US Catholic bishops defying Pope's calls for climate action, cling to fossil fuels

In an effort to combat climate change, hundreds of Catholic institutions worldwide have declared their intention to remove their financial holdings in coal, oil, and gas since Pope Francis released his historic encyclical on environmental stewardship in 2015, which called for a break from fossil fuels. However, not a single diocese in the United States, the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and home to around 25% of the Catholic population, has declared it is giving up its fossil fuel holdings. The continuous investments in the United States are a reflection of the long-standing disagreement over how to handle global warming between the pope and American Catholic bishops. Pope Francis called for swift action to combat climate change in his encyclical Laudato Si, stating that “highly polluting fossil fuels need to be progressively replaced without delay”. Since then, Catholic institutions have received explicit and repeated requests from the Vatican to divest. According to a senior Vatican finance official, APSA, the agency that oversees the Vatican’s portfolio, follows the policy of not investing in fossil fuels and does “all possible checks” to ensure funds in which it has shares do not. (With agency inputs)