This is too often seen as a cliché, but give this some serious thought. St. Thomas Aquinas described heaven this way: True and perfect light, total fulfillment, everlasting joy, gladness without end, and perfect happiness.29
That is the sum total, the perfection of every desire I’ve ever had. Heaven is where I get to realize in full the beauty and joys of which this earthly life is just a taste. If there is a heaven, and I believe there is, then that’s where I want to go and where I want my family, my friends, my co-workers and everyone else to go as well.
This is what John Paul II made me understand: All areas of my life today can be a foretaste of heaven, and they are a training ground to help us get to heaven. Some of the nine principles in this book might inspire you to lead your team in such a way that your work is a help and not a hindrance on that journey. They might help you to make your work sanctifying, both for you and for others.
It takes immense commitment and selfless sacrifice to be the kind of leader John Paul II was. But it also brings a great amount of fulfillment and happiness to your life. You have to be willing to be countercultural, to defy the selfishness paradigm at work. A servant leader like John Paul finds himself by giving of himself and is willing to pay for that sacrifice. On the other hand, you will experience profound accomplishment and satisfaction in doing what you ought to do and not just what you feel like doing. The happiness that comes from helping your employees achieve their personal best, from rewarding your investors with solid long-term financial returns, from doing work that is truly good is immeasurable. It is the kind of happiness that foreshadows heaven. This experience will in turn make you even more committed and excited to pursue your ultimate goal of one day entering into the presence of God forever.
You will of course still be tempted to compromise, to not make the tough calls, to take the easy way out. It will always remain a matter of faith: You’ve got to want heaven and believe it’s attainable in order to follow in the footsteps of the pope and other great Christian leaders. But if you do, oh the difference it makes.
The Temporal Payoff
That difference, however, is not just to you. Companies led by a strong, moral leader perform better in the long run.
This has been demonstrated in recent years by investors such as Joe Ritchie, or Tom Monaghan’s Ave Maria Fund, who’ve made fortunes by basing their investment decisions on a company CEO’s character or values. It’s also been demonstrated by the Ethisphere Institute, which regularly ranks the world’s most ethical companies. According to Forbes, the stock of the top companies ranked by Ethisphere have grown at more than double the rate of the Standard & Poor’s 500 over the past five years.30
In his book Spiritual Capital, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch writes about the impact of “spiritual capital” on companies, describing over fifty companies whose founder or CEO provides spiritually inspired leadership. In the appendix to the book he looks at the financial performance of companies such as Herman Miller, Service Master, Franklin Resources, and others, noting that, “These virtuous companies did well as they did good, outperforming their competitors in many cases on the S&P index, in most cases over the long run.”
He concludes by suggesting, “So maybe virtue pays off in more than one way?”31
That doesn’t mean that virtuous leadership is any guarantee of temporal success. As Michael Novak writes in Business as a Calling, virtue doesn’t always pay off financially and certainly not in the short term. In fact, it often has costs. For moral reasons alone, however, those costs are well worth paying. As Novak himself said, “A religious and moral business leader has plenty of room to do the right thing and insist on it throughout the company. People employed by the company enjoy knowing that they work for a serious, moral association.”32
CEOs enjoy running such corporations as well. There’s no joy in running a corrupt corporation. There’s no joy in compartmentalizing your professional and personal life. There’s no joy in thinking such compartmentalization is necessary.
I’ve known executives who see their work life as an unpleasant distraction from their personal life or who’ve bought into the idea that virtue and corporate management are intrinsic opposites, that one can’t pursue profit and goodness simultaneously. I’ve also known plenty of executives who see their personal life as an unpleasant distraction from their work life and don’t believe in truth, virtue, or goodness at all.
Those ways of thinking are wrong. They’re rooted either in a dangerous dualism that separates the spiritual from the material or in a relativism that denies objective reality itself. Both deny truth, and both deny the God who became flesh. They deny the God who worked as a carpenter, sought to earn a profit in his business, and provided for his mother from those earnings. They deny all that the Incarnation made possible for each one of us.
