Catholic investing and the life of the Church are not opposing realities, but two spheres that must remain in dialogue. A common question arises: if the Gospel calls for detachment from material goods, can the Church invest? According to recent Church documents, the answer is clear: not only is it possible, but in many cases it is necessary—provided that investments follow ethical investing, remain coherent with the faith, and are fully oriented toward the common good.
Investing as a Christian Responsibility
The Church has the responsibility to manage its temporal goods in the best possible way so it can continue supporting its pastoral, charitable, and social missions. Catholic teaching reminds us that money is never an end in itself. Investments should not be driven solely by profit; they can—and must—serve as instruments to promote the common good.
For this reason, faith-based investing requires avoiding sectors that contradict Catholic moral teaching, such as pornography, abortion, addictions, or labor exploitation. Today, several professional investing tools allow investors to identify when an investment conflicts with the Magisterium of the Church—a topic we will revisit later.
What the Church Teaches Today: Mensuram Bonam and the Social Doctrine of the Church
In November 2022, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development published Mensuram Bonam: Faith-Based Measures for Catholic Investors, offering concrete and updated guidance for Catholic investing in a complex global context shaped by technological, social, and environmental challenges.
This document, in full continuity with the Social Doctrine of the Church, stresses that the Church should not remain on the margins of the financial world but should participate in it to foster transformation from within. Furthermore, it reinforces the idea that money is never the ultimate goal but a means to serve the human person and the common good.
Economics and finance have a deep ethical dimension. Every investment decision must respect human dignity, the protection of life, the family, and the care of creation—precisely the principles that distinguish Catholic values in investing from generic socially responsible investing approaches.
Professional Tools to Ensure Faithful Coherence: Altum Investment Guidelines, Altum Explorer, and Altum App
To make faith-based investing truly possible, Altum Faithful Investing offers the Altum Investment Guidelines, an ethical framework that is unique in the financial sector. These guidelines clearly define—based on the Magisterium and the Social Doctrine of the Church—how to invest in a way that is consistent with the Catholic faith. They serve as the foundation for the ethical analysis applied to every company.
This analysis is made available to all investors through the Altum App, a free Catholic stock screening tool that enables anyone to verify whether a company is in alignment or in conflict with Catholic moral teaching.
For professional investors, Altum Explorer offers a more advanced solution. It is a comprehensive professional investing tool used by financial advisors, Catholic institutions, and wealth managers around the world. Altum Explorer provides detailed ethical assessments of thousands of companies and facilitates the construction of portfolios fully aligned with the principles of Catholic investing.
Together, these tools make it possible for both individual and institutional investors to undertake ethical discernment with clarity, transparency, and rigor, ensuring that every investment decision remains coherent with the faith.
Ultimately, Catholic investing is an essential dimension of the Church’s mission and can become a powerful engine for positive change. When the Church invests in ways fully consistent with its doctrine, it extends its mission beyond its traditional pastoral and charitable work. It supports companies whose core activity contributes to economic development, ethical business practices, and the common good. In this way, faith-based investing becomes a concrete expression of the Church’s witness in the world—transforming financial decisions into opportunities for evangelization, justice, and human flourishing.
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