Why is The Church Not Teaching Its Flock to Invest in Stocks?

Tirades against the Church, the Catholic Church to be precise, are nothing new. Whether they are about political or societal issues, entities from both sides of the fence will never stop questioning the actions of the Church. In effect, people will either mock or love the Church even more.

Even in the area of finance and investing, the Church has always been questioned and challenged. One of the issues being discussed over and over again by groups of investors and finance advocates is the billions worth of investments by the Catholic Church (although these are investments by a few dioceses only and not the whole Philippine Catholic Church) in the stock market.

Interestingly, for the past few days, I received the same question from my blog readers and our members from the Truly Rich Club, “Why is the Catholic Church not teaching its flock to invest and become financially-literate?”

And so in order to give a clearer and simpler answer to this question, I asked Bro. Bo Sanchez to give a brief explanation as to why the Catholic Church isn’t advocating financial literacy to its members and to all Filipinos.

Here’s Bro. Bo’s answer:

“In large part, priests are not teaching about financial literacy because they themselves don’t know much about it. They were trained in theology and philosophy but not personal finance.

When we say, “The Catholic Church invests in the Stock Market” we mean that certain isolated sectors of the Catholic Church invests in the Stock Market.

For example, the finance head of the Archdiocese of Metro Manila bought into BPI some 30+ years ago. At that time, they put a small amount, and through the power of compounding has grown to billions today. A few other dioceses and religious congregations have some investments but they’re much smaller.

So generally, the leadership of the church is still waking up to the need for financial intelligence of its flock–and they’re starting to do so among the priests.

Tomorrow, our TrulyRichClub mentors are giving a whole day seminar to the priests in charge of the finances of the dioceses of the Catholic Church nationwide.

Hopefully, in due time, the wisdom will spread.

This is a culture change, so this will be slow.

But we’ll get there…”

So for all of you who are still wondering why and why not, there you have it.

For those who are still asking why the Church is not giving the proceeds from these investments instead to the poor, are you SURE the Church isn’t doing it?

How about if you volunteer to be part of the finance ministry of the Church so you yourself can find the answers to your own questions.

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Join the OFW UsapangPiso Facebook Group to learn how to plan your finances the right way and how to grow your money in various financial instruments and investment vehicles such as stocks, mutual funds, UITF’s, bonds, money market, real estate, and others.

P.S. 1. Bro. Bo Sanchez has appointed me as a coach for our young and new investors at the TrulyRichClub social site. It’s a fun, learning family with the purpose of “helping good people become rich”. I’m inviting you to join the TrulyRichClub too and email me at burngutierrezblog@gmail.com if you have any questions. Click here to join!

P.S. 2. The OFW UsapangPiso KSA Chapter will be conducting a series of financial literacy seminars to OFW’s in the Eastern Province and in Bahrain starting on May 23, 2014 (Al Ahsa), May 30 (International Philippine School of Al Khobar or IPSA), and June 20 (JCSGO Manama, Bahrain). Keep on visiting our Facebook group and forum site for updates on these events.

P.S. 2. The Angat Pilipinas Coalition for Financial Literacy-OFW UsapangPiso Manila Chapter will be conducting a seminar on investing in foreclosures entitled Usapang Foreclosed Property Investing on July 26, 2014 at UCC Cafe in Burgos Circle, Bonifacio Global City in Taguig featuring Jay Castillo of Foreclosure Philippines. Learning fee is only P1,000. Click here to register.