***
John Paul II didn’t deny any of those things. He saw more than just value in work. He saw work as a path to heaven. He saw man becoming more fully and truly man through work. He taught me to see those things as well. It took me longer than I would have liked to learn that lesson. There were plenty of hardships and heartaches until I did. But in the end, it’s all been worth it. God outdid my wildest expectations and calmed my deepest fears. He did that, in large part, through the witness of one man. More than any one else I’ve ever met, John Paul II showed me what real leadership looks like. He modeled it for me just as he modeled it for the world. That has made all the difference in my life.
Lying in bed that night at the Vatican, I finally understood all that. I completed the prayer of my twenty-two-year-old self with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. I praised God for giving me the eyes to see what he had for me, and I thanked him for giving me a leader like John Paul II to follow and serve. Then I finally rested, secure in the knowledge of what I wanted and trusting completely in the path that was taking me there, the path shown to me and to you by John Paul II.
Acknowledgments
Conceiving and writing this book has been a long process; the list of those who have contributed would require an entire sequel. Thank you to everyone who has helped in shaping this book, reading the manuscript, making comments, and helping publish and promote it. I never knew that writing a book is a team sport!
Without the unconditional love, support, advice, and enthusiasm of my wife, Michelle, this book could never have been written and published. I love you—always have and always will.
I want to thank my parents for giving me life and being role models of living the Faith.
In gratitude I think of my business partner and friend Mike Fairbanks. Our many conversations helped inspire this book and he welcomed and encouraged the idea of it from the first moment he saw an outline. His creative and critical comments made this book more logical and much more readable.
My sincere thanks go to George Weigel for contributing the introduction and for his guidance and advice throughout this process.
To Bob Allard and Scot Landry, two loyal friends, reliable critics and vigorous supporters. It is a privilege to be your friend!
Profound thanks to Elizabeth Hooper, who read and commented on every page (including many pages now discarded), and whose ideas, suggestions, and warnings have resulted in countless improvements. Her extraordinary persistence and hard work have made this book better than I could have ever made it.
A number of friends and colleagues contributed their advice and assistance. These include Cardinal Peter Turkson and Michael Novak, who gave me greatly valued encouragement and inspiration throughout the process. Thanks also to Peter Gori, O.S.A., Arthur Johnson O.S.A, Rosario and Gerard Schultz, Carmen Lee Schultz, Fr. Roger Landry, Fr. John Grimes, Sebastian Seromik, Magdalena Krzystolik, Thomas Howard, Irene Lagan, Charles Harper, John Lariviere, Kay McAvoy, Jo Tango, Karl and Elizabeth Wirth, Jan-Hein Cremers, Al Lagan, Tim VanDamm, Michael and Catherine Pakaluk, Michael and Caitlin Raeger, Michael Czerny S. J., Patrick Novecosky, Joan Lewis, Tom Peterson, David George, Joe Gemmell,
Richard Omohundro, Andy LaVallee, Anna Halpine, Fr. Robert Sirico, Sam Gregg, Michael Miller, Kishore Jayabalan, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop James Harvey, Monsignor Camille Perl, The Brotherhood of Hope, Marie Oats, Claire Huang, Mark Wildermuth, Rich Swanson, Martin Doman, Mauro De Lorenzo, Christoph Wassermann, Sr. Catherine O’Connor, David Howlett, David and Angela Franks, Bob Keith, and Mary Matalin.
A big thank you to the Pontifical Swiss Guards for the opportunities, memories, and guidance. Specifically to Commander Daniel Anrig, Vice Commander Christoph Graf, to Matthias Widmer, Michael Widmer, Roland Huwiler, Franziskus Karlen, Bernard Moret, Daniel Wicki, Hermann Baettig, Stefan Meier, Stefan Huesler, Martin Utz, Erwin Niederberger, Frowin Bachmann, Mario Enzler, Roman Fringeli, Andreas Clemenz, Pirmin Zinsli, Graziano Rossi, Giovanni Roggen, and all current and retired Guards. This is not only my story. It’s our story. Fifty percent of the royalties due to me personally will be used to support the Swiss Guard’s educational needs. Acriter et Fideliter!
I wish to thank the entire team at Emmaus Road Publishing for their early show of confidence and their commitment to making this book a reality, especially Michael Sullivan, Emily Stimpson, Shannon Hughes, and Eric Stoutz.
Special thanks and gratitude to Karin Rabensteiner, my niece, for the cover design and for teaching me that design is as important as words.
