The Catholic Diocese of San Diego, led by progressive San Francisco Cardinal Robert McElroy, apparently doesn't care if it ends up looking stupid ... or for that matter, broke.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, it's taking its cues on economics from Argentine-educated Pope Francis, who understands about as much about economics as the socialist regime in that country that was just thrown out by its voters.

The San Diego Diocese has divested its financial holdings from the fossil fuel industry, the first Catholic diocese in the United States to make public such an economic move in response to Pope Francis' repeated calls for an end to the era of fossil fuels in the face of climate change.

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The Southern California diocese, led by Cardinal Robert McElroy, in 2021 began to explore the process of removing direct and indirect investments in companies involved in the extraction and production of coal, oil and gas from its portfolio of trust funds, retirement funds and health funds.

By the end of 2022, it had eliminated all direct investments in fossil fuels and reduced its indirect holdings, through mutual funds, to 3%, surpassing its goal of less than 5%. The diocese does not disclose the size of its investment portfolio. Throughout the past year, diocesan officials and its investment advisors continued to monitor the funds to ensure they were clean of direct fossil fuel stocks and meeting the mutual funds targets.

That monitoring alongside a desire not to prematurely declare mission accomplished led the diocese to refrain discussing its divestment until recently, Kevin Eckery, diocesan communications director, told EarthBeat.

The pivot in investment policy away from fossil fuels was done, Eckery said, "in keeping with the Holy Father's ideas about stewardship of the environment and not wasting resources," along with addressing human-driven climate change.

But anything for a "historic first." What a virtue-signal.

What's bad here goes in all directions.

First, to shun fossil fuels, which are Made By God, as something "bad" is quite an arrogant implied statement. God makes sinful things, you know, like cigarettes? God makes mistakes? Do tell. Awaiting the good cardinal's next declaration that anyone who does invest in oil and gas stocks is now a "sinner."

It sounds like their religion is not Catholicism but global warming.

Second, fossil fuels are critically necessary for lifting entire populations out of poverty and into development. They're saying solar panels are going to substitute? There aren't enough exploited child-miners and strip mines to supply all the batteries. And yeah, let's talk about that exploited child labor mining for cobalt out in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo while we're at it.

What's more, things like electrical vehicles are run on energy supplied by coal-fired plants. So much for all that virtue-signaling about eliminating fossil fuels. We are never going to eliminate fossil fuels which is the cheapest, most effective, most energy-dense and efficient fuel out there, other than nuclear power.

Meanwhile, the ESG (environmental, social, governance) virtue-signaling in the name of saving the planet is bad stuff in its own right. Stocks go up and stocks go down, but to shun and entire category of perfectly legitimate stocks when they are outperforming is kind of immoral, if you consider that the funds invested are those of pensions for elderly priests and religious, cemetery funds and health care funding.

The diocese hastened to tell the Times of San Diego that it wasn't investing anything important in this manner:

“Our policy on divestment includes secondary sources, too, so we try and avoid investments in companies which in turn invest,” he said, noting such monies are not operating funds.

“We’re fulfilling both our fiduciary responsibility of getting a safe rate of return on these funds as well,” he said.

Yeah, sure. How about disclosing how well these wokester funds are doing?

According to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, who monitors wokester funds that shun fossil fuels in the interest of transparency, these woke funds generally aren't doing all that well:

“Texas has been a leader in calling out investment firms that have been playing politics with the retirement money of hard-working Americans. Our goal has always been to bring some honesty to what has really been a one-sided and intellectually dishonest discussion.”

...and...

"...Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) funds are experiencing huge outflows and closing faster than they are opening. We are getting real data showing the underperformance of investments that shun fossil fuels. Proxy votes by big fund managers in support of ESG initiatives have dropped precipitously. Even Standard & Poor’s reversed course on highlighting its ESG ratings, yet more work is needed. These are wins that show the impact Texas and other states are having, and I look forward to continuing this work and giving Texans the transparency they deserve on this critical issue.”

 Yes, we know he has an interest in his state's top industries, which is fossil fuel. But he's not citing made-up data.

Green-friendly Reuters reported about a year ago that yes, money was fleeing these funds:

LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Investors pulled more money from funds marketed as "sustainable" than they added for the first time in more than a decade in 2022, hit by fallout from the Ukraine war, tumbling financial markets and a political backlash against the industry.

The funds, which reflect a range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, are also set to lag the performance of non-ESG funds for the first time in five years, data shows, after the fossil fuel shares they typically shun soared.

Leaving money on the table and letting elderly priests go without or letting health care premiums to grow depleted is, well, kind of immoral. But hey, they've virtue-signaled with their woke but underperforming funds.

And take their word for it:

In a later interview, he observed: “We haven’t had any dips in return. We haven’t had any problems that would say: OK, we zigged when we should have zagged.”

Which sounds a little sheepish. They seem to know that these wokester funds are risky to returns.

Meanwhile, the Diocese finances appear to be in kind of crummy shape.

Last May, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, under a siege of lawsuits from 438 people who say they were sexually abused by its clergy in past decades, said it plans to file for bankruptcy protection in November.

Such a move, spelled out in court papers filed this week and in a hearing in San Diego Superior Court Thursday, would halt all lawsuits against the diocese until the bankruptcy is complete and a universal settlement of all the claims is reached through the bankruptcy process.

The diocese, which includes 96 parishes and serves some 1.3 million Roman Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties, had said in February it was pondering filing for bankruptcy and would likely make a decision by late spring. It would mark the diocese’s second time filing for bankruptcy. It did so in 2007, eventually settling 148 claims of sexual abuse for $198 million.

The statements this week left no doubt that the diocese will seek protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code, which gives debtors time to reorganize their businesses, resolve debts and then restart their operation.

And in July 2022, the diocese became perhaps the first in the nation to hire a full-time climate-change fighter.

But when Christina Bagaglio Slentz of Coronado began work as associate director for Creation Care Ministry under the diocesan Office for Life, Peace and Justice, the naysayers came out of the woodwork.