by By Richard Valdmanis
(Reuters) – Hundreds of Catholic institutions around the world have since announced plans to divest their oil, gas and coal finances to help fight climate change. Pope Francis published his encyclopedic landmark on environmental stewardship in 2015 arguing for a break with fossil fuels.
But in the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer and where about a quarter of the population is Catholic, not a single diocese has announced that it has divested its fossil fuel assets.
US dioceses hold millions of dollars of stock in fossil fuel companies through portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries, according to a Reuters review of financial statements. And at least a dozen are also leasing land to drillers, according to land records.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the assembly of the US Catholic Church hierarchy that sets policy direction, told Reuters that its guidance on socially responsible investing had been updated in 2021 to account for the Pope’s encyclical but confirmed that it is necessary. divestment from fossil fuels.
Pope Francis had planned to attend the COP28 conference in Dubai this week, but canceled on Tuesday due to health concerns. The Vatican said it was weighing options to ensure a presence at the summit and Vatican sources said it was likely that a senior official would read the Pope’s speech to him in Dubai, or that the Pope would use a video link.
“He’s making another appeal,” said Dan DiLeo, director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University in Nebraska. “This is a call and plea for loyalty.”
The continued investments in the US reflect the long-standing rift between the US Catholic bishops and the Pope over how to address global warming.
The Pope’s Laudato Si journalist urged immediate action against climate change, declaring that “heavily polluting fossil fuels need to be gradually replaced without delay”. Since then the Vatican has repeatedly, and explicitly, encouraged the divestment of Catholic institutions.
APSA, the department that manages the Vatican portfolio, adheres to the policy of not investing in fossil fuels and makes “all possible checks” to ensure that funds in which it holds shares do not, according to a senior Vatican finance official.
The Vatican bank, which is separate from APSA, also does not invest in fossil fuels, a bank official said.
BIG OIL STOCKS
Some 354 Catholic institutions across more than 50 countries have divested from fossil fuels since the 2015 encyclical, including scores of dioceses in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany, according to the Laudato Si Movement, an environmental advocacy group. A Catholic who pursues divestment.
Notably absent is any diocese in the US
Reuters reviewed the financial reports published by two dozen of the nation’s more than 170 Catholic dioceses, including some of the largest, and found that few provide details on specific investments.
The Archdiocese of Boston had over $6 million in energy stocks in its Income Opportunity Fund and Investment Partnership at the end of June, according to its annual reports. The underlying companies were not identified in any of the reports, and a spokesman for the Archdiocese did not respond to questions about the investments.
The diocese of Boston had about $2 million in corporate gas and electric bonds in another portfolio.
The assets comprised a small fraction of approximately $240 million in total investments of the Archdiocese.
The Diocese of Chicago, San Francisco and Erie, Pennsylvania also listed energy assets, without providing details on the underlying companies. The financial reports of eight other dioceses examined by Reuters contained little or no information about the industries represented in their investments.
Reuters also examined a database of oil and gas leases in Texas and found that a dozen US dioceses – seven based in Texas and five out of state – were involved in deals with drillers.
Texas dioceses included San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth. The dioceses of Erie and San Francisco also had leases.
“We hire a third party to review our compliance with the USCCB guidelines, and these guidelines do not prohibit investments in fossil fuels,” said Peter Marlow, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, in response to Reuters questions about his investments and his lease. Treats.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Erie confirmed that there were “arrangements with two companies in Texas that provide minimal dividends, in the range of $15 per year,” and that he wanted them terminated.
“This effort will continue until we succeed,” spokeswoman Anne-Marie Welsh said.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore declined to comment on its investments but cited an open letter from Archbishop William Lori in October supporting the pope’s message on the environment and listing initiatives including the use of solar on the archipelago and a program to Plant 1,000 trees.
Officials at other dioceses did not comment.
“As a Church we must walk the talk Laudato Si,” said Father Joshtrom Kureethadam, an official in the Vatican’s Department for Human Development, which formulates environmental policy. He called the huge financial gains by oil companies “immoral profits.”
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents US oil companies, said the industry was “committed to driving further innovation to accelerate global climate goals while providing the energy consumers around the world need.”
A PRACTICAL GUIDE
The USCCB’s investment guidance calls on dioceses to “consider divesting from those companies that consistently fail to initiate policies intended to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement”.
The Paris Agreement is an international agreement reached in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial times in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
“The 2021 update sought to provide practical guidance for investments based on the teachings of Pope Francis,” said Chieko Noguchi, a spokeswoman for the USCCB.
Noguchi declined to answer follow-up questions, including whether the USCCB has identified any companies to divest, or whether direct involvement in oil and gas leasing could resolve the Pope’s call to avoid fossil fuels.
The USCCB’s 2021 recommendations were guided by the Christian Brothers Investment Service (CBIS), a global investment manager serving Catholic investors and institutions, according to a press release issued by the USCCB at the time.
The CBIS, which manages nearly $10 billion, has rejected wholesale fossil fuel divestment, insisting on active shareholder engagement to improve companies from the inside.
Among the “Catholic Responsible Investment” funds it offers to US dioceses and other clients are major oil and gas companies such as BP, Shell, Saudi Aramco, PetroChina and ONGC India, according to LSEG data.
“CBIS is leading shareholder engagements with the biggest players in the oil and gas sector to influence the industry towards a low carbon future,” the investment service told Reuters. It also said it introduced “targeted divestment from a subset of fossil fuel producers and users” that have the biggest impact on carbon emissions, including those heavily involved in coal and oil sands.
Sabrina Danielsen, a professor at Creighton University who has studied the involvement of US bishops on the issue of climate change, said the US Catholic hierarchy is rejecting the Pope’s calls for divestment in part because of its traditional conservative leanings.
Less than 1% of more than 12,000 columns by US bishops in official publications since 2014 mentioned climate change, Danielson found in a 2021 study, and many of those ignored the urgency of with global warming or described the subject as controversial.
“I think bishops may be afraid of upsetting politically conservative Catholics in their dioceses, and especially afraid of upsetting wealthy conservative donors,” she said.
The USCCB did not comment on her research.
(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Additional reporting by Philip Pullella in Vatican City, Riham Alkousaa in Berlin, and John Mair in Sydney; Editing by Suzanne Goldenberg)
