“Faith-based ETF” sounds like one category, but for a Catholic investor it hides the question that matters: screened to which rulebook? On US exchanges there is exactly one catholic ETF screened to the USCCB guidelines, and eight adjacent funds screened to a different — Protestant-rooted — framework. This ranking orders them by that alignment, because it is the one criterion a document can prove.
How we rank every catholic ETF option
Same structural test as our catholic mutual funds ranking: framework alignment first (an explicit USCCB screen outranks an adjacent BRI screen for a Catholic investor, because the rulebook is the bishops’ own published text), then adviser verification (active SEC registration, checked by CRD against the IAPD registry), then filing transparency (all nine funds file on EDGAR; the fiches track their latest filings). We do not grade performance and no placement is paid — the logic is public on the methodology page.
CATH: the one true USCCB screen on an exchange
CATH tracks the S&P 500 Catholic Values Index, an index whose stated purpose is to apply the USCCB Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines to the S&P 500 universe. That indirection matters and cuts both ways: the screen is maintained by an index provider rather than the fund sponsor, which makes it documented and rules-based — and it also means changes arrive through index rebalances, which our fiche tracks as change-log events. The fund is a series of the Global X Funds trust, managed by Global X Management (CRD 146932).
The Inspire lineup: adjacent, not identical
The eight Inspire ETFs — led by BIBL, PTL and BLES, with small/mid cap, international, growth, capital appreciation and multi-factor sleeves — apply Inspire Investing’s biblically responsible investing methodology. Several exclusions overlap with Catholic screens, which is why Catholic investors encounter these funds constantly; but BRI is not the USCCB framework, and treating the two as interchangeable is the single most common confusion in this niche. Our fiches label every fund’s actual framework so the comparison stays honest.
Reading a fiche before buying anything
Each fund page in the index puts the four verifiable identity facts on one screen: the trust it legally belongs to, the adviser and its live IAPD registration status, the latest EDGAR filings, and the screening framework label. The USCCB does not endorse any financial product — neither the one ETF that uses its guidelines nor any other — and neither do we. Research information only, not investment advice: verify every fact against the primary sources linked on each page.