(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 19.07.2022).- The Holy See reported that, beginning September 1, a new unified policy will be implemented for the financial investments of the Holy See and of Vatican City State. 

The document that explains the new policies (which was debated in the Council for the Economy and with specialists on the matter) is addressed to the heads of the Curia’s Dicasteries  and of institutions and entities linked to the Holy See by the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves.

The new “Investments Policy” intends to guarantee that the objective of investments is to contribute to a more just and sustainable world; to protect the real value of the patrimony of the Holy See, generating a sufficient return to contribute in a sustainable way to the financing of its activities, and to be in consonance with the teachings of the Catholic Church, with specific exclusions of financial investments that contradict her fundamental principles, such as the sanctity of life, the dignity of the human being and the common good. In this connection, the press release points out that it’s important that investments be geared to financial activities of a productive nature, excluding those of a speculative nature, and that they be guided above all by the principle that the choice to invest in one place or another, in a productive sector and not another, is always a moral and cultural choice. 

The Policy was approved ad experimentum for five years and will come into force on September 1, with a period of moratorium to adapt to the criteria proposed. 

The curial institutions will have to entrust their financial investments to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), transferring their liquidity to be invested –or their securities deposited in foreign banks or in their own Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR, “Vatican Bank”)– to APSA’s account licensed in the IOR to that effect. APSA, as the institution that administers the Holy See’s patrimony, will create a unique fund for the Holy See, which will receive the investments in the different financial instruments, and will have an account for each institution, processing the reports and paying the yields. 

The new Investments Committee, established with the Constitution Praedicate Evangelium will hold, through APSA, opportune consultations geared  to the implementation of the investment strategy and will evaluate the suitability of the choices, with special attention to the investments’ conformity with the principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church, as well as the parameters of profitability and risk in keeping with the Investments Policy. 

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