Invest from a moral standpoint with Catholic investments that are in complete compliance with the USCCB’s (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) Investment Guidelines. Your Catholic values are important and so is the performance of your investment portfolio. By combining Catholic values, as set forth by the USCCB Investment Guidelines, with your investments, you can improve the world as you advance toward your financial goals.
Catholic Investment Strategies is a division of Wallick Investments, a South Carolina-based registered investment advisor.
Wallick Investments' Catholic Investment Strategies offers our Catholic investors high quality investment portfolios without violating the USCCB's guidelines. All of our financial advisors are practicing Catholics who take the Bishops' guidelines for investing very seriously.
Why We Are Committed to Catholic Investing
It’s pretty simple really. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken the time and effort to publish a 28 page document setting forth a set of investment guidelines. To us, that means that the issue is worthy of attention. We are certainly no match for the combined theological knowledge of this group of Catholic Bishops and, therefore, we are happy to try to comply with their instructions. On one level, it’s just a simple acknowledgment of our own limitations and obedience to Mother Church.
But there’s another dimension to it as well.
Jesus tells us: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
As we thought about that in our more reflective moments, it occurred to us that if you love someone then you don’t want to do anything that may offend them. And we do love God and we don’t want to offend Him. When we stand before the Judgment Seat, we don’t want to have to explain why we were part owners of a company that was involved in pornography or embryonic stem cell research or racial discrimination.
And we don’t think ignorance is a valid defense.
Do you buy anything of importance without researching it first? Don’t you at least Google it for reviews or ask your friends for their opinions and experiences? We would all agree that building your financial resources is important. Why, then, would you own a company that is involved in immoral activity because you didn’t do the research?
It is possible, with effort, to learn if companies comply with the litmus tests the Bishops have set out for us or if they don’t. Life on earth is a preparation for eternal life in Heaven with God. Why would we want to put our place in Heaven in jeopardy?
So we decided that we wanted to invest in accordance with the Bishops’ Investment Guidelines. But Jesus also tells us that the second greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And that’s why we are trying to bring Catholic investing to our fellow Catholics. We don’t want them, you, to have to stand before the Judgment Seat and answer that question either.
The second commandment figures in this commitment in another way as well. The Bishops ask us to do more than avoid evil. They want us to do good with our investments. That’s why we’re committed to active corporate advocacy. We spend part of our fees, on your behalf, to fund efforts to change the policies of corporate America that are in opposition to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church. In this way, we, and you, show our love for our fellow man.
That love has manifested itself in advocacy work that stopped abortions at a major hospital chain, brought the use of overseas slave labor to a halt, and resulted in concerted industry efforts to combat the sexual exploitation of children, among many others.
Lastly, we want to address an issue that, frankly, baffles us. Many times we hear that, while someone would like to invest faithfully, they are afraid to make a change. And in the back of our mind we hear “fear not!”
Based on our experience and research done for the Bishops, there is no penalty involved in following their guidelines.
Beyond that, God has told us many times to “fear not;” to “be not afraid.” So push fearlessly out into the deep and trust in God to bring you safely home. You will be glad that you did!
