USCCB Investment Guidelines: What They Cover and Who They Bind

The USCCB investment guidelines — formally, the Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — govern how the U.S. bishops’ conference invests its own assets in line with Catholic moral teaching. The bishops approved the current version at their General Meeting in November 2021; it was the first update since 2003. The document was developed by the Conference’s Committee on Budget and Finance and authorized for publication by Rev. Michael J. K. Fuller, the USCCB’s General Secretary.

The update took two years. USCCB staff drafted the text under the direction of a Bishops’ Working Group chaired by the Conference’s Treasurer. The process opened with a survey of the bishops and included meetings with outside experts and ESG research providers; Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS) served as project manager. In CBIS’s summary, the new guidelines “reaffirm and significantly extend” the Conference’s two long-standing strategies: avoiding harm and actively working for change.

The document’s structure is compact: two stewardship principles, three strategies for applying them, and five numbered categories of policy, running from the protection of human life to the care of the environment. The sections below follow that structure and cite policy numbers from the 2021 text throughout.

What the guidelines are — and what they are not

The guidelines are, first, an internal governance document: they direct the investments of the Conference itself. Their reach extends further in practice. The introduction notes that “many dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities have also been seeking to apply these guidelines through their own policies on corporate responsibility.” CBIS describes the same dynamic: the guidelines “serve as an inspiration that helps inform the investment decisions of many religious communities, dioceses, universities, healthcare organizations, and Catholic foundations, at their discretion.”

“At their discretion” is the operative phrase. The guidelines are not a regulation. Institutions that adopt them do so voluntarily, and each decides how strictly to apply them.

They are also not a product endorsement. Page 2 of the document states it directly: “The USCCB does not endorse the services or products of any financial advisors and investment firms.” A fund that markets itself as USCCB-aligned is making its own claim about its own screens; the designation does not come from the Conference.

Two stewardship principles

Part One rests the entire document on two principles.

Responsible financial stewardship. The Conference is expected to earn a reasonable rate of return on its assets — defined as “one that matches the level of the market or at the least allows the Conference to meet its fiduciary responsibilities and maintain its mission.” Ethical screening operates inside fiduciary duty, not in place of it.

Ethical and social stewardship. Investment strategy must be grounded in Catholic moral principles. The return the first principle demands is pursued within the moral limits the second one sets.

The three strategies and five policy categories that follow are the mechanics of holding those two principles together.

Three strategies

Part One names three strategies through which the principles are applied:

• Avoid Doing Harm. The Conference refuses to invest in companies whose products or policies contradict Catholic moral teaching, and divests where it already holds them. The document applies this strategy with prudence, invoking the principle of cooperation, the avoidance of scandal, and the minimization of financial impact on the portfolio.
• Actively Work for Change. Where the Conference holds shares, it uses them: dialogue with management, voting at shareholder meetings, and shareholder resolutions. On abstention, the text is blunt: “failure to vote in such situations, or assigning proxies to management, is effectively counted as a vote for current management and the status quo.”
• Promote the Common Good. The Conference supports policies and initiatives of companies it owns that promote the values of Catholic moral teaching. It also makes community development investments — the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is the document’s example — that may yield less than market rates but serve the preferential option for the poor.

The five policy categories

Part Two turns the principles into concrete policy, organized in five numbered categories:

Four exclusion areas draw the most attention from managers building Catholic screens.

Life issues. Policy I.1 excludes companies that directly participate in or support abortion, euthanasia, or assisted suicide. I.3 excludes companies using in vitro fertilization; I.4 covers embryonic stem cell and fetal tissue research; I.5, human cloning. The category is not purely exclusionary: I.6 directs shareholder engagement toward affordable access to life-saving medicines and vaccines, and I.7 toward vaccines and medicines developed without cell lines derived from abortions.

Contraceptives. Policy II.11 carries one of the document’s few numeric thresholds: no investment in manufacturers of contraceptives, and none in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenues from the sale of contraceptives. The manufacturer exclusion is categorical; the revenue test extends it to companies for which contraceptives are one business line among others.

Weapons. Policy III.1 excludes weapons incompatible with Catholic teaching on war — biological and chemical weapons, landmines, nuclear weapons, and weapons of mass destruction — and excludes firearms manufacturers, with a single carve-out: companies that manufacture firearms only for hunting and/or legitimate military and police forces. Policy III.2 pushes companies the Conference does hold toward limiting weapons production and converting capacity to civilian use.

Gambling, tobacco, cannabis. Policy III.3 excludes companies whose primary purpose is revenue from gambling, tobacco, or recreational cannabis. “Primary purpose” is the test the policy sets.

