Fr. John Flynn, Business Ethics and Christianity

Business Ethics and Christianity
Pope Offers Guidelines



By Father John Flynn, L.C.

ROME, JUNE 24, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Confrontations over globalization no longer make headlines, but many concerns remain over the future of the world economy. In past months the question of growing economic inequality has come under increasing attention.

Globalization has delivered many benefits, argued a front-page article published May 24 by the Wall Street Journal. The article did concede, however: "As trade, foreign investment and technology have spread, the gap between economic haves and have-nots has frequently widened, not only in wealthy countries like the United States, but in poorer ones like Mexico, Argentina, India and China as well."

The experience of the last few years is showing that those with education and skills benefit from globalization. Others, without these advantages, are not so fortunate. While not forgetting the benefits of globalization for many millions of people, the Wall Street Journal also expressed concern that the growing inequalities could provoke a backlash that would damage trade and investment.

Earlier this year, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also warned of problems stemming from economic inequality. In a speech given Feb. 6 to the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce in Nebraska, Bernanke defended the idea that the free market does not guarantee an equality of economic outcomes, allowing as it does the possibility for unequal rewards due to differences in effort and skill.

Slipping down the ladder

"That said, we also believe that no one should be allowed to slip too far down the economic ladder, especially for reasons beyond his or her control," he added in the text posted on the Federal Reserve Board site.

Outlining evidence from a variety of sources, the Federal Reserve chairman pointed out that over the last few decades economic well-being in the United States has increased considerably. At the same time, he observed that "the degree of inequality in economic outcomes has increased as well."

Bernanke admitted the difficulty of resolving the question of how to maintain a balance between a market system that uses economic incentives and stimulates growth, and the need to protect individuals against adverse economic outcomes.

Proposing solutions to this problem involves value judgments beyond the realm of economic theory, Bernanke concluded. He did, however, suggest a range of possible measures, ranging from education and job training, to helping individuals and families bear the cost of economic change, as ways to affront the problem of inequality.

A similar position was expressed in an opinion article by Danny Leipziger and Michael Spence, published in the Financial Times on May 15. The authors, respectively a vice president at the World Bank and a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, argued that in the globalization debate the most important issue is "who benefits and who loses."

"Globalization is a positive sum game in the aggregate but one that produces both winners and losers," they also observed.

Leipziger and Spence supported improvements in education to help workers affront the current situation. In addition, they called for better safety nets, more investment in infrastructure and assured access to services such as health care.

Dignity of the person

Amid the ongoing debate over issues of economics and ethics, Benedict XVI has addressed these issues on several occasions in recent months. On May 26 he spoke to a group of young people from Confindustria, the General Confederation of Italian Industry.

Every business, the Pope noted, should be considered first and foremost as a group of people, whose rights and dignity should be respected. Human life and its values, the Pontiff continued, should always be the guiding principle and end of the economy.

In this context, Benedict XVI acknowledged that for business, making a profit is a value that they can rightly put as an objective of their activity. At the same time the social teaching of the Church insists that businesses must also safeguard the dignity of the human person, and that even in moments of economic difficulties, business decisions must not be guided exclusively by considerations of profit.

The Pope also dealt briefly with the theme of globalization. This is a phenomenon, he commented, that gives hope of a wider participation in economic development and riches. It is a process not without its risks, however, leading in some cases to worsening economic inequality. Echoing the words of Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI called for a globalization characterized by solidarity and without marginalization of people.

Other principles that need to guide the economy are justice and charity, Benedict XVI explained in a message, dated April 28, to the president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Mary Ann Glendon. The letter was sent on the occasion of the plenary session of the academy, held April 27-May 1.

The pursuit of justice and the promotion of the civilization of love, the message stated, are essential aspects of the Church's mission in its proclamation of the Gospel. Justice and love cannot be separated, the Pope observed, because of the Church's experience of how the two were united in "the revelation of God's infinite justice and mercy in Jesus Christ."

Justice, he continued, must be "corrected" by love, a love which inspires justice and purifies our efforts to build a better society. "Only charity can encourage us to place the human person once more at the center of life in society and at the center of a globalized world governed by justice," the Pope stated.

Labor market

The Pope took a closer look at some of the problems facing workers in a couple of speeches earlier this year. In a message dated March 28, sent to participants in the 9th International Youth Forum organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Benedict XVI commented that in recent years economic and technological changes have radically changed the labor market.

