Over the next two weeks we will round up the discussion on the economic life. Today’s excerpts from the Compendium seek to remind us that as Christians we have a responsibility to ensure that the economic sector lifts the human person up and not demeans them.

We must become educationally and culturally aware of how the economic world works. We as consumers have the power through how we spend our money, lobby governments and our workplaces to remind those with authority in the economy locally as well as globally that we are human beings created to fulfil God’s purpose for us. 

The human person must at no time be neglected. He/she must be the focus of all decisions including those related to the economy. “For the Church's social doctrine, the economy is only one aspect and one dimension of the whole of human activity”.

What must remain very clear to us is that if economic activity becomes the centre of our existence, we will not be “complete” persons. All that will be produced in the society are goods and services. We all need food, clothes, entertainment, relaxation, health products, education and shelter. These are essential for our comfort, but they alone cannot give us peace, happiness and joy. The Compendium explains this by saying: 

“If economic life is absolutised, if the production and consumption of goods become the centre of social life and society's only value, not subject to any other value, the reason is to be found not so much in the economic system itself as in the fact that the entire socio-cultural system, by ignoring the ethical and religious dimension, has been weakened, and ends up limiting itself to the production of goods and services alone.

The life of man, just like the social life of the community, must not be reduced to its materialistic dimension, even if material goods are extremely necessary both for mere survival and for improving the quality of life. ‘An increased sense of God and increased self-awareness are fundamental to any full development of human society’.”

The message here is that we were created for God’s purpose. “For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him” (Colossians 1:16). As Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life says “it’s not about you. It’s all for him.”

With all the opportunities that this era in the world’s economic history brings for us, many of us get caught up in the trappings of the good life that money and wealth can buy and think of how we can benefit most from it. What should we study, what career should we aim for? We pray to God to direct us on the best path to make us comfortable and happy.

We often do not stop to think that “Everything comes from God alone.  Everything lives by his power and everything is for his glory” (Romans 11:36).

There is a need for us to go back to these basic principles when discussing the economy, so that we get the true context for our actions in the economy and how we contribute to its development. All aspects of the human person must be considered, material, mental, physical, emotional, psychological, emotional and spiritual.

The Church has an expressed concern that if these dimensions are not adequately taken into account, the human being may become only an object to facilitate economic advancement. His/her human needs may not be at all satisfied, and worse the human may be humiliated and their dignity offended in the quest for profits.

“Faced with the rapid advancement of technological and economic progress, and with the equally rapid transformation of the processes of production and consumption, the Magisterium senses the need to propose a great deal of educational and cultural formation, for the Church is aware that ‘to call for an existence which is qualitatively more satisfying is of itself legitimate, but one cannot fail to draw attention to the new responsibilities and dangers connected with this phase of history ...

In singling out new needs and new means to meet them, one must be guided by a comprehensive picture of man which respects all the dimensions of his being and which subordinates his material and instinctive dimensions to his interior and spiritual ones ...

Of itself, an economic system does not possess criteria for correctly distinguishing new and higher forms of satisfying human needs from artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality.

Thus a great deal of educational and cultural work is urgently needed, including the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice, the formation of a strong sense of responsibility among producers and among people in the mass media in particular, as well as the necessary intervention by public authorities’.”

These are some of the practical responsibilities Christian leaders neglect. Christian leaders need to encourage as well as where possible educate their following on these issues. 

Next week we end this discussion on the economy by looking at a practical example of how it is possible to mix profit and purpose, by looking at the book The CEO and the Monk. 

Persons interested in purchasing the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, may contact the Justice Desk, Archbishop’s House at 622-6680.