Comboni Missionaries in Brazil: “In search of ethical coherence in investments”

In search of ethical coherence in investments
Discernment and initiatives of the Comboni Missionaries in Brazil

A deep and urgent conversion

“To evangelize is to make the Kingdom of God present in the world”
(Evangelii Gaudium, n. 176)

One of the settings where this mission becomes more arduous and urgent is the economy. In today's world, income concentration has reached obscene levels; it is a scandalous expression of a growing and structural injustice, a deadly social sin. Eight individuals have the same wealth as half of the world’s population!

The problem is not the lack of financial resources, but their appropriation by corporations that use them to speculate instead of investing: today, more than ever, financial investments yield more profits than productive investments. The Second Vatican Council (GS 63) called on Christian communities to act in economic and social life, giving priority to the dignity and the integral vocation of the human person and to the good of all society.

Pope Francis, in his most recent message to social movements, explicitly said that "it is time to stop the locomotive that is taking us to the abyss". The initiative “The Economy of Francis and Clara”, particularly aimed at young people, with a focus on new models of life and society, takes on an enormous challenge with the Pope: “to give the economy a new soul”.

This challenge comprises at least two main lines of action: first, directing the economy at the service of life and not profit and, secondly, distancing it from all the processes of death that are destroying Creation. Pope Francis asked this with humility and firmness in the same speech to social movements: “I want to ask in the name of God the large extractive companies - mining, oil, forestry, real estate, agribusiness - to stop destroying forests, wetlands and mountains, stop contaminating rivers and seas, stop poisoning people and food”.

Touching the wounds of the poor and the Earth

In our small missionary experience in Brazil, we hear more and more the cry of the poor and of the Earth, especially in our socio-environmental pastoral commitments. We contributed, together with REPAM, to the definition of “ecological sin”, whose best formulation was achieved during the Amazon Synod: “sin against future generations”, “transgression against the principles of interdependence” and “breakdown of the solidarity networks among creatures”.

Some of us act against violations caused by the predatory extraction of large mining corporations (e. g.  the Justice on the Rails network) or suffer together with communities the impacts of illegal gold mining. Some others are committed to the defense of peoples and their territories, together with the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) or the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).

We believe, in profound communion with Pope Francis, that the abundant life evoked by the Gospel of St. John (10:10) begins with the right to Land, Housing and Work for all people.

A proposal and our support

In the deep sanitary and economic crisis that we are going through, food insecurity has once again come to haunt Brazil. About 20 million people live in poverty and at risk of malnutrition: it is the anti-Kingdom, a blasphemy hurting the heart of God! It is the clearest proof of what the Pope has said over and over again: “This economy kills!”.

There are, however, experiences of sharing and hope that open gaps for light, such as the solidarity of communities in the urban peripheries, or the resistance of indigenous peoples. The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the largest social movement in the world, carried out solidarity actions in several states of the country; in just the first 6 months of the pandemic, they donated 3,400 tons of food. Fifteen new community vegetable gardens were started to strengthen donations.

For more than thirty years, the Movement has worked with rural production cooperatives and marketing of rural products. Today, there are 160 cooperatives and more than 1,000 associations, comprising 450,000 families in 24 Brazilian states. Recently, the MST planned to raise R$ 17.5 million (about US$ 3,2 millions) by issuing an Agribusiness Receivables Certificate (CRA), a type of fixed-income bond used to finance the producer or an agricultural cooperative, backed up by the real economy, that is, production itself. The purpose of this financing is to fund the production, mostly pesticide-free, of rice, corn, milk, soy, grape juice and brown sugar by seven cooperatives.

The Movement's agroecological projects and its support to family farming are prospects for circular, collaborative and sustainable economic processes in which, in our view, it makes sense to believe. Because of all these reasons, based on our pastoral practice, on the Gospel in which we believe and on the cry that we continually hear, we, the Comboni Missionaries in Brazil, have also decided to enter into this financing initiative by investing part of our funds.

Meaning and perspectives

This support is only a first step to helps us recognize how far we still need to go, to “give economy a new soul”, in a very practical way. We are part of a continental ecumenical movement, the Churches and Mining network, which is promoting research, discernment and commitments to free the economy from predatory and devastating extractivism.

Church investments, too, can contribute to fueling or to the weakening of deadly economies. The Mining Divestment Campaign is a tool to raise awareness in religious life and people in general about violations of mining business and the symbolic and prophetic potential of an ethical distancing from these corporations.

The next step of our commitment will be to deepen the control of our investments and, possibly, direct them even more towards productive activities that are coherent with our values. We are thus joining the recent initiatives taken in this same sense by the Claretian and the SVD Missionaries, as well as the proposal of the “Laudato Si Revolution” launched by the Franciscans and Jesuits, and also the “Laudato Si Action Plan” coordinated by the Vatican Secretariat for Integral Human Development.

The path is still long, but it reveals a progressive awakening of Religious Life towards the paradigm of Integral Ecology and the Economy of Francis and Clara!