I’d like to start this article by wishing all of you a very happy 2023! Hopefully, it will prove to be more rewarding from an investment standpoint than the exceedingly disappointing 2022. Also disappointing is the recent, January 3rd, policy change by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that allows pharmacies to sell mifepristone. What…
We’ve talked in earlier articles about the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). In that 26-page document, the bishops enumerate a number of business activities that make a company unfit for investment. The investment activities that the USCCB identify as unfit for investment include, but are not limited…
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20) Self-proclaimed Catholic Joe Biden, today signed an executive order forcing United States taxpayers to fund abortion travel with their tax dollars. Evil is called good…
CNA—A Vatican policy published Tuesday says that the Holy See’s financial investments cannot contradict Catholic teaching. The policy stipulates that Vatican investments should “be aligned with the teachings of the Catholic Church, with specific exclusions for financial investments which contradict its fundamental principles, such as the sanctity of life or the dignity of the human…
CNA—The Vatican’s “trial of the century”, scheduled to continue in September, has so far offered plenty of drama and raised numerous unanswered questions. One of the most sensitive, not just for Catholics who have donated money to the Vatican, is this: Was Peter’s Pence used to finance investments like the now infamous London property deal?…
CNA—The Vatican’s financial watchdog authority reported on Monday that it received 104 suspicious activity reports in 2021, an increase from the previous year. In a 35-page annual report, released on June 13, the Supervisory and Financial Information Authority (ASIF) said that it submitted 21 reports to the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice (prosecutor), the highest number…
It’s a matter of priorities If you’re counting on dividend payments to supplement your income, then the single most important issue is whether the companies that you’re counting on for those dividends have the financial wherewithal to make the payments. And that’s why we try to ensure, in one way or another, that the companies…
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops published the first version of Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines in 1986. Last November (2021) saw the latest update. From the beginning, the bishops have wanted to earn a reasonable rate of return and invest based on Catholic moral principles. A reasonable rate of return is one that matches the…
CNA—Cardinal Angelo Becciu said Wednesday that he is blameless in the forced resignation of a Vatican auditor, because it came at Pope Francis’ request. Becciu was said to be responsible for the sudden firing in 2017 of the Vatican’s first auditor general, Libero Milone, as well as the cancelation of an internal audit. But during…
I began transforming into a Catholic investor while working as a portfolio manager for Northwestern Mutual Life. I had been a pro-life Catholic for a long time and was serving on the Wisconsin Right to Life Board of Directors. A stockbroker I worked with regularly approached me with a new idea for a stock to…
The London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) — once called the world’s most important number — is an interest-rate benchmark that has influenced borrowing costs for consumers, businesses, and investors around the world since 1986.1–2 It’s been quoted in five currencies (British pound, Swiss franc, Euro, Japanese yen, and U.S. dollar) from the daily submissions of…
On December 15, 2021, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve System made a significant shift in monetary policy in response to rising inflation. The Committee accelerated the reduction of its bond-buying program in order to tighten the money supply and projected three increases in the benchmark federal funds rate in 2022,…
Prolife Bank (proposed) is near opening. Its distinguishing feature is that it will be a bank that refuses to support anything remotely connected with the killing of innocent unborn babies. Who knew that many of the mainstream banks with which we do business actively support causes including abortion and abortion-related nonprofits whose activities and principles…
CMN—A recent provision by the Secretariat for the Economy made clear that the Administration for the Patrimony of the Apostolic See manages all the Holy See’s sovereign financial activity. In short, this means that it is back to old times as far as Vatican finances are concerned. All of the accounts owned by institutional entities…
The Pillar—Pope Francis has issued a new Vatican law that aims to combat corruption by senior officials in the curia and in the city state, and that bars investments in companies or businesses “contrary to the social doctrine of the Church.” The new law also aims to end customary cash gifts exchanged among Church officials…
Yesterday, January 5, 2021, President Trump signed an Executive Order banning investment in eight (8) apps with ties to Communist China and its egregious tracking and security threat factors. Here are the total list of 8 additional apps banned from U.S. transactions: Alipay CamScanner QQ Wallet SHAREit Tencent QQ VMate WeChat Pay WPS Office Here…
CNA—New details have emerged about the links between the two Italian businessmen at the center of the Vatican financial scandal. In the months before Gianluigi Torzi was asked by the Holy See to act as middle man for the final purchase of the London property at 60 Sloane Ave. from Raffaele Mincione, a company owned…
The Mentors Radio, a popular and unique business & ethics radio show now in its Fourth Year, has a new time slot on AM860 The Answer in the San Francisco Bay Area, now airing at 1:00 pm every Saturday. Produced by the Catholic Business Journal, the radio show and radio podcast features three remarkable and…
CNA—The Holy See press office announced Friday that Italian businessman Gianluigi Torzi has been arrested after he was interrogated as part of a Vatican financial investigation. Torzi played a crucial role in the controversial purchase of a London property development by the Secretariat of State. “Today the Office of the Promoter of Justice of the…
UK-based Learn Bonds—Millions of Britain’s small businesses are desperate for cash to cover wages a month into the coronavirus lockdown – but the alternative finance industry feels the government has left them with their noses pressed against the window while high street banks dither over approvals. That is certainly the view of Funding Options chief executive Simon Cureton…
