Catholic business schools urged to help students develop moral compass

Business is a vocation from God, Cardinal Peter Turkson said June 18 at the University of Dayton, calling on Catholic business schools to help students develop a moral compass along with excellence in business education.

“Let me insist, business is a noble pursuit,” said Cardinal Turkson in his keynote address at the eighth annual International Conference on Catholic Social Thought. “At its best, and most true to its nature, business serves the common good. Business and entrepreneurship is a calling from God to be a co-creator in a responsible way.”

The cardinal, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, which issued a controversial report last year calling for a “true world political authority” to bring more democratic and ethical principles to the global marketplace, said the business world requires mature leaders who steer these enterprises to benefit human life.

“Such leaders must not focus on any single dimension of business to the exclusion of others,” he warned. “Such has been the failure with the unilateral, indeed myopic, embrace of the profit motive. The need for rebalancing in the economy, between profit on one hand and social and environmental concern on the other, is of paramount importance.”

Cardinal Turkson said profit was essential for a company to be sustainable but should not be its purpose.

“Profit is a bit like oxygen for a person — it is not the purpose of your life, but you would quickly die without it,” he said. “Yet life is more than oxygen and business is more than profit.” [more]

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CNS via US Catholic