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Resources for investing with faith
USCCB.ORG/FINANCE/SRIG.SHTML
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ investment policies
INVESTCATHOLIC.COM
Invest Catholic, a view of the personal financial world from a Catholic perspective
CFP.NET
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, a source for information on personal financial planning and working with financial professionals
ACGA-WEB.ORG
American Council on Gift Annuities, a source for more information about charitable gift annuities |
The children would no sooner finish morning prayer at St. Charles Borromeo Elementary School when Sister would call out the questions: “Who made us?”
“God made us,” we would respond in unison.
“Why did God make us?”
“To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.”
To this day, those two simple catechism questions have stayed with me. The older I get, the more firmly I believe that they form the foundation for a Christ-centered life. God made us and has called us to celebrate his gifts, to know Him through his blessings, and to live life fully.
When we accept that everything we have is a gift from God, then we must accept that with those gift s comes responsibility. Financially, we all are called to care for the needs of ourselves and our families, our churches, and our communities. That includes preparing for the future. One way to do this is by investing.
Investing is how we store wealth. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and all the rest are some of the tools we use. Th e purpose of investing is not to get rich quick; rather, investing is about bringing life to your dreams and realizing your visions of the future. Most financial professionals would agree that a well-designed investment portfolio should provide a degree of safety, off set the loss of purchasing power caused by inflation, and generate the growth and income needed to achieve your goals. As Catholics, there are some things we need to consider when investing:
1 What does investing have to do with my Catholic faith?As Catholics, we need to expect even more from our investments than monetary success. Pope John Paul II wrote, “The decision to invest in one place rather than another is always a moral and cultural choice.” What we choose to invest in matters. Our investments should support and reflect our Catholic values. Companies that support abortion, profit from pornography, or compromise family values do not belong in a morally responsible portfolio.
2 How do I know if the companies I’m currently investing in are engaged in practices against my faith and values? How can I keep tabs on this?The simple answer is to ask. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) investment policies have clarified the guidelines for morally responsible investing from a Catholic perspective (
usccb.org/finance/srig.shtml).
Armed with this knowledge, you can call the investor relations offices of the companies in which you are currently invested, and the companies you are considering, and ask how they make their money and what they are doing with it.
3 Is there a list of companies that I can safely invest in from a Catholic or Christian standpoint? By what criteria is this list determined?
Contacting individual companies is a relatively easy matter when there are only a few, but to screen a larger portion of the market becomes daunting. There are screens that professional money managers use. Unfortunately, for most individual investors their cost is prohibitive. An alternative is to use mutual funds that specialize in morally responsible and faith-based investing. These fund managers have the resources to identify the companies that meet certain moral guidelines and the time to monitor them. There are a
number of mutual funds that are now offering faith-based alternatives. Ave Maria Mutual Funds (see sidebar
