Ascension Health investments appear to reject Vatican guidance

New report by National Nurses United reveals hundreds of millions in questionable investments held by Catholic hospital chain may be "tip of larger and unseen iceberg"

A new report by National Nurses United (NNU) probes the extent of Ascension Health's violations of the Catholic Church's guidelines for responsible investing. NNU researchers found Ascension - one of the largest and wealthiest Catholic hospital chains in the United States - holds investments, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, in weapons manufacturing; alcohol; gambling; and oil, gas, and mining industries that are destructive to the environment.

These investments, which are publicly available in the 2023 disclosures of the Ascension Master Pension Trust (AMPT), may violate investment criteria put forward by the 2022 Vatican document, "Mensuram Bonam: Faith-Based Measures for Catholic Investors." The investments covered in NNU's report are just the troubling tip of a larger and unseen iceberg of invested funds controlled by Ascension, which are shielded by laws and regulations prioritizing corporate secrecy over transparency and disclosure.

According to the four exclusionary criteria set forward by the Vatican in 2022, the AMPT appears to be violating Catholic guidance with investments in:

• Armaments: $8.3 million in major weapons manufacturers and military contractors, such as Abu Ghraib contractor CACI (in violation of exclusionary criteria "intrinsic dignity of human life");
• Addictive substances or services: $37 million in pharmaceuticals; $3.6 million in alcohol producers; $2.1 million in tobacco companies; and $8.9 in gambling companies (in violation of exclusionary criteria "patterns leading to addiction and abuse");
• Breaches of labor law: $20.2 million in apparel companies, an industry rife in exploitative labor and environmentally destructive practices (in violation of exclusionary criteria "global impacts and sustainable development'";
• Human rights violations: $96.4 million in mining companies, investing in an industry rife with exploitative and destructive practices (in violation of exclusionary criteria "global impacts and sustainable development");
• Climate destruction: $188.6 million in big banking that engages in investments of carbon intensive energy production and $71.1 million in oil and gas companies (in violation of exclusionary criteria "environmental protection"); and
• Food and agricultural commodities: $24.4 million in food and beverage production conglomerates, along with fast food companies (in violation of exclusionary criteria "environmental protection").

NNU's report, "Rejecting the Call: How Ascension's Unethical and Socially Irresponsible Investments Contravene Catholic Social Teaching," also found that these investments appear to violate the "Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines," which were adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2021. In total, the report's findings underscore how Ascension's investments stand in direct contradiction to the benevolent image Ascension promotes for itself as a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

"We hope this is a wake-up call to the Catholic Church's leadership that Ascension is far from the Catholic values it pretends to practice," said Nicki Horvat, RN in the neonatal intensive care unit at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Md. "As union nurses who have lived Ascension's hypocrisy, on our shifts and at the bargaining table, it's still shocking sometimes to see just how far Ascension is from practicing what they preach. We want Ascension to do better: start by disclosing its investment holdings and then divest from these harmful corporations."

NNU nurses urge Ascension, in the spirit of full transparency, to:

1. Shed its veil of corporate secrecy and to voluntarily disclose the full extent of its investment holdings annually;
2. Divest from fossil fuels, weapons, mining, and other extractive industries; and
3. Publicly provide their updated Socially Responsible Investment Criteria, along with a list of holdings Ascension has divested from, based on this criteria.

A surge of historic unionization at Ascension since 2022 has been driven primarily by the hospital chain's blatant refusal to provide nurses with adequate resources and staffing, in line with its own mission to provide "spiritually-centered, holistic care, which sustains and improves the health of individuals and communities." NNU now represents approximately 4,000 nurses across Ascension hospitals. Ascension Saint Agnes nurses in Baltimore have been in bargaining for more than 18 months.

"It's time for Ascension management to live up to its professed standards and act in accordance with the directives of the Catholic Church," said Mary Turner, RN and a president of National Nurses United. "The nurses of National Nurses United take seriously our role as patient and community advocates. That's why we're not afraid to put a spotlight on our employers when they invest in harmful and violent industries. We urge Ascension to heed our call and take the steps to becoming a true leader in acting responsibly, both at the bargaining table with their union nurses and in their investment practices."

The conditions Ascension nurses are highlighting track with a broader pattern of Ascension's greed, which has garnered the scrutiny of local and national news media and federal regulators, including:

• In April 2024, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., wrote a letter to Ascension and Team Health executives expressing concerns about staffing and patient safety at an Ascension emergency department in Detroit, Mich.
• A January 2024 report by NNU found that Ascension eliminated 26 percent of its labor and delivery units that existed in 2012. Ascension has continued to close labor and delivery units in southeast Wisconsin and plans to eliminate its labor and delivery services at Ascension Alexian Brothers Hospital in Elk Grove Village, Ill.
• A February 2023 letter to Ascension CEO Joseph Impicciche by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, calling into question Ascension's nonprofit status and mission-driven values.
• Two separate reports in January 2023 from Milwaukee, Wis., discussing "disruptions to patient care, long wait times in the emergency department, delayed surgeries and staff concerns about patient safety" at Ascension facilities.
• A lawsuit filed by Travis County, Texas in January 2023, alleging a breach of contract by Ascension-owned Dell Seton Medical Center, arguing Ascension had not complied with "its commitments to…the low-income Travis County residents who depend on Central Health for healthcare services."
• A December 2022 Wall Street Journal investigation into Ascension's deals, finding it has closed hospitals serving low-income neighborhoods and communities that have private insurance coverage below area median levels - instead choosing to open facilities in wealthier neighborhoods.
• A December 2022 New York Times investigation into Ascension's staffing conditions, reporting that the hospital "spent years reducing its staffing levels in an effort to improve profitability, even though the chain is a nonprofit organization with nearly $18 billion of cash reserves."
• A November 2021 STAT News investigation, described Ascension as a hospital system "moonlighting as a private equity firm," after it established a $1 billion fund based in the Cayman Islands with private equity giant TowerBrook for joint investments.

Ascension is the second-largest and wealthiest nonprofit and Catholic health system in the country. In fiscal year 2023, the system's CEO took home a compensation package worth more than $9 million. Additionally, according to a 2024 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Ascension runs an investment company that manages more than $40 billion. Additionally, Ascension reported a net income of $195 million over nine months ending March 31, 2025

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.