ROME, APRIL 9, 2008: Fr Maraccani, the redoubtable Procurator General and long time former Secretary General, provided the chapter this morning with an interpretation of Art. 187 of the Constitutions and Art. 187 of the Regulations, both of which deal with investments.
    The interpretation had been requested by Bro. Claudio Marangio, the new Economer General. Earlier, Fr Gianni Mazzali, the out-going Economer General, had responded to a question about interest-bearing investments, pointing out that the English translation of the Art. 187 of the Constitutions was defective: the Italian talks about excluding "every other form of permanent capitalizzazione fruttifera", while the English text says that "every other mind of interest-bearing investment is forbidden". As can be seen, the English text excludes the word 'permanent', and also chooses to translate 'capitalizzazione fruttifera' as 'interest-bearing investment'. If we were to follow the English text strictly, even the usual investments in savings accounts and fixed deposits would be excluded.  

    While Maraccani's interpretation went along the lines of upholding the canonical and traditionally Salesian exclusion of interest-bearing investments (for lack of a better translation), Mazzali points out certain problems with this position. Thus, for example, when we leave large sums of money for lengths of time with a bank in savings accounts or fixed deposits, we have absolutely no control over the way this money is invested by the bank, and it is quite possible that it is invested in unethical ways, as for example in the armament industry. This could be avoided if we chose to invest instead directly in certain industries or businesses with certain ethical guarantees. This was, in fact, one of the reasons behind the attempt by the Salesians and some other religious congregations to set up Polaris. Mazzali is pointing out that it is time, in the changed circumstances of finance and industry today, to make a shift from considerations of interest-bearing capitalization to those of ethical investment. That such investments should be directly oriented to our mission, goes without saying.