Catholic Business

Subsidiarity and Healthcare

Here are two interesting takes on how the principle of subsidiarity should guide us in the current US health care debate.

Dr. Stephen Schneck of the Catholic University of America wrote Subsidiarity 101: A Lesson for the Health Care Debate, and Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Kansas City – St. Joseph Bishop Robert W. Finn issued their pastoral letter Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care Reform.

Calihan Lecture - October 8 at 5:30 p.m.

I will be delivering the 2009 Calihan Lecture this coming week, on Thursday, October 8, at the Catholic University of America.  Reception at 5:30 p.m., lecture at 6:30 p.m.  All are welcome. 

Further details here.

"not giving a person a fish, nor teaching them how to fish, but fishing with them"

John Mundell, president and founder of Mundell and Associates, an Indianapolis environmental consulting company, and a contributor to this blog, was interviewed recently by Zenit.  The interview was published in two parts.

People are searching for meaning in work, ways to aid people and the environment while earning profits, and Benedict XVI is pointing the way, says an Economy of Communion member.
...
There is a big push to find the meaning of work, to ask, "How do I integrate myself and my faith with my work life?" [The Economy of Communion] is seen as one of those ways of doing that, of practicing your beliefs within the context of a faith tradition. Thus we have people who are experts, and they start a business. Or they convert the company they have according to this new vision and begin operating it according to Economy of Communion principles.

Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

For more blog posts on the Economy of Communion, click on the "Economy of Communion" link under "categories" to the right, or click here.  

Caritas in Veritate online symposium at First Things

First Things magazine has an online symposium on the new papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate. The symposium includes an article by John Mueller, a commentator on this blog, called A Return to Augustinian Economics.

...Catholics on both the left and the right have analyzed Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical with the same dichotomous logic they applied to SRS [John Paul II's encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis]: The Church says there is no Third Way. If not, we must choose between the First Way of Adam Smith and the Second Way of Karl Marx.

But, by emphasizing in his new encyclical the central role of gifts in the divine economy of creation and salvation, as well as in personal, domestic, and political economy, Benedict XVI (like John Paul II before him) poses a very different choice.

Following that neglected economic realist St. Augustine (whom the pope has called “my great master”) and Augustine’s contemporaries the Cappadocian Fathers, Benedict XVI says the choice is among the same three world views that confronted one another in the marketplace of Athens when the Apostle Paul (probably in a.d. 51) prefaced his proclamation of the gospel with a biblically orthodox adaptation of Greco-Roman natural law and “some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers argued with him” (Acts 17:18). As Benedict XVI succinctly summarizes, “For believers, the world derives neither from blind chance, nor from strict necessity, but from God’s plan . . . living as a family under the Creator’s watchful eye” (CV, 57).

Read the full article here.

Benedict, Love, and Money

Fr. Raymond de Souza wrote an insightful review of Caritas in Veritate.  He argues that in this encyclical Pope Benedict proposes that charity, not justice or prudence, should be the characteristic virtue in economic life: 

Is economic life intended to make us brothers, or is that asking too much? Benedict makes his claim here that it is not too much to ask. Charity is essential so that our treatment of each other is not limited to mere contractual obligations, but to the real flourishing of others.

This is a bold development, to say that economic life should be characterized by charity — a theological virtue — rather than the humbler natural virtues of justice and prudence. Caritas in Veritate understands that existing economic language and concepts don’t really express this, so develops a new principle.

The underlying principle — replacing justice with charity as the principal motivation of economics — is articulated as the “principle of gratuitousness” and the “logic of the gift.” “Gratuitousness” and “gift” encourage people to think not of their interest, but of service. So Benedict argues that labor unions should think not of their own members alone, but of the good of even foreign workers who might compete with union labor.

Read the whole article here.  

Pope proposes a World Government?

Actually, no.  John Zmirak points out that the reference to a "world political authority" in para. 67 of Caritas in Veritate must be understood in the context of the dozen or so references to the principle of subsidiarity in that encyclical.

Read Zmirak's article here. 

More good stuff on the encyclical

Zenit is providing excellent coverage and commentary on Caritas in Veritate.  See in particular:

The Pope's July 8 audience, reflecting on the encyclical and summarizing its key themes.

Insightful commentaries by Fr. Schall, Stratford Caldecott, Sam Gregg, and Gabriel Martinez on the encyclical.

Fr. Sirico on Caritas in Veritate in the Wall Street Journal

Fr. Robert Sirico, President of the Acton Institute writes about Caritas in Veritate in today's Wall Street Journal:

In his much anticipated third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI does not focus on specific systems of economics -- he is not attempting to shore up anyone's political agenda. He is rather concerned with morality and the theological foundation of culture. The context is of course a global economic crisis -- a crisis that's taken place in a moral vacuum, where the love of truth has been abandoned in favor of a crude materialism. The pope urges that this crisis become "an opportunity for discernment, in which to shape a new vision for the future."

Read the rest here.

The Economy of Communion in action

Mundell & Associates is part of the Economy of Communion.  John Mundell was a guest lecturer in one of my classes this fall, and is participating in an interesting exchange about reciprocity in the marketplace on an earlier post in this blog.

Indiana firm can claim a papal thumbs-up from new social encyclical

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR. on Jul. 07, 2009
Rome

Though the Vatican typically is loathe to put the pope in the position of endorsing a commercial product, in effect a papal thumbs-up is precisely what Mundell & Associates, an environmental consulting firm in Indianapolis, Indiana, can claim from Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical.

Founded in 1995, Mundell & Associates is a 20-person firm specializing in environmental clean-up and design; for example, it’s currently helping Ball State University convert its entire campus to geothermal energy. Directed by a Catholic couple, Mundell & Associates is also part of the “economy of communion” network of businesses linked to the Focolare movement.

The “economy of communion” was cited by Benedict XVI as a promising form of intermediate activity between for-profit business and classic non-profit institutions, rupturing what the pope called an “exclusively binary model of market-plus-state” which is “corrosive of society.”

Read the rest here.

Brief overview of the encyclical

In an interview with Zenit, I gave a brief overview of Caritas in Veritate:

WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 7, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's new encyclical is not pretending to solve the worldwide financial crisis, but it points the way for building a solid economy through Christian virtue, says a business ethicist.

Andrew Abela is a marketing professor and chair of Catholic University of America's department of business and economics. He is currently working on a "catechism" for business leaders, applying principles of Catholic social teaching to questions of business ethics.

In this interview with ZENIT, Abela comments on Benedict XVI's latest encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate," which was released to the public today.

ZENIT: Could you give a "businessman's" summary of this encyclical? What are the main points for business leaders today?

Abela: A main point is that the economy is not a moral-free zone: both honesty and generosity are absolutely required if the market is to work and to serve the common good.  

Another point is that there is room for solidarity and generosity within the market, and that these in fact will make the market more effective by strengthening trust.  

Lastly, the encyclical points out that the most important aspect of development is spiritual development, and that openness to life "is at the center of true development" (No. 28).

(Read the rest here.)