Financial Indices and Catholic Morality: The New Strategy of the Vatican Bank

Everyone knows it as the Vatican Bank, but its official name is the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). Since 1942, the year of its foundation by the will of Pope Pius XII, it has operated as a “central institution of the Catholic Church,” managing the substantial financial assets of the Holy See.

Originally created to “provide for the custody and administration of capital destined for works of religion and charity,” it soon became the center of financial scandals that for a long time undermined its reputation and credibility. An opaque management of the Institute’s finances, along with the need to rapidly comply with international financial transparency standards in order not to be excluded from the international banking system, pushed the Holy See to launch a radical reform process of the Institute. In 2014, at the request of Pope Francis, a renewal process was initiated that reaffirmed the centrality of the Institute’s mission while aligning its principles with international regulations.

Today, the “new IOR” is a modern, international bank that complies with legal standards on anti-money laundering and financial transparency. It provides services exclusively for the Catholic Church, respecting its ethics and core principles, with the unique feature of allocating its profits to religious and charitable works. The Institute’s declared ambition is to become a reference point for those who wish to invest their savings in financial instruments and investment strategies that respect and are consistent with the Catholic faith.

With this objective in mind, in November 2024, representatives of Catholic finance and ecclesiastical experts from sixteen countries participated in the Mensuram Bonam conference in London—named after the document issued by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences containing guidelines and practices for those working in finance. The aim of the conference was to jointly develop new financial instruments consistent with the principles of the Catholic faith.

Among the projects presented on that occasion, one of the most strongly supported proposals was the creation and market launch of an index composed of carefully selected stocks from major companies operating in ways consistent with Catholic principles, which also inspire the Vatican Bank. In recent years, investors’ demand for targeted investments based on clearly defined criteria—often rooted in ethical values, environmental sustainability, and transparency—has grown exponentially. Until now, however, the selection of financial instruments according to such criteria had largely been carried out through internal policies that differed from one financial institution to another, due to the lack of a unified reference point for the sector. The IOR’s goal is therefore to develop and reorganize a market sector that, in Europe alone, is estimated to be worth more than €800 billion, by providing a standardized reference tool that brings together parameters of performance, transparency, and compliance with Catholic values.

Thus, at the beginning of February 2026, two new stock indices were launched by the IOR in collaboration with Morningstar, an independent American financial services company specializing in investment analysis and reports. The indices—the Morningstar IOR Eurozone Catholic Principles and the Morningstar IOR US Catholic Principles—are composed respectively of 50 large-capitalization European companies and 50 large-capitalization U.S. companies. Their function is to track the performance of the individual stocks included in them, summarizing their performance in a single numerical value.

The selected companies mainly operate in financial services—such as Visa, JP Morgan Chase, UniCredit, and Banco Santander—or in the industrial and technology sectors, including Nvidia, Apple, and SAP. All of them strictly meet the established criteria for Catholic ethical investments.

“With the launch of these two new stock indices,” explained Giovanni Boscia, Deputy Director General, CFO, and Head of Asset Management at the Vatican Bank, “the IOR takes a further step forward in a process that for years has seen it adopt the best international financial practices, in full respect of the principles of the Church’s Social Doctrine. Having benchmarks built according to recognized Catholic ethical criteria allows us to make our performance evaluation and reporting processes even more rigorous and transparent. This initiative reaffirms our commitment as a financial institution at the service of the Church, further strengthening the role of the IOR as a reference point for the Catholic world.”

If in the past investors were forced to rely on the different internal policies of individual financial institutions, today they can rely on these two new IOR indices, which are set to become the standard benchmark for ensuring a coherent, transparent, and verifiable application of the moral principles required in investment decisions.

Mondo Internazionale APS – Reproduction Reserved ® 2026