How should a good Catholic invest? Like the Vatican’s new stock index, it seems

The Vatican has launched its first-ever equity indices, with two available for investors who want to make their holdings align with Catholic Church doctrine.

The Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), a bank inside Vatican City that reports to cardinals and the Pope, more commonly known as the Vatican Bank, partnered with Morningstar to launch two stock indices– one focusing on US-listed stocks, and the other on Eurozone stocks.

Both are designed to allow religious individuals to direct their investments into firms that follow “market best practices” and are “in accordance with Catholic ethical criteria”, according to a statement issued by the IOR.

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The IOR says both indices are designed to serve as a “reference for Catholic investments worldwide”.

They reflect the IOR’s own investment policy, which is guided by five main principles – the sanctity of human life, respect for human life, environmental protections, combating addiction, and adhering to the United Nations guidance on social responsibility and sustainability.

Its US index, the Morningstar IOR US Catholic Principles index, is heavily exposed to the big tech darlings. Meta, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, and Alphabet make up almost 28% of the portfolio’s weight.

Meanwhile, its EU offering, the Morningstar IOR Eurozone Catholic Principles index, includes chipmaker ASML, Deutsche Telekom, German software firm SAP, Santander, and Hermes.

Both indices focus on medium and large-cap companies.

A return to ESG?

The Vatican’s new indices are broadly aligned with the overarching theme of ESG, investing with a focus on firms that prioritise environmental, social and governance issues.

ESG investing was much in vogue in the first half of the 2020s – a report by Morningstar shows it peaked in 2021, when funds with ESG principles saw inflows of $649.1 billion.

But more recently it has fallen out of fashion. Each year since 2021, ESG inflows have declined, and 2025 was the first year which saw net outflows from ESG funds of $84 billion, the report said.

The IOR’s indices buck the overall trend of abandoning ESG, with both being explicitly labelled as aligning with Catholic doctrine.

Will the Vatican’s indices make good investments?

The IOR’s US index is primarily exposed to big tech, but also holds shares in financial services firms like Visa and JP Morgan Chase.

Its investment objective and strategy is to “to provide exposure to the largest 50 securities by free float market capitalization in accordance with the client’s investment guidelines aligned with the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church.”

Though the index was launched in February 2026, historic performance can still be calculated.

Morningstar’s factsheet says it would have provided an annualised return of 16.89% in the last year, and 17.87% over the last 10 years – outperforming Morningstar’s benchmark rate for US large and mid-caps.

A list of the top constituents can be found below.

Source: Morningstar

The Eurozone index has the same investment objective and strategy as its US counterpart.

The factsheet says it would have provided investors with an annualised return of 14.11% in the last year, and 9.03% in the last ten years.

The index would have underperformed against the Morningstar’s benchmark of Eurozone large and mid-caps.

A list of the top constituents can be found below.

Source: Morningstar

Alternative Christian investments

There are currently no exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that mirror the Vatican’s two new indices, though some may be launched in the future.

Investors who want to invest in firms that align with the two indices can look at the firms held in them and use them to guide their own investments.

Alternatively, there already exist some ETFs that invest only in firms they believe to be following Christian doctrine.

This includes Global X’s S&P 500 Christian Values ETF (NASDAQ:CATH) which provides exposure only to firms in the S&P 500 whose business practices adhere to biblical values, as assessed by Bountiful Financial, which provides Christian investing frameworks.

The fund’s top holdings, like the Vatican’s indices, are mostly big tech stocks.

Another alternative is the FIS Christian Stock Fund ETF (NYSE:PRAY), with the aptly-named ticker of “PRAY”.

The fund’s strategy is to invest at least 80% of its assets in “biblically responsible investments.” Its top holdings include Nvidia, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor.