Hypocrisy of Vatican's investment strategy
Hypocritical Church- a commentary
The Vatican has given itself a new investment strategy. It aims at applause, but is deeply hypocritical.
The Vatican has adopted a new investment strategy. The Catholic Church usually keeps a low profile when it comes to money matters but the Popes in Rome have always been aware, at least in this millennium, that their material wealth and Christian teaching do not always go well together.
Pope Francis has, at least, provided a little more insight during his tenure. However, for the Vatican to even issue a press release on changes in investment strategy, as happened last week, is highly unusual. There is a reason for this: the communication aims to present the ailing Church in a better light.
From 1 September onwards, financial transactions of a "speculative nature" will no longer be pursued, Francis has announced. Instead, they should be of a "productive nature". The church leaders did not go into great detail but shares in contraceptive manufacturers, for example, should not find their way into the portfolio - and oil shares are not excluded but rather no longer desired.
This may make sense from the church's point of view, but with their new distinction the Pope and his followers have fundamentally misunderstood or possibly deliberately misinterpreted something: Shares are always both speculative and productive in nature. They are speculative because their purchase expresses the hope of a better future, that is, rising prices. The idea is also contained in the Latin origin of the term speculation (roughly: "peering into the distance"), which no one should know better than the Latin experts in the Vatican.
However, shares are also of a productive nature, because by buying them, shareholders become co-owners of companies that produce things and thus, in the best case, increase the wealth of society. To pretend that one can be had without the other can - if you will pardon me, Your Holiness - only be summed up in one word: It is profoundly hypocritical.
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