Catholic Professionals Urged to Promote Moral

Values in the Workplace

 

Story: Robert Dela Mawuenyegah

Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu, President of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference and Bishop of Konongo-Mampong Diocese yesterday urged Catholic Professionals, Politicians and Business Executives to promote Catholic moral values in their work places.

This he noted will enable them to unite the temporal and spiritual needs of their Christian lives.

Bishop Osei – Bonsu shared this advice in a speech read on his behalf by Most Rev. Anthony K Adanuty, Bishop of Keta –Akatsi and Vice President of the Conference when Catholic Professionals and Business Executives held the Second Catholic Business Networking and Stewardship Forum at the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Accra.

Present at the Thanksgiving Mass were Catholic Business Owners, Corporate Executives, Entrepreneurs, Politicians, Academicians, Corporate Managers and Officers of the National Security Services

Most Rev. Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra who presided over the Mass said the feast of All Saints was a reminder that every Christian was called to lead holy lives.

He added that the feast was an inspiration to Christians who through the sacrament of penance and reconciliation are cleansed to be holy, urging Catholics to frequent the sacrament regularly.

Concelebrating the Mass were Most Revs. Matthias K. Nketsiah, Metropolitan Archbishop of Cape-Coast; John Balthasar Brungardt, a visiting Bishop of Dodge City, Kansas in the US; Peter K. Attuahene, Bishop of Goaso; Gabriel Edoe Kumordji, Bishop of Donkorkrom Vicariate, Peter Paul Angkyier, Bishop of Damongo and Bishop Joseph Osei- Bonsu.

 

Below is the full text of the Speech delivered.

 

 

 

Catholic Business Networking and Stewardship Forum

Holy Spirit Cathedral, Accra

November 1, 2012

By

Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu

Bishop of Konongo-Mampong and

President, Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Ladies and gentlemen, last year the first ever Catholic Business Networking and Stewardship Forum was held at Christ the King Church. To that forum were invited business owners, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, politicians, academics, corporate managers and officers of the national security services, etc.

Today’s forum is a follow-up on that one. On behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, I heartily welcome you all to this meeting. We have invited you here for a number of reasons. First, we would like this meeting to be an occasion when we render thanks to God for all that he has done for us in our various professions and businesses. With the prophet Isaiah we “will recount the gracious deeds of the LORD, the praiseworthy acts of the LORD, because of all that the LORD has done for us” (Isaiah 63:7). Ladies and gentlemen, we have already rendered thanks to God when we celebrated the Eucharist, the supreme act of thanksgiving.

Secondly, we would like this meeting to be a forum where you can get to know your brothers and sisters who profess the Catholic faith and who belong to different professions. It is the hope of the Bishops’ Conference that a network of relationships will be developed that will go beyond this meeting today. It is my hope that this meeting will lead to the formation of new associations, e.g. Catholic Union of Business Executives and the revival of various Catholic Associations that may have become dormant.

Thirdly, we would like to use this forum to expose you to some of the initiatives taken by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and to see what you can do individually and collectively to assist or promote these initiatives. These initiatives include the Catholic University College at Fiapre, Sunyani, the Quality Insurance Company and the Quality Life Assurance Company. With regard to the Catholic University, there is the need for more student hostels and I challenge you to team up and construct one or two hostels at the university, which will be run along commercial lines. There are other challenges and prospects which the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. James Hawkins Ephraim, will talk about in the course of this meeting.

With regard to the Quality Insurance Company and the Quality Life Assurance Company, I would ask for your patronage and that of your employees. There are also initiatives being pursued to construct a multi-storey building that can be hired out as offices at the National Catholic Secretariat, Centenary House. Talks are ongoing with some banks to this effect. There are also plans to construct buildings on the Conference’s land at Asylum Down and Spintex Road. All those interested in these ventures may contact the Secretary General of the Bishops’ Conference.

Plans are also far advanced to start a Catholic bank. We hope that by early next year we should be able to start it. Most Rev. Gabriel Kumordji, who is the bishop in charge of that project, will brief you about it later.

On the diocesan level, I would like to draw your attention to the initiative of the Accra Archdiocese in terms of the Catholic Institute of Business and Technology in Adabraka. Here too we ask for your patronage and support. Later in the programme, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, Most Rev. Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle, will update you on this project.

On the international front, attempts are being made to get some business owners and entrepreneurs in the United States to come and invest in Ghana. Last May, a delegation of bishops and lay people visited the United States and held discussions with one of such companies. In due time, we will fall on your expertise and advice and may even invite some of you to be partners with us in this enterprise.

In the fourth place, we would like this meeting to be an occasion when we pause and reflect on the Catholic notion of work and the Catholic work ethic. After all, we are all workers, whether we are businessmen, doctors, politicians or academics.

In reflecting on the Catholic notion of work and the Catholic work ethic, we need to take a cue from the Bible. When we open the first pages of the Bible, we are presented with the picture of God as a worker. God worked for six days creating the world and rested on the seventh day. St. Joseph, we all know, was a carpenter. Christ was also a carpenter. In Mark 6:3, we read, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon…?”

St. Paul also worked with his hands. As a rule, he did not receive financial support for himself as he preached. There are passages in both his own letters and the Acts of the Apostles that state that he worked to support himself. In one of these passages, he is said to be a tentmaker.

St. Paul encouraged his congregations to take work seriously. In 2 Thess. 3:6-12 he says,

 

“Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, we did not eat any one’s bread without paying, but with toil and labour we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you. It was not because we have not that right, but to give you in our conduct an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If anyone will not work, let him not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living”.

