By Moe Wosepka, Executive Director
Montana Catholic Conference

Investment counselors tell us that there are two ways to make money. The first is to go to work; the second is for our money to work for us. The optimum is when we and our money are both working. This is the time of year when we concentrate on taxes, and detail prior year expenditures, so the statement is especially pertinent.

For many, it is a time to re-evaluate how we spend our money. Are we good stewards of our money? Do we invest well? Do we share any of our treasure with the least of those amongst us?

Those are good and yet difficult questions. We are called to treat our gifts, all our gifts, with great respect as we recognize that all our gifts are provided by God. Those gifts include jobs, education, opportunities, talents or abilities, and health.

They all come directly from God, thus we don’t own them. They are merely on loan. Times change and it is clear that we have very little control of how long we will have these gifts. We are merely called to be good stewards of those gifts while they are in our care and use them to benefit, not just us, but those others who are not so fortunate.

I was recently invited to attend a meeting to discuss “socially responsible investing” as it pertains to retirement plans and other investments made by the Church. One of the documents we were given at the meeting was “Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines” issued by the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. The document sets out two basic principles of church stewardship: 1) To “exercise responsible financial stewardship … (which) means obtaining a reasonable rate of return on its investments.” And 2) To “exercise ethical and social stewardship … based on Catholic moral principles.”

As I was driving home after the meeting, it dawned on me that we could use these same principles to evaluate our personal investment strategy, including our investment of time. We should ask the questions: How did I spend my time and money this past year? What positive results occurred? What portion of those investments of time and money were based on Catholic moral principles?

These seem to be very basic questions, but they go to the core of who we are and our priorities in life. When we honestly look at what we want to spend our money and time doing, we find out what is the most important in our lives.

We should look closely at what organizations we support and ask these questions: Do we know how they use the funds they receive? Are they true to their mission? How well managed are they? Are their programs aligned with Catholic teaching?

As we make decisions to put our money and our talents to work for the betterment of the least amongst us, we should take care that these are socially responsible investments. Investing time and money in our parishes and Diocese is always recommended, as is investing in Catholic charitable organizations, organizations of Catholic men and women, Catholic schools, hospitals, and a multitude of other Catholic organizations. Beyond these is a whole host of programs that perform a great service to our communities, and the people within.

Our time and money are gifts from God and we must be prudent how we use those gifts. Now may be a good time to review our donations for 2007, and decide if they are the socially responsible investments we want to make for 2008.


Moe Wosepka is the executive director of the Montana Catholic Conference. You can reach him by phone at 442-5761, e-mail director@montanacc.org or check out the website www.montanacc.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 24, No. 4, April 18, 2008.