The literature on the effect of political events on markets is attentive to the influence ofelections and institutional appointments. Less investigated is the economic impact of events related to alternative political leaders, e.g. religious authorities. This paper builds on new research on unconventional leadership and spiritual officials, focusing on the case of the Pope. We study the material implications of the utmost relevant papal communications – the encyclicals – for stakeholders associated with public issues addressed in these documents. We conjecture that investors are sensitive to Popes’ communications that clearly signal a policy approach directed at the scope of their economic activities. However, Popes have ideological leanings that make them more or less sympathetic to the use of markets to solve public issues. We expect that if a Pope leans towards a market-based approach to a specific issue, the most exposed sectors may becheerful of a papal communication and materially benefit through stock returns. Vice versa, if a Pope is skeptical of market approaches, investors may see negative returns after the papal announcement. We propose an event study that traces the impact of Pope Francis’s 2015 climate encyclical on the stocks of the global energy industry. We show that this encyclical by Francis, who is viewed as an opponent of profit-driven solutions and distinctly criticized market-based climate policy arrangements, caused renewable energy companies to lose stock value after publication. We also demonstrate that this effect is concentrated among US firms as a result of the partisan framing of the encyclical.