We need to take our work seriously. We must therefore do something as a nation about our work ethic, which is very bad. Ghana cannot make any progress economically when people, including us Catholics, go to work late, take lunch breaks that can last several hours, when they laze about in the workplace, read the newspapers and play lotto at work. Ghana cannot make any progress if we have to take bribes before we render service to people in our workplace. When we refuse to work hard but then collect our salaries at the end of the month, we are committing a social sin, a sin against the state.

In the fifth place, we would like to use this occasion to remind you that our Catholic faith should permeate all that we do. It should transform us and make us have a good impact on our society. We should behave in such a way that we can say with St. Paul, “… if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Against this background, I would like to say a few words to all of you gathered here, starting with our politicians. I salute you, our politicians who are here. I commend you for the service you are rendering to the nation. In involving yourself in the politics of our nation, you are doing something commendable, provided you do it well. As Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in Modern World (or Gaudium et Spes) says,

Those who are suited or can become suited should prepare themselves for the difficult, but at the same time, the very noble art of politics, and should seek to practise this art without regard for their own interests or for material advantages. With integrity and wisdom, they must take action against any form of injustice and tyranny, against arbitrary domination by an individual or a political party and any intolerance (no.75).

I urge you, our politicians, to do your work conscientiously and avoid bribery and corruption. You should avoid the misappropriation of funds. You should do politics in a holy manner, a manner that will be pleasing to God. In this connection, we should bear in mind that the 1994 African Synod held in Rome “prayed fervently to the Lord that there would arise in Africa holy politicians — both men and women — and that there would be saintly Heads of State, who profoundly love their own people and wish to serve rather than be served (Ecclesia in Africa, par. 111)”.

As Catholic politicians, you should also put an end to pulling down your political colleagues in the interests of your own political agenda. You should all unnecessary and unhealthy rivalry between political parties. You should also put an end to the culture of insults that is a common phenomenon these days in political discourse. You should refrain from making pronouncements that do not promote peace, but rather create confusion, rancour, bitterness and resentment.

From the political front we go to the medical front. We appreciate the work that you do just like Ecclesiasticus or Sirach who says, “…give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; let him not leave you, for there is need of him. There is a time when success lies in the hands of physicians, for they too will pray to the Lord that he should grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life” (Sirach 38:12-13). My dear doctors, I encourage you to have God at the centre of your work all the time and to pray to him for success in your work.

What shall we say to our brothers and sisters in the world of academia, our teachers, lecturers and professors? We appreciate your work and encourage you to do even better. The knowledge that you impart to your students should transform them not only intellectually but also morally. It must leave an indelible mark on them so that even when they have forgotten most of the technical things that you taught them, there will still be an enduring trait that will make them seek and defend the truth at all times. As Albert Einstein has said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school”.^[1] The education that you offer must ensure that your students become good people, indeed people of integrity. The educated person who lacks integrity is dangerous to society. As Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) says in Rasselas, “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful”.^[2] Again, as Martin Luther King Jnr. says, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education”.

To our brothers and sisters who work at the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service and who collect taxes for the state, I would like to address to you the words that John the Baptist addressed to the tax collectors of his day: “Collect no more than is appointed you” (Luke 3:13). Do your work well so that it can proudly be said of you, “Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you” (Matt 21:31). Be upright in your dealings and do not engage in any underhand activities.

To members of the security services, I would like to quote again the words of John the Baptist: “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages”. We expect you as members of the security services to protect us and not intimidate us and rob us. We appeal to the policemen to stop the practice of constantly shaking hands with drivers on our roads! You all know what I mean!

To our friends of the legal and judicial professions, I would not want to apply to you the words that Christ used of the lawyers of his day. Christ said, “Woe to you lawyers also! for you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46). I would want our Catholic lawyers and judges to behave in such a way that they will not earn the condemnation pronounced on their Jewish counterparts some two thousand years ago! We encourage you to be honest in your work.

Now we turn to our brothers and sisters of the business fraternity. In all that you do, you should be guided by the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbour. These commandments should mark a new way for Catholics to do business in Ghana. It is very different from the way in which most people live, namely for themselves and their own pleasures. The Catholic Business leader should live for God.

These commandments of Jesus should guide your interaction with whoever you encounter in your businesses every day: your shareholders, your subordinates, your bosses, your customers and suppliers. The two commandments should always remind us that everyone is our brother and sister created in the image of God. They should enable us to do our best in all the situations in which we find ourselves. They should remind us that if the business deal is not fair to all parties, then it is not the right deal.

In this connection, I would like to draw your attention to a new document issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Rome. On March 30, 2012 Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Council, addressed the 24th International Christian Union of Business Executives (UNIAPAC) World Congress. During this congress he launched a new document of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace entitled “Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection”. According to this document, Christians should integrate their faith with their work in the private sector. The document says that the vocation of the Christian business leader is “to practise love and justice and to teach the business household for which he or she is responsible to do likewise, for the sustenance of all creation, beginning with our brothers and sisters”. It also says, “In its exercise of business, therefore, humanity would become a ‘rock’ that sustains creation through the practice of love and justice”. It says further, “Business leaders who do not see themselves serving others and God in their working lives will fill the void of purpose with a less worthy substitute” and that “The divided life is not unified or integrated: it is fundamentally disordered, and thus fails to live up to God’s call”.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the light of the foregoing remarks, it gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, to welcome you all, once again, to the Second Catholic Business Networking and Stewardship Forum, which has been organized by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in collaboration with Quality Insurance Company. It is my hope and prayer that this forum that has brought together some many Catholic professionals will provide fellowship among you, provide a network of business relationships and promote Catholic moral values in the workplace. It is also my ardent wish that this forum will enable all of us to unite both the temporal and the spiritual dimensions of our Christian lives.