Studying EoC management practices worldwide

By John Gallagher and Jeanne Buckeye

from Living City, November 2011

Three years ago, we began working with a small group of Economy of Communion companies in the U.S. and Canada to explore how these companies actually conducted their day-to-day business.

Our interest was fueled by a recognition that the EoC was important, not only because it was “a new style of economic action,” but also because it involved the formation of companies and their management practice.

By Vera Araujo, sociologist

from Living City, November 2011

I have always thought that the Economy of Communion requires a new anthropological vision, with consequent concrete ramifications. In other words, we can ask ourselves, “What type of person is capable of wedding economy and communion together?”

Maybe, and even without saying maybe, this is an era that intensely awaits the emergence of a new type of man and woman, capable and able to embrace all the dimensions of life: from the spiritual to the material, the economic to the political, the social to the civil spheres, the relational to the communional dimension.

These are suitable times for homo agapicus to inhabit our planet: a person who knows how to love and finds in love the seed, the light, the strength and the truth of everything and of each thing — who will be able to bring all works and diversities into communion.

The view from LoppianoLab, a forum at one of the Economy of Communion business parks in Italy

By Maddalena Maltese

from Living City, November 2011

LoppianoLab is a multi-event forum where people share experiences about how the spirituality of the Focolare can contribute to the endeavors of the lay world. The Focolare spirituality is based on unity and is grounded in embracing separation and disunity with love. The second LoppianoLab conference, held September 16–18, covered the areas of business and the economy, with special attention given to the Economy of Communion, education, culture, medicine and the media.

With the background of the economic and political crisis that is affecting the world, the tremendously energetic LoppianoLab 2011 drew more people every day, imbuing people’s exchange of ideas with a powerful sense of hopefulness.

The first Economy of Communion Assembly in Brazil

By Elizabeth Garlow

from Living City, November 2011

Little did I know when I dove into the Economy of Communion project as an undergraduate student that I would become a part of an incredible network of students, academics, development workers and everyday individuals who look to base their economic and work lives on a “culture of giving,” rather than the dominant “culture of having” that often prevails in today’s society.

In fact, the witness of the EoC on how to harness the power of innovation and entrepreneurial activity to affect positive social change is ultimately what led me to work in my current field of microfinance, and to continue exploring avenues of entrepreneurship aimed at creating new structures to address widespread societal problems.

You can surely see a lot of vices in the economy, but can you see the virtues? Here’s our monthly reflection on how the virtues — this month: hope — can be lived out in business.

Market virtues: hope

By Joan Duggan and Zuzana Andreanska

From Living City April 2011

Even if it may seem strange, hope is a market virtue. Or at least it should be. Entrepreneurs begin a business or a new economic activity if they hope that tomorrow’s world will be better than it is today, that the 100% invested today can become 101% or 105% tomorrow.

Whoever gives life to a business, rather than functioning as a short-term speculator, is like a farmer who plants an oak tree. He knows that he is beginning something with the hope that its fruits will go even beyond his own person or lifetime.

This is why hope is linked to trust (faith, fides), because without faith in life and in the future, you don’t even begin a business. The virtue of hope also shows its true colors in moments of crisis, of long stalemates, of a variety of difficulties. Anyone who has given life to a business knows that the most important moments in its history are those in which they have hoped and trusted against all adversity.

An interview with Dr. Michael Naughton, professor of theology and business management in Minnesota 

Called to give and receive: Catholic social teaching and the Economy of Communion

By Amy Uelmen
from Living City AugSept 2010 

Last summer, many noticed that Pope Benedict’s letter on economic and social structures, Caritas in Veritate, used the buzzword “economy of communion” to describe the “broad intermediate area” of for-profit firms consciously working for the common good. Many connected the dots to the Focolare’s network of businesses, in which profit serves as “a means for achieving human and social ends.”  Dr. Michael Naughton, a professor of theology and business management at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, is renowned for his work at the intersection of Catholic social teaching and business ethics. We asked him to help us take stock of the Economy of Communion in Freedom project and whether it furthers the ongoing dialogue on economic life and culture. 

Life experiences on family economy 

Facing difficulty with a new heart

from Living City AugSept 2010

Facing difficulty with a new heart

For some years we have been in a very hard economic situation. My husband and I had taken on commitments that we thought we could manage, but things became difficult. His job was “secure,” so we built the house we are now living in and the studio where he works. To do so we took out a loan from the bank. We were sure we could cope with the situation, but it worked out differently, and the time came when the bank advised us we were in arrears. The notification came to me like a death blow, and I accused my husband of mismanaging our finances.I knew it was not the right way to face matters, so the next day I tried to begin again to love him with a new heart, as the Word of Life suggested — “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:12). The needs of our four children, along with the foreseen and unforeseen expenses that come day by day, put my faith to a hard test.

Economy, God and Family Life

Little ways to holiness: How unity has grown in our family

By Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
Published in Living City, July 2010

We live in New Jersey with our three children: Ana, Maria and Nicholas. From the time we got married it was important for my wife and me to give God first place, no matter the cost. That was often put to the test in the beginning of our marriage. Gabriela (Gabri) was in medical school in Mexico, and so I took the only job that I could find there, teaching English. At the time, I had sworn that I would never be a teacher, but I felt it was important to follow Gabri to Mexico so that she could complete her medical degree. So I chose to become an English teacher, which in Mexico was the equivalent of a salary below the poverty line. As a matter of fact, we were blessed with God’s providence and never lacked for food or clothing or basic needs, even when Ana and Maria were born. Six years later, we felt the time was right to leave Mexico and move to Newark, New Jersey, so that I could start a job training others to teach and manage schools for some of the most challenging children. The fellowship offered very little money, but we prayed about it and felt that God was leading us in this direction. With only $1,000 in the bank, we took the plunge and moved from Mexico City to Newark.

God knows what you need

Experiences published in Living City, March 2010

I had enough money for food, but no medical insurance. Because of my illness, I urgently needed to get a certain medication that was more than the money I had on hand. I really didn’t know what I was going to do.

After worrying about it for a couple of hours, I decided to go ahead to the pharmacy and buy the medicine, confident that God wouldn’t let me go without food. When I was about to pay, a young man whom I didn’t know came up to me and said, “Let me pay for your medicine.” I was astounded! It was as if Jesus himself had come in that young man to solve my problem.  —M. M. 

Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Values at Trinity University 

Economy of Communion on campus

By Linda Specht
Published in Living City (April 2010) 

 “May the Lord grant that many scholars and economic experts take on the Economy of Communion as a viable resource to shape a new shared world order!” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertoni, Vatican Secretary of State, said in his homily at Chiara Lubich’s funeral on March 18, 2008. He was calling for the involvement of members of the academic community in bringing ahead the Economy of Communion in Freedom (EoC), an innovative economic system based on a culture of giving – instead of a culture of having – and applied in more than 700 businesses worldwide (www.edc-online.org).  

 The urgency of these “marching orders” was made more explicit by Pope Benedict XVI in his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. Observing that “the traditionally valid distinction between profit-based companies and nonprofit organizations can no longer do full justice to reality or offer practical direction for the future,” the Holy Father identified “a broad intermediate area ... between the two types of enterprise.” He placed the EoC in this context, describing “a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends.” The EoC may be seen as both an answer to the challenges of our current economic problems and as fertile ground for exploration and development by the academic community.