Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary
General, upholds that the global mobilization
produced the most successful anti-poverty
movement in history.
However, not all of the MDGs were met
globally. The report states that the progress
has been uneven across regions and countries,
leaving millions of people behind, especially
the poorest and those underprivileged due
to their sex, age, disability, ethnicity, or
geographical location. Gender inequality still
persists in private and public sectors; there
are big gaps existing between the poorest and
richest households; environmental degradation
threatens the global community, especially
the poor; conflict remains a critical challenge
to human development; and, as of 2014, 60
million people have fled their homelandthe
highest level recorded since the Second World
War; and still today, 800 million people live in
extreme poverty and suffer from hunger. These
shortfalls convey a strong message to the human
community that the anti-poverty movement is
not complete and must continue in coming days.
The task of a new Development Goal Summit
will be to reach the most vulnerable people that
were left behind.
To begin this effort the193 UN member
states and other top leaders gathered at
UN Headquarters in September of 2015 to
celebrate the UNs 70th anniversary. They did
so by unanimously adopting 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, which
went into effect on January 1, 2016, are built
upon the achievements of the MDGs and seek
to realize their unfinished work by 2030. They
are integrated, indivisible, and balance the three
dimensions of sustainable development: the
economic, social, and environmental.
The SDGs are: to eradicate poverty, eradicate
hunger, ensure good health, ensure quality

United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference,
Africa Summit, December 2015.
education, achieve gender equality, ensure
clean water and sanitation, ensure affordable
clean energy, ensure decent work and economic
growth, promote innovation, reduce inequalities,
make sustainable cities, foster responsible
consumption, take climate action, conserve
marine resources, protect the ecosystem,
promote peaceful and inclusive societies, and
strengthen partnerships to achieve the goals.
In order to make sure no one is left behind
and to help countries maximize the progress,
a robust, voluntary, effective, participatory,
transparent, and integrated follow-up and
review will be put into practice at the national,
regional, and global levels while progress is made
in implementing the SDGs over the coming 15
years. This review process is something new and
something in which our Claretian Missionaries
can participate through local and national
community groups.
For 70 years, the UN, created by world
leaders during a time of global division owing
to war, has been an effective institution in
providing a framework for action on human
dignity, justice, equality, peace, dialogue, and
international cooperation. And again with the
SDGs, the UN is committed to build[ing]
a better future for all people, including the
millions who have been denied the chance to
lead decent, dignified, and rewarding lives and
to achieve their human potential for the next 15
years. Ban Ki-Moon calls the SDGs a promise by
leaders to all people everywhere. It is an agenda
for people, to end poverty in all its formsan
agenda for the planet, our common home. n
Sahaya Rubiston, C.M.F.
The violence present in our hearts,
wounded by sin, is also reflected
in the symptoms of sickness evident in
the soil, in the water, in the air
and in all forms of life.
Pope Francis in his encyclical
Laudato Si (LS, 2)
The Paris Summit on
Climate Change:
First Steps Forward
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis presents fact
after fact about the deplorable state of mother
earth or our common home, as he calls it.
Pesticides have contaminated farmers soil; air
pollution has poisoned cities. Human waste
has damaged the land. There is not enough
clean water for people to drink or tropical
forests to regulate carbon in the atmosphere.
Whole species of animals are becoming extinct.
Furthermore, at the end of the year 2015 and the
beginning of 2016, the world is facing a global
public health emergency. Diseases like the
Zika virus are being transmitted by heat-loving
mosquitos, causing babies to be born malformed.
Already climate change is suspectedthough
not provento be a factor in a series of diseases
afflicting both animals and humans. Pope
Francis, in a general audience address on June
17th, 2015, said: Our house is being ruined,
and that hurts everyone, especially the poorest
among us.
Positive steps are being taken, however, as
some of the diplomatic members of the UN
from 195 countries came together in Paris in
December of 2015 for a historic summit on
climate change. A milestone was reached as
the nations signed an agreement in which they
acknowledged that the planet is under threat
from human emissions. It is the first time that
the terms loss and damage have been included
in an international agreement. And this seems to
be a first step forward.
At the core of the Paris agreement is an
ambitious goal to hold the increase in the global
average temperature to well below 2 C, which is
above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts
to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C above
pre-industrial levels. Specialists believe that if

this were to be actually achieved, it would
likely prevent the most severe effects of climate
change. For example, although we do not know
the exact temperature, there is a trigger point
at which the whole Greenland ice sheet and the
West Antarctic ice sheet will melt. There is a
chance that staying below 2 C would avoid that
trigger point, and an even better chance if we
stay below 1.5 C.
The agreement encourages parties to take
action to implement and support the above
actions through result-based payments.
The existing framework encompasses policy
approaches and positive incentives for activities
relating to reducing emissions that are a result
of deforestation and forest degradation. It also
addresses the role of conservation, sustainable
management of forests, and enhancement of
forest carbon stocks in developing countries.
Climate reporters believe that this provision is
the most significant recognition that has been
given in one of these agreements. It clearly
highlights the role that forests play in offsetting
human actions.
Unfortunately, underdeveloped countries are
paying the highest cost. Developed countries,
therefore, have the moral responsibility to take
the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a
wide variety of sources. On this matter, the final
language of the signed deal did not fully satisfy
everyone. Agents of some developing countries
expressed consternation. Poor countries had
pushed for a legally binding provision requiring
that rich countries appropriate a minimum of
$100 billion a year to help them mitigate and
adapt to the ravages of climate change.
In order to achieve the long-term
temperature goals, parties aim to reach global
peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon
as possible, recognizing that peaking will take
longer for developing countries. Parties are
to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in
accordance with best available science, so as
to achieve a balance between anthropogenic
emissions by sources and removals of
greenhouse gases by the second half of this
century, on the basis of equity, and in the context
of sustainable development and efforts to
eradicate poverty. The agreement requires that
every nation take part. Since the encounter in
cmf@un
Paris, governments of 185 nations have already
put forth public plans detailing how they would
cut down carbon emissions through 2025 or
2030. Specialist say that those plans alone, once
enacted, will cut emissions by half the levels
required to stave off the worst effects of global
warming.
Despite the historic nature of the Paris
climate consensus, its success still depends
heavily on two factors outside the parameter of
the deal: global peer pressure and the actions
of the future. For this reason, countries will be
required to reconvene every five years, starting
in 2020, with updated plans that would tighten
their emissions cuts. They will also be legally
required to reconvene every five years starting
2023 to publically report on how they are doing
in cutting emissions compared with their plans.
Their results have to be monitored and reported
by using a universal accounting system.
This agreement requires unanimous
commitment and generous dedication by
everyone. We, as Claretian Missionaries, have
indicated in our own declaration of the XXV
General Chapter our called to action: this
situation demands that we initiate a process of
ecological conversion which should redefine our
mission and lifestyles. How do we translate in
our personal and community lives the Churchs
call to combat the logic of violence, excessive
consumerism, exploitation and selfishness?
How do we cultivate attitudes of the heart that
enable us to live with sobriety and simplicity,
with consumerism? The passion for life belongs
to the core of our missionary vocation. Let
our contribution ensure that humanity not
disappoint Gods expectations. (Witnesses and
Messengers of the Joy of the Gospel, 8). n
Francisco Javier Reyes, C.M.F.
The Claretian Ministry at the United
Nations in New York City attends open
meetings of subjects of particular
interest to the Claretian congregation,
and attends NGO meetings on these
subjectstaking part in discussions
that lead to the formation of policies.