This has given hope to young people, the Pontiff conceded, but it also brings with it the need for greater skills and education, and the demand that workers be prepared to travel, even to other countries, in searching for jobs.

Work, he explained, is part of God's plan for humanity and through it we participate in the work of creation and redemption. We will live this better, the Pope urged, if we remain united to Christ through prayer and sacramental life.

Then, on March 31, Benedict XVI spoke to a gathering of Confartigianato, an association of Italian artisans. Work is part of God's plan for man, even if because of original sin it has become more of a burden, the Pope explained.

It is important, he exhorted, to proclaim the primacy of the human person and the common good over capital, science, technology and even private ownership. As Christians, we can testify to the "Gospel of work," in our daily lives, the Pope reminded them.

The Pontiff also had words for those directing workers, in an address to a group from the Italian group, the Christian Union of Business Executives on March 4. Justice and charity, the Pope said, are inseparable elements in the social commitment of Christians.

"It is incumbent on lay faithful in particular to work for a just order in society, taking part in public life in the first person, cooperating with other citizens and fulfilling their own responsibility," said the Pope.

"Unfortunately, partly because of current economic difficulties, these values often run the risk of not being followed by those business persons who lack a sound moral inspiration," he also noted. Values which, together with sound economic policies, could go a long way in finding solutions to the ethical challenges in a globalized world.

Interview With Father Vincent Twomey

The Conscience of Our Age
Interview With Father Vincent Twomey



MAYNOOTH, Ireland, JUNE 25, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The modern conception of conscience reduces it to an excuse mechanism, that it cannot err and that what one thinks is right is in fact right, said author Father Vincent Twomey.

Father Twomey, retired professor of moral theology at the Pontifical University of St. Patrick's College, in Maynooth, is the author of "Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age," published this year by Ignatius Press.

In this interview with ZENIT, he comments on the Holy Father's role in providing a way to return to a deeper understanding of conscience.

Q: You were a doctoral student of Father Joseph Ratzinger. How has that experience uniquely prepared you to write this book?

Father Twomey: I joined professor Ratzinger's doctoral colloquium in the spring of 1971, and studied under his supervision for the doctorate, which I was awarded in 1979.

Since his election as archbishop of Munich in 1977, he has met with his former doctoral and postdoctoral students each year for a weekend colloquium, a practice that continued even after his election as Benedict XVI.

I think that, as a result, I have a personal knowledge of the Pope that is, perhaps, unique.
Sitting at his feet as a student, studying his writings, and participating in discussions with him over some 36 years has also given me a certain insight into his thought, which in turn has influenced my own theology profoundly.

Q: What do you think are the most defining characteristics of the writings of Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI?

Father Twomey: The most defining formal characteristics of his writings are originality, clarity and a superb literary style that is not easy to render in translation.

Ratzinger is more than a world-class scholar and academic: He is an original thinker.

He has the Midas touch, in the positive sense that whatever he touches, he turns to gold, in other words, whatever subject he examines, he has something new and exciting to say about it, be it the dogmas of the Church or a mosaic in an ancient Roman church or bioethics. And he writes with amazing clarity.

With regard to his style, Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne is reported as commenting that Ratzinger is the Mozart of theology -- he writes masterpieces effortlessly.

With regard to its content, as Ratzinger once said himself, "God is the real central theme of my endeavors."

There is hardly an area of theology -- dogma, moral, political life, bioethics, liturgy, exegesis, music, art -- that he has not examined in-depth. And everything he examines, he does so from God's viewpoint, as it were, namely trying to discover what light revelation -- Scripture and Tradition -- can shine on a particular issue.

On the other hand, his theological reflection is firmly rooted in contemporary experience: the questions and existential issues posed by modernity and post-modernity, by contemporary thinkers and the epoch-making events of our times.

However, his pastoral and administrative duties as archbishop and prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were such that he had little time to write extensive monographs, with the result that most of his writings are of a fragmentary nature. But what fragments!

Each has the capacity to convey that insight into truth that touches the mind and heart of the reader -- and can effect in many a change of heart.

Q: You describe Benedict XVI as unafraid of making mistakes, and as "having the courage to be imperfect." Can you explain this further?

Father Twomey: Having the courage to be imperfect is more than being afraid of making mistakes, though it may include it.

Basic to his whole attitude to life and to theology is the assumption that only God is perfect, that human effort is always imperfect.

