Vatican urges Catholics to drop investments in fossil fuels, arms | Hacker News Reader

Vatican urges Catholics to drop investments in fossil fuels, arms

reuters.com

63 pointsaloukissas18 comments

There is an easy way to do this, if you're so inclined.

The S&P 500 Catholic Values ETF is basically a drop-in replacement for other ETFs that track the S&P 500. I started buying it a few months ago.

https://www.globalxetfs.com/funds/cath/

Note that this ETF does not exclude oil companies like Exxon but does exclude companies that manufacture weapons or engage in other problematic activities.

Yes, there will of course be trade-offs between an ETF like VOO or SPY that has a much larger presence in the market. But for some people, they're willing to make that trade-off to divest from holdings they consider problematic.

* Note: If you look at the top 10 holdings in CATH, you'll see there are a bunch of tech companies, and they are certainly not above reproof, in terms of their ethics. But I think many socially conscious investors see a values-based fund or ETF, even if imperfect, as better than nothing.

Yeah, except that ETF charges literally a ten times higher management fee than Vanguard.

If the Vatican really cared, it would provide its own index and low-cost funds in a non-profit vehicle. The Vatican already has a huge asset management operation, so they can't possibly claim that this they don't have the capabilities.

Yes, you would literally be better off buying the Vanguard fund and then just individually shorting out the companies you don't like in the appropriate ratio!

Even if it's the same from an investment standpoint I don't think most people would consider it morally the same. Sorting a stock is essentially betting its value will go down. If you don't really believe it will go down, shorting a stock is just creating a profit opportunity for someone taking a long position. Right?

> creating a profit opportunity for someone taking a long position.

But this person is actually also you. You just bought and sold the same asset.

I wonder, is shorting an unethical stock morally equivalent to (or even morally preferable to) not interacting with it at all? What about options--long positions bad, short positions good? Can I go long on one morally monstrous company, if I ethically hedge by shorting another?

Now I want a fund comprised entirely of ethically evil companies. Not sure what I'd do with it, but it seems useful.

Offering novel financial products is a much more complex business than simply managing assets. I don't think it would be a natural extension of the work the Vatican already does.

Good point about the expense ratio, though.

Looks like they'll have to sell, if they want to keep the name.

>and they are certainly not above reproof, in terms of their ethics.

Well neither are the catholic church either so they seem to be a good fit.

I've asked this at least once before on HN but...

... anytime I hear about values-based investing, I wonder about whether there's a way to customize the particular values and beliefs that an investment fund prioritizes or worries about!

It seems like the existence of the Catholic ETF that you mentioned is a sign that people are gradually expanding the scope of values-based investing, but I wonder if anyone would offer more explicitly fine-grained products.

You can, of course, pick individual stocks for the ultimate in fine granularity.

Is the desire for a fund driven by saving time doing your own research, or something else?

Yeah, I guess the idea that "the market" is still a more desirable investment than "a portfolio" but that it might be hard to assess or hard to keep up with who is doing well or poorly on certain criteria. But those criteria might also not be as widely shared as something like leftism, environmentalism, or Catholicism (and people might also broadly support leftism, environmentalism, or Catholicism, while dissenting from some particular parts of their mainstreams).

I may be a bit optimistic, but the moves to zero comissions and fractional share ownership should make it possible to do this kind of thing independently. Although, managing 500 stocks would be a giant pain, maybe a future wave of brokerage improvements will help with that?

What about military contractors that dont manufacture arms, such as the firm which assembles and disassembles the monitoring system for army training exercises? Firms that perform mass surveillance, construction, pentesting. What about all the fastfood chains which operate on base? At what point in the kill chain, does participation become un-catholic?

Catholic philosophy actually has quite a bit to say about this. Generally, the question is framed as, "When can it be OK to cooperate with evil?"

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has this little flow chart that does not go into much detail -- it's no substitute for the texts upon texts that seriously examine the question -- but gives you a taste of the moral calculations involved:

http://archphila.org/HHS/pdf/CoopEvilChart.pdf

You gotta love this pope for throwing a wrench into the Catholic Church's conservatism.

Examples: this, easing on gay marriage[1] and masturbation, and the firebomb of insisting that if you don't care about refugees and you don't take them into your home then you're not a christian.

While I myself don't care too much about the institution - things like that do remind me of the Lindy Principle. Very old organizations may appear inert and stagnating only to remind you that they do have mechanisms of change and adaptation, otherwise they wouldn't have survived thousands of years.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis_and_homosexuali...

Does anyone have a link to the actual document (‘Journeying Towards Care For Our Common Home’)? I haven't been able to find it, via the Reuter's piece or on the Vatican website

It looks as if it's a full-fledge book, rather than just a document:

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/06/18/...

Typically, if it were just a statement or a smaller document (or a papal encyclical), there would be a form of it -- in at least one language, not necessarily English -- available online almost immediately. The fact that news organizations reporting about it don't link to the text makes me think it's not available online.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com