Profound thanks to the John Templeton Foundation: without their support, many of the ideas in this book could not have percolated.
Thanks to the team at Fresh Tilled Soil for their expertise and patience in working on the book’s website thepopeandtheceo.com.
Above all thank you to those who have prayed with me and for me and encouraged me over the years.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Endnotes
1
^ Pope John Paul II, Greeting for the Jubilee of Workers (May 1, 2000), no. 3, available from http://www.vatican.va.
2
^ Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Jubilee of the Apostolate of the Laity (November 26, 2000), no. 3, available from http://www.vatican.va.
3
^ Karol Wojtyla, Love And Responsibility (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), 82.
4
^ Wojtyla, Love And Responsibility, 82.
5
^ Wojtyla, Love And Responsibility, 257.
6
^ Karol Wojtyla, The Way To Christ: Spiritual Exercises (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1994), 19-20.
7
^ See, for example, Wojtyla, The Way To Christ: Spiritual Exercises, 6.
8
^ In 1979, two years before his attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, Ali Agca assassinated Abdi Pekçi, a Turkish journalist and human rights activist. In 2000, after a pardon for the assassination attempt, Agca was extradited to Turkey were he was imprisoned for the murder of Pekçi and for other crimes.
9
^ Wojtyla, The Way To Christ: Spiritual Exercises, 67.
10
^ For an in-depth treatment of John Paul II’s and Ronald Reagan’s opposition to communism, see John O’Sullivan’s The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006) and George Weigel’s The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II, The Victory of Freedom, The Later Years, The Legacy (New York: Doubleday, 2010).
11
^ Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, 41.
12
^ That framework is also called the “Personalistic Norm.” “The person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love.” Negatively defined, the Personalistic Norm “states that the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end” (Wojytla, Love and Responsibility, 41).
13
^ Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter on the Redemption and the Dignity of Man Redemptoris Hominis (March 4, 1979), no. 15, available from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis_en.html.
14
^ John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps (January 13, 2003), 2, available from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2003/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20030113_diplomatic-corps_en.html.
15
^ cf. Psalm 1:1–6: “Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked, Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers. Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy; God’s law they study day and night. They are like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season; Its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers. But not the wicked! They are like chaff driven by the wind. Therefore the wicked will not survive judgment, nor will sinners in the assembly of the just. The LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.”
16
^ John Paul II’s last will is available from http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/testamento-jp-ii_20050407_en.html.
17
^ As I heard Professor Kenneth Goodpaster of the University of St. Thomas say.
18
^ Eric Krell, “Do They Trust You?,” HRMagazine, June 1, 2006, http://www.allbusiness.com/sector-92-public-administration/administration-human/1180922-1.html.
19
^ John Paul II, Crossing The Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994), available from http://frcoulter.com/books/CrossingThresholdHope/chap19.html.
20
^ Aristotle, Rhetoric 1380b36–1381a2.
21
^ Wojtyla, Love And Responsibility, 83.
22
^ Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 116-128; XLVIII.
23
^ C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: McMillan Publishing, 1982), 67-69.
24
^ cf. 1 Corinthians 9:24–27: “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.”
25
^ Craig S. Galbraith and Oliver Galbraith, The Benedictine Rule of Leadership: Classic Management Secrets You Can Use Today (Avon, MA: Adams Media 2004), 115.
26
^ Kenneth Blanchard, The Power of Ethical Management (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1988), 49.
27
^ Scott Hahn, “On the Lord’s Prayer” (address to the Boston Catholic Men’s conference, March 4, 2006).
28
^ Galbraith and Galbraith, The Benedictine Rule of Leadership, 119–122.
29
^ “Thanksgiving after Mass,” available from http://www.ibreviary.com/m/preghiere.php?id=207.
30
^ Sharon Allen, “The New ROE: Return On Ethics,” Forbes (July 21. 2009), available from www.forbes.com/2009/07/21/business-culture-corporate-citizenship-leadership-ethics.html.
31
^ Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, Spiritual Enterprise (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), 147.
32
^ Michael Novak, Business As A Calling: Work and The Examined Life (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 168. Novak has a set of very useful lists of internal and external corporate responsibilities in that same book on page 134 and on, which I recommend to interested readers.
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