Business at the service of the common good

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

A Vatican sponsored executive summit on ethics for the business world has called for the employment of ethical business policies within companies and bringing economic justice to the wider world.

According to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s secretary of state, the real challenge is taking common principles and translating them into concrete action that will have a real impact on local and world economies, and people’s lives.

Businesses are either serving the common good or they are not, such as “when they fail to produce quality products, ignore innovation, fail to create wealth and jobs, and pay no taxes.”

Business leaders need to go beyond just reaping a profit. “We need business leaders with a social conscience,” he said, “leaders who see their work as part of a new social contract with the public and civil society.”

Daniel K. Finn, professor of economics and theology at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., said that there was little to no talk among the business leaders at the meeting about social and distributive justice and the wider issue of “the morality of the economy.”

“I hear the term ‘ethics’ being used” and the importance of treating workers fairly, but there is little attention being paid to the larger structural injustices in today’s economies, he told CNS.

“I think this speaks to a general need that the Catholic Church has to explain to ordinary Catholics the connection between a life of personal ethical standards and a just economic system,” Finn said.

The Executive Summit on Ethics for the Business World was sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Legionaries of Christ’s Fidelis International Institute, which promotes ethics in business.

The meeting’s goal was to show how “Charity in Truth,” Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical on social justice issues, could inspire leaders to find practical applications of these universal values.

According to Fr Luis Garza Mendian, the vicar general of the Legionaries of Christ, everyone was ‘cherry-picked’ to attend.

The Legionaries of Christ helped in the planning of the event.

Sources