Perfectionism of any kind is inimical to man, but above all in the political sphere. Most political ideologies aim to create a perfect world, a perfect society and usually end up making hell on earth.

That is a frequent theme of his writings on political life. But also with regard to the human effort to do theology, as it were. That, too, will always be unfinished business, always capable of improvement, of correction and deepening.

We cannot know everything, least of all God and his design for man. I have described his writings as "fragmentary." Most of his writings are unfinished -- like his classic book, "Introduction to Christianity," and, more recently, his "Jesus of Nazareth." And yet he has the courage to publish them in their unfinished state.

This attitude gave Joseph Ratzinger that inner calm and detachment which the world is now experiencing in Benedict XVI. But it also is, perhaps, the secret of his gentle humor and wit.

Q: You suggest that there has been a distortion of the word conscience. What is this distortion and how has it affected the Church?

Father Twomey: The starting point is the traditional notion of an erroneous conscience, which in the wake of the turbulence that followed "Humanae Vitae," was falsely interpreted to mean, in effect for many, that it does not matter what one does, provided that one is sincerely convinced that it is right.

Sincerity now becomes the criterion of morality and, taken to its logical conclusion, it would be impossible to condemn a Hitler or a Stalin, since it could be claimed that they too acted according to their "lights," according to their sincere convictions.

The traditional insistence on the primacy of following your conscience, even if erroneous, led to a new notion, that of the "infallible conscience." This amounts to the claim that conscience cannot err, that what you think is right is in fact right.

This is to reduce conscience to an excuse mechanism. This notion receives its persuasiveness, if not its inspiration, from the prevailing relativism of modernity.

It is sometimes claimed today that each one can adopt whatever moral principles he or she decides best for them. These are the fruit of their conscientious choice, after having looked at the options.

This is indeed a very attractive theory. But it amounts to the claim that each person can determine for himself what is right or wrong, the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden.

Often, it is given the title "a la carte" Catholicism, picking and choosing what suits us. Morality is reduced to an ultimately irrational personal preference.

This prevailing notion of conscience has had a devastating effect on the Church and Christian living.

Q: You describe Benedict XVI as a guide for the conscience in today's age. In what ways do you believe this to be true?

Father Twomey: First of all, as theologian and later as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger has been the voice of the Church's conscience in affirming the objective truth when it was denied either theoretically or in practice.

It is astonishing that secular thinkers, those outside the Church, as it were, seem to recognize this more than those inside. Thus, for example, the French Academy honored him as the apt successor to Andrey Sacharov, the dissident atom physicist during the tyranny of the Soviet Union.

It was their recognition of a courageous thinker who was in effect the great "dissident" under the "dictatorship of relativism" that has swamped Europe and America over the past half-century.

Secondly, conscience is not only a central theme of his writings, he has also made a major contribution to correcting the false understanding of conscience outlined above, to which I devote a whole chapter in my book.

Q: How did the experience of growing up in Nazi Germany helped to prepare Joseph Ratzinger for the papacy? What particular lessons did he learn then that he still puts into practice today?

Father Twomey: The answer to this question is to be found in a comment he made in an interview in 1999: "As a result [of living through the Nazi period], I learned to have a certain reserve with regard to the reigning ideologies."

Evidently, he meant "ideologies" also to cover those found within the Church, which are fashionable since they reflect current ideological trends in society.

His experience of living under a political ideology and its bureaucracy made him sensitive to the need for the exercise of moral responsibility on the part of each one, but in particular on the part of those who hold public office in the Church or in the state. Moral responsibility is but another word for conscience.

His skepticism regarding episcopal conferences is rooted in the experience of how, as a collective, the German bishops, to put it mildly, had not quite matched up to the witness given by individual bishops such as Bishop Clemens von Galen of Muenster and Archbishop Michael Faulhaber of Munich.

He calls on all bishops to give personal witness and not wait for the collective conference to rubber-stamp some document prepared by an anonymous commission.

Likewise, his theology has been marked by a personal search for the truth, urged on by his conscience. All his life, he has exercised his personal moral responsibility, even when it earned for him the negative title of "rottweiler" or "grand inquisitor" -- or, indeed, "the enemy of humanity," as one journalist put it.

To speak the truth in love is to be in opposition, very often, to the prevailing fashions and so to make oneself unpopular.

Now, as Benedict XVI, he continues to exercise that moral responsibility, not least in the way he writes most of his own speeches, which speak to the heart of his audience because they are spoken from his own heart and not from a prepared schema.