Not every policy is an exclusion. Several direct engagement instead: II.1 seeks human rights standards and supply chain transparency, IV.1 asks companies for social, environmental, and financial reporting, and V.2 encourages greenhouse gas reduction targets and low-carbon disclosure. Policy V.1 goes further — it commits the Conference to invest actively in companies aligned with the Paris Agreement’s emissions reduction goals, with one stated qualifier: insofar as this does not contradict Church teaching.

The dignity category is the broadest. Category II runs from human rights (II.1) through just wages and working conditions (II.2), non-discrimination (II.3), and equal opportunity and pay for women, people of color, and persons with disabilities (II.4). It excludes companies whose sole purpose is sexually explicit content (II.5) and favors media content supportive of marriage and family (II.6). Policy II.7 addresses human trafficking and forced labor, calling for corporate codes of conduct consistent with the 2000 Palermo Protocol. II.8 excludes companies participating in surgeries or the administration of drugs and hormones for sex transition; II.9 seeks disclosure on those activities, and II.10 promotes an understanding of marriage and sexuality consistent with Church teaching.

A second 10% threshold sits in the economic justice category. Policies IV.5 and IV.6 cover affordable housing and ethical banking. They require due diligence against discriminatory practices and against excessive rates and fees, and they reach companies that derive 10% or more of their revenues from predatory lending. IV.7 and IV.8 point the other way, toward impact investing and collaboration with other investors.

The environmental category closes with biodiversity (V.3–V.4), water and natural resources (V.5–V.6), technology (V.7), and a push for the highest environmental standards (V.8–V.9). The water policies include avoiding companies that deplete or degrade water without mitigation.

Review and accountability

Part One, section IV.d commits the Conference to “review the relevance of these guidelines every three years.” At each review, the Conference may ask its investment advisers to report on how they implement the guidelines in practice. The screens can therefore move on a three-year cycle, and the advisers managing the money are answerable for how they apply them. The 2021 edition was the first revision since 2003.

What the guidelines mean for a Catholic investor

The guidelines were written to direct an institutional portfolio. They bind the Conference; they do not bind individual investors, and they contain no personal investment advice. What they provide is a published, numbered framework that fund managers and index providers can translate into screens — and cite when they do.

That translation step is where diligence belongs. On the index side, CATH tracks the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index, which applies the bishops’ framework to the S&P 500; you can see how it compares with its peers in our ranking of Catholic ETFs. Actively managed options are covered in our ranking of Catholic mutual funds, and fund-by-fund profiles live under ETFs and mutual funds.

Two checks are worth running on any fund that claims alignment. First, read the fund’s own methodology — the prospectus or the index rulebook, not the product page. The USCCB endorses no products, so every claim of alignment originates with the manager. Second, check which policies the screen actually implements: a fund could apply the life and contraceptive exclusions of categories I and II without touching the engagement policies of categories IV and V, or vice versa. How we source and verify those details is documented in our methodology.

Frequently asked questions

Are the USCCB investment guidelines binding on individual Catholics?

No. The guidelines direct the investments of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops itself. Dioceses, religious communities, universities, and other Catholic institutions apply them at their own discretion, and individual investors are not bound by them.

Which funds follow the USCCB investment guidelines?

The USCCB does not endorse or certify investment products, so every claim of alignment comes from the fund manager or index provider. CATH, for example, tracks the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index, which applies the bishops’ framework to the S&P 500. Each fund’s own methodology is the place to verify the claim.

Does the USCCB endorse investment products or advisors?

No. The 2021 document states: “The USCCB does not endorse the services or products of any financial advisors and investment firms.” A product described as USCCB-aligned carries the manager’s claim, not a USCCB designation.

What does the 10% contraceptive revenue threshold mean?

Policy II.11 excludes investment in companies that manufacture contraceptives and in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenues from the sale of contraceptives. Manufacturers are excluded outright; for other companies, the test is the share of revenue that contraceptive sales represent.

How often are the USCCB investment guidelines updated?

The document commits the Conference to review the relevance of the guidelines every three years, and at each review the Conference may ask its investment advisers to report on how they implement them. The 2021 edition was the first update since 2003.

Sources

• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (November 2021): https://www.usccb.org/resources/Socially+Responsible+Investment+Guidelines+2021+(003).pdf
• Christian Brothers Investment Services, “USCCB Updates its Socially Responsible Investments Guidelines”: https://cbisonline.com/us/usccb-updates-its-socially-responsible-investments-guidelines/

The Catholic Fund Index reports what the USCCB’s texts and fund documents say. Nothing here is investment advice.