Growing the Faith

Last night I had the good fortune of attending our archdiocesan Pallium Lecture. It “is an annual event designed to foster conversation and engage the broader culture through the Catholic intellectual tradition,” per the Milwaukee Archdiocese website. Over the history of the event, the speakers have included Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Barron, among many other notables.

I was struck by a paragraph in the program written by Archbishop Listecki.

“Culture comes from the Latin word cultura, which means to cultivate the land. Only today do we understand that, as a community, we can fertilize and restore the lives of those around us by restoring Catholic culture. One has only to examine how faith and religion impact our culture to understand the impact we can have on renewing the culture and the very fabric of our country by cultivating Catholic culture in the everyday lives of those around us. How can we infuse our faith into all aspects of culture, including family life, media, politics and technology?”

Amazingly, I realized that we are involved in the same mission

As I’ve written before, part of what we do on behalf of our investment clients is provide advocacy efforts aimed at getting corporations to abandon any immoral activities in which they may be involved.

In other words, we are trying to change the culture of corporate America to one that adheres more closely to Catholic moral teaching.

If it were up to me, I would amend the last sentence of the Archbishop’s paragraph quoted above to include business as one more, and very important, aspect of our nation’s culture that needs an infusion of Catholic morality.

To carry the agricultural theme a bit further, it is not enough to nurture those plants that are desired, the weeds must be discouraged as well.  And, in an investment context, that fits extremely well with the USCCB’s Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines, too. For by refusing to invest in companies that are bad actors, weeds if you will, we are denying them sustenance in the form of capital and thus hindering their ability to grow.

Bringing Catholicism to your investments is easily done at little or no cost and offers the potential of more than just a monetary reward. At the very least, consider Archbishop Listecki’s call to consider how best to infuse your faith into all aspects of your life.

Post from: Insights