Book Review: “A Catechism for Business”

As a Catholic business owner, manager or employee, would you consider it “ethical” for your business organization to dispense contraceptives to employees as a health plan benefit? Would you consider it “ethical” for the business to operate on a Sunday? Would it be unethical to deny employees access to training and development activity?
 
These are tough questions for those of us desiring to have integrity with our Catholic faith and business life. The business sphere we work within is similar to the social sphere and spiritual sphere of our life in that all three spheres present us daily questions and challenges related to ethics. There is temptation to simply ignore the challenges with the thought they will disappear. The alternative of pondering on and identifying a solution that will help sustain our moral integrity may, at first, seem to require too much effort or to be impossible for us to achieve alone.
 
There is good news! A new book – “A Catechism for Business” by Andrew Abela and Joseph Capizzi – can serve as a resource for reflecting and meditating on the ethical challenges we might face in business.
 
Abela is the dean of the School of Business and Economics at the Catholic University of America, and Joseph Capizzi is the director of moral theology in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. Together they have organized the content of the book with ethical questions of economic context and “applicability” of Catholic social teaching, giving us a simple tool for reflection and insight.
 
For each question, the editors present quotes from various documents that help compose Catholic social doctrine and teachings. The questions are positioned within chapters that relate to key business function areas, including finance and investing, sales and marketing, and management and manufacturing.
 
In the opening chapter, the authors provide suggestion on methodology readers may apply to resolve “dilemma” (difficult choices for “what to do” on ethical issues). They suggest: (1) Find the question that is closest to Christian social thought/teaching; (2) Read the quotations provided; (3) Pray and meditate on them; (4) Read further in the cited documents provided by the book editors; and then, (5) Apply them to your specific situation.
 
While this book could benefit any Christian regardless of their role or affiliation with business, my opinion is it is most appropriate for business owners and managers. A personal observation from reading this book is it would be a great resource to use for a book study group of business managers to spark dialogue and fresh thinking on important ethical issues.
 
It doesn’t require much investment of time to read “A Catechism for Business” as it is only 157 pages and the content is organized into seven chapters. So, if you have a little time some Sunday afternoon and are interested in business ethics, I would encourage you to read this book.
 
John Dolezal is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.