St. Teresa of Calcutta and the Resurrection of Labor Sunday

Sunday, September 4, 2016, is a providential date for many reasons.  Not only is it a beautiful capstone for the Year of Mercy through the international celebration of the canonization of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, but it is also the day that marks Labor Sunday in the United States, a day to honor the spiritual nature […]

Faith and Wealth: Rich Dad, Poor Dad Revisited

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of this generation’s most iconic financial literacy books.  Written by Kiyosaki and Lechter in the late 1990s, it has sold over 26 million copies and has been touted by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith—not to mention Donald Trump, who later collaborated with Kiyosaki to leverage Rich Dad, Poor […]

Wealth and the Spirituality of Social Solidarity

This is how I have become accustomed to opening and closing each day. For most of my adult life, I have been a banker and in the business of buying and selling money. There is a common misconception among the faithful that having money is bad, and having a lot of money is really bad. Conversely, it is thought […]

What Theology Teaches About Corporate Responsibility

As business people, sometimes we forget just how connected the world of work is to the work of God in the world. Without question, individual business persons are moral agents. However, based upon the accepted conception of the corporation, there is often a lack of consistency in the view of the moral agency of the […]

God’s Fingerprints On Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand

For those who know economics, Adam Smith is a beloved patriarch. Not only was the 18th-century Scottish thinker the father of modern economics, he was also moral philosopher. This intellectual combination was not unusual in his day, but it is rare in ours. His highly-influential work on the economic order is titled An Inquiry into the Nature […]

Economic Personalism: Tool for Morality in Markets

No matter what your ideology, there is common disdain for market manipulators, fraud, and theft. There is little disagreement about the repugnance of taking advantage of senior citizens through deceptive investment schemes or conning vulnerable families into unsustainable mortgages. There is even growing consensus on the shamefulness of polluting factories and the exploitation of child […]

5 Things Every Catholic Businessperson Must Know

A few years ago, I had an interesting conversation with one of our country’s most well-known and respected business leaders. It started as I was chatting with the man’s wife, and she asked me what I did for fun. I could have told her I enjoyed golf, or gardening, or skiing, or any number of […]

The Eucharist: The Perfect Valentine

For Valentine’s Day this year, I am taking a new approach. No more chocolate, fancy dinners or jewelry.  This year’s gift is the ultimate.  This year’s gift is love itself. This year, I am going to give the most precious gift of all.  I am going to give an understanding of how each of us […]

Answering the Call to Work

Recent studies show a need for a greater understanding of labor as a Christian call to work. Nearly half the people on the planet are workers. Statically speaking, the UN’s International Labour Organization tallies the world-wide workforce at nearly three billion. Standing hand-in-hand, these workers would circle the globe 11 times. Needless to say, what work […]

Economic Apologists?

Two years before his death, renowned Catholic social scientist Dr. Rupert Ederer wrote a book entitled Economics as if God Matters. In this book, he endeavored to explain over a century of Catholic magisterial teaching regarding economic matters. Ederer titled his book as such in response to a 1973 book by E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics […]