Care for the Common home through prayerful investment

In February 2019, Pope Francis missioned the Society of Jesus with the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs), a set of four Apostolic Preferences to guide and shape the work of Jesuits and Jesuit partners around the world. The fourth Preference, “To collaborate in the care of our Common Home”, is grounded in Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato si’ in which the Holy Father called for an “ecological conversion” that recognized the care for our common home as both a moral and spiritual imperative. Part of that ecological conversion was for Catholic institutions to examine how they invest their resources and challenge then to bring those investments in line with Laudato si’.

Jesuit institutions took Pope Francis’ challenge to heart almost immediately by changing their investment portfolios to divest of holdings in fossil fuel companies. The mission of the UAPs accelerated the trend, with many Jesuit Provinces and apostolates around the world responding by adopting plans to pull investments from fossil fuel companies.

This Society-wide financial repositioning was not a PR gambit, nor a momentary appeasement of green-energy, but rather the natural course of the Jesuit “way of proceeding”. The Society of Jesus has always emphasized education, social justice, and the formation of conscience. Pope Francis and the UAPs challenged Jesuits to reinterpret those same values through the lens of ecological justice. With the help of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in Rome, the entire global Jesuit network was invited to take bold action in re-evaluating financial practices and institutional investments that were incompatible with the mission of “Caring for our Common Home”.

Changes came quickly, but they didn’t only take place within institutions. Young Jesuits in formation, along with lay partners and students, were increasingly vocal about the need for integrity between what Jesuit institutions teach and how they invest their resources. Movements like the “Ecojesuit Network” in the Philippines rose from a groundswell of support for making our financial decisions more closely match our spiritual aspiration.

Other Jesuit works followed suit, albeit at different speeds. Some Provinces adopted comprehensive divestment policies, while others opted for a more cautious approach, choosing shareholder engagement or partial divestment strategies. The diversity of responses reflect the global nature of the Society of Jesus, with institutions spread across continents and cultures, each facing unique political, financial, and social realities.

Now, a year past the halfway point of the 10-year UAP mission, a larger story has begun to unfold. As the climate crisis accelerates, Jesuit institutions are discerning how to embody prophetic leadership by not only withdrawing from industries that harm the planet, but also by actively investing in those that support the flourishing of future generations. This ongoing process reflects the Jesuits’ commitment to faith that does justice in the service of a sustainable and compassionate world. It is a new sense of purpose that has emerged not out of a need to join a trend, but out of a desire to act upon carefully considered discernment in service of the mission.