There is a great divide between Catholic business leaders and the Catholic Church due to the lack of a common language between them. It’s also, I believe, the reason why the majority of the laity including business leaders think that the world of the sacred belongs to just the clergy. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are all tasked with achieving sanctity.
The writers of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (for ease I will just call it “The Compendium”) did an excellent job selecting quotations from ancient and modern documents and are indexed by sources and topics. I recommend anyone who is actively walking the path to sanctity purchase a copy. It’s not meant to be read from cover to cover but is more of a research resource. Here’s the snag though, if you don’t have a background in theology and philosophy, like myself, when trying to read the Compendium you may find it a bit challenging and frustrating.
Here’s how the divide occurs between Rome and the laity in three easy steps.
Step 1: The Church weighs in on matters of God and mankind via documents like the Compendium, papal encyclicals etc. They are written in what I call the “Rome-ese” language. Super heavy use of the language of theologians and philosophers.
Step 2: Catholic academia digests the docs from step 1 and then teaches it using the same language in those documents.
Step 3: The laity including the business leader community largely ignores the amazing documents that issue forth from the Church due to lack of clarity and time to translate them. It’s no wonder most of us live a divided life.
I would say yes. If the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace assembled this document and published it, we should read it so we can understand the Church’s vision of the human person and society (including the business world) rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. More importantly, they thought that the topics of Human Work and Economic Life were so important that it is part of the Compendium, so I think as Catholic business leaders it is important that we try to understand it so we can apply its principles in the workplace.
Cardinal Martino states in the presentation of the Compendium (page xxi) that it (The Compendium) is for all people of goodwill including the lay faithful.
He says: “The reading of these pages is suggested above all in order to sustain and foster the activity of Christians in the social sector especially the activity of the lay faithful to whom this area belongs in a particular way the whole of lives must be seen as a work of evangelization that produces fruit.”
If this is the case and I don’t doubt the cardinal, then we need to set to work to translate it into a more consumable language, the language of the common person. That’s the only way we will be able to understand the value that awaits the reader between the covers of the book and more importantly, how it can be applied in real life, in the workplace.
Once we start building this common language then reading documents like John Paul II’s, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens will become easier and more relatable. I would bet that some people try and then simply give up after a few paragraphs saying to themselves that it’s “too heady for me”!
So, I am going to try to create a common language or perhaps translate is a better word to the best of my ability a paragraph from The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Part 2 Chapter 6 – The Dignity of Work. Paragraph 270 The subjective and objective dimensions of work. Did I mention that I am not trained in theology or philosophy? So please feel free to drop a comment or email me to help me flesh out this and future translations.
To get a better sense of what I’m talking about , here’s what this paragraph says: 270 on page 120.
The subjective and objective dimensions of work.
“Human work has a twofold significance: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, it is the sum of activities, resources, instruments, and technologies used by men and women to produce things, to exercise dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis. In the subjective sense, work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation: “Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the ‘image of God’ he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work”[586].
[586] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 6: AAS 73 (1981), 589-590.
Work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social, and political conditions. Work in the subjective sense, however, represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings. This distinction is critical, both for understanding what the ultimate foundation of the value and dignity of work is, and with regard to the difficulties of organizing economic and social systems that respect human rights.”
My Translation of Paragraph 270
The objective dimension of work in a single word is about the “things” of business.
The things that are needed for a business to operate are the impersonal aspects of the workplace. This would include the infrastructure, the materials, inventory, cash, technology, property, plant, the financial structure, organizational design, process and procedures, and the departments and roles in sales marketing, operations, manufacturing, and finance, and also the results from the activity of business such as attaining mission, vision, profitability, growth and customer satisfaction.
The subjective dimension of work in a single word concerns the “people” in the workplace.
The subjective dimension of work would include income to live on, personal and professional development, areas of specialization, the natural gifts of the person as well as the tacit knowledge gained through the activity of work and the esteem that comes from work well done. It also includes the culture of an organization.
“Work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social and political conditions.”
Said succinctly by Joseph Schumpeter -“Successful businesspeople stand on ground that is crumbling beneath their feet.” They need to constantly change and adjust to the world they serve.
“Work in the subjective sense, however, represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings.”
The word “stable” may be the last thing one thinks about regarding the human dimension of work especially if you manage people, however it’s not what is meant here. Although the world is in a constant state of change which the business owner, president or CEO has to adapt to, they must always treat their employees with dignity. This is the stable aspect they are referring to, not how the person acts in the workplace.
Next up paragraph 271. The topic of subjective and objective dimensions of work continues. “This subjectivity gives to work its particular dignity, which does not allow that it be considered a simple commodity or an impersonal element of the apparatus for productivity. Cut off from its lesser or greater objective value, work is an essential expression of the person, it is an “actus personae”. ” Should be fun….
Also read: A Catholic Theology of Work
