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

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Nov 29 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Catholic institutions around the globe have announced plans to divest their finances of oil, gas and coal to help fight climate change since Pope Francis published his landmark encyclical on environmental stewardship in 2015 urging a break with fossil fuels.

But in the United States, the world's top oil and gas producer and where about a quarter of the population is Catholic, not a single diocese has announced it has let go of its fossil fuel assets.

U.S. dioceses hold millions of dollars of stock in fossil fuel companies through portfolios intended to fund church operations and pay clergy salaries, according to a Reuters review of financial statements. And at least a dozen are also leasing land to drillers, according to land records.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), an assembly of the hierarchy of U.S. Catholic Church that sets policy guidance, told Reuters that its guidance on socially responsible investing was updated in 2021 to account for the pope's encyclical but confirmed that it does not require divestment from fossil fuels.

Pope Francis had planned to attend the COP28 conference in Dubai this week, but canceled on Tuesday due to health concerns. The Vatican said it was weighing options to ensure a presence at the summit and Vatican sources said most likely a senior official would read the pope's speech for him in Dubai, or the pope would use a video link.

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The ongoing investments in the U.S. reflect a long-running rift between U.S. Catholic bishops and the pope on how to address global warming.

The pope's Laudato Si encyclical urged immediate action against climate change, declaring that "highly polluting fossil fuels need to be progressively replaced without delay." Since then the Vatican has repeatedly, and explicitly urged Catholic institutions to divest.

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Some 354 Catholic institutions across more than 50 countries have divested of fossil fuels since the 2015 encyclical, including scores of dioceses in the UK, Ireland and Germany, according to the Laudato Si Movement, a Catholic environmental advocacy group tracking divestment.

Notably absent are any dioceses in the U.S.

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Sabrina Danielsen, a professor at Creighton University who has studied the engagement of U.S. bishops on the issue of climate change, said the U.S. Catholic hierarchy is rejecting the pope's calls for divestment in part because of its traditionally conservative leanings.

Fewer than 1% of the more than 12,000 columns by U.S. bishops in official publications since 2014 mentioned climate change, Danielson found in a 2021 study, and many of those that did downplayed the urgency of global warming or described the topic as controversial.

"I think bishops might be very afraid of upsetting politically conservative Catholics in their dioceses, and especially afraid of upsetting wealthy conservative donors," she said.

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