We Need a Pope Francis I -- and Divestment to Save the Planet

Globally, Roman Catholics possess stock in many of the world’s most notorious international corporations. These corporations survive by the behest of shareholders. If the Vatican and all Roman Catholic institutions, dioceses, hospitals, colleges and universities, and parishioners were directed for the Scriptural reasons of care of Creation and the poor to immediately begin the process of divesting from corporations that are not living up to moral responsibilities to their workers, communities, and the environment and other species, and began investing instead in socially responsible ventures, think what could be accomplished!

As divestment worked to help change South Africa, it could work in this, international corporation reform and planetary survival. Such a Catholic campaign would be the best possible to tool to teach all Catholics and the world what the Office of Peace and Justice's statement on "international Monetary and Financial Systems" states:

…the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics – which is responsible for the common good – over the economy and finance. Economics and finance need to be brought back within the boundaries of their real vocation and function, including their social function, in consideration of their obvious responsibilities to society – for example, that of nourishing markets and financial institutions which are really at the service of the person and are capable of responding to the needs of the common good and universal brotherhood. Clearly, this vocation, this function has nothing to do with the shallow and crass economism for which money and marketplace success are the only measure of social value.

For instance, if Catholics globally began prayerfully divesting from corporations involved in global warming-inducing industries: oil, gas, natural gas, fracking and tar sands extraction, mining, clear-cut logging operations and water privatization firms, and shifting all their investments, facilities, and vehicles to alternative energies and corporations run on the principles of sustainable (or natural), ethical capitalism, as well as to micro loans, education, and public health services for the poor, consider what a power shift to Creation Care and Gospel values Catholics could achieve and at what a rapid pace!!!!

Other denominations and faith groups would follow. Within years instead of decades, we could begin to slow climate change and begin reforesting the planet to bring it back into ecological balance, which would help all suffering from drought, famine, wildfires, flooding, etc.

This prayer and action-based campaign would teach the world, especially Catholics and Christians, that those fortunate enough to have extra money need to use it in charity but in investment solidarity for the common good and life-nurturing economic systems, developing cultural and vocational values of caring and compassion. As you know, we, as servants of Christ and our Creator God, cannot serve both Mammon and God, and this Catholic Campaign would be a great lesson to demonstrate that where our hearts are our money should follow – that we can move mountains with prayer and action. We need a push towards saving God’s creation as strongly as we are presently directing toward the pro-life, anti-abortion efforts, as this IS the key pro-life effort…..to save a livable, hospitable world for the unborn and the born.

If we become the change we seek, we will be ultimately relevant and more spiritually alive, engaging the contemporary world in its monetary complexities with our spiritual values and obligation to God and each other. Roman Catholics will once again become known as people striving to live the Beatitudes, in our personal, family, communal, and global lives as Catholics, Christians, and citizens of the world.

Also with this Catholic Disinvest-to-Invest in Creation Care Campaign, the Church would be plowing the ground toward a general reform of the World Bank system and a curbing of multinational corporate imperialism and abuse. It would move us into more communal, ethical solidarity about the vocation of business and investment, which is desperately needed, teaching by example that:

The birth of a new society and the building of new institutions with a universal vocation and competence are a prerogative and a duty for everyone, without distinction. What is at stake is the common good of humanity and the future itself. In this context, for every Christian there is a special call of the Spirit to become committed decisively and generously so that the many dynamics under way will be channeled towards prospects of fraternity and the common good. An immense amount of work is to be done towards the integral development of peoples and of every person. As the Fathers said at the Second Vatican Council, this is a mission that is both social and spiritual, which “to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God”(24).

                          Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice’s statement “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems” 

This leadership of reprioritization (with no doubt some initial financial sacrifices) would help the world to recognize that it cannot put short-term shareholder profits over the real needs of local people and workers, and the systems and species of God’s wondrous, complex Creation and its inhabitants. As Jesus counseled the rich young man, “Go and sell all you have and give to the poor.” A s Catholics in the developed world disengage ourselves from our addictions to large profits and materialism, we would help realign our personal lives toward God while leading the world to realigning its values and disengaging from the carbon-pollution destroying us.  

Benefits to the Catholic Church 

Beyond the international financial and ecological crises, however, we are also facing ones of faith and personal trust in the Church itself. In light of all the scandals, each Catholic has to decide whether or not the contemporary Church as we know it is credible and ethical as an institution -- in terms of pastoral service, truth, accountability, and even more, relevance in terms of meeting the real moral challenges of the day. Can it still be perceived as a light on the hill? This spiritually-based campaign of shifting our money to our values would be a step in that direction -- of restoring the leadership integrity the Church has lost.

As a priest at the old St. Patrick Church in Chicago preached last week – “When Christ taught us to pray, He never used the words ‘I’, ‘me,’ or ‘my’ and He instead used ‘we,’ ‘us’, and ‘our.’ This is a message everyday Catholics need to hear often in the pews. Too long Catholics and other Christians have focused on personal salvation rather than also on healing our corporate Body of Christ, repenting of our communal sins and working toward reparation and restoration.

For if we do not care for the land and its people as dictated in Leviticus 19, 23, and 25, we will have all the punishments of Leviticus 26, which are the same as those predicted by scientists and generals from the effects of global warming. The skies and land shall turn hard like iron and copper to us, and wars will take us all down. This Disinvestment-to-Invest in Creation Care Campaign would be an enormous step toward pro-life actions across the spectrum of life and show Roman Catholics working together globally to live out Christ’s Beatitudes and renew the face of the earth.

In 1205, Christ on the San Damiano cross said to Francis of Assisi, “Francis, go repair my church which is falling into ruins.” To do this, Francis led the Church in returning to the Gospel spirit of living on little and caring for the poor and all our brother and sister animals. So too, we must do to rebuild our Church, care for the poor, save our planet.  

We need a Pope Francis I.