The diocese of Lund is making money through investing in porn distributors.
The church has put money into commercial media firm MTG and others that distribute pornographic content, despite the Church of Sweden’s clear objections via its guidelines. TV 1000, an MTG film channel, broadcasts pornographic material in the late night hours.
But despite the obvious controversy, church economists have defended the move by claiming it is difficult to source companies that follow religious guidelines ‘religiously’. Stefan Skoog, chief economist from the diocese of Lund, said to The Local, “It is almost impossible to find any companies that are completely clean.”
Mr Skoog also said that if the church chose only ‘clean’ companies, the choices would be very few. He added, “It is also really hard to know where one should draw the line. All ethical funds have this problem, because it is always possible to argue that something could be used in an unethical way,” The Local reports.
But the church also said that it would approach companies about such investments. Skoog said, “Our strategy is to actively influence our fund managers, not to invest in funds that make money this way, and also get them to bring this up with the companies to try to influence them to stop.”