The retreats that Fr. Bill Byron, SJ, and Mr. James Nolan lead stress the relevance of Christian faith to business practice.

by Pete Sheehan

A student in a business ethics class taught by Fr. William Byron, SJ, once asked him for a letter of recommendation for a job with a tobacco company.

"I knew the student, so I kidded him a little. I told him if you want to devote the rest of your life to the spread of lung cancer, I'll be glad to write you a letter of reference," recalls Byron, former president of Catholic University and current professor of management at Georgetown.

Not long after that, Byron ran into that same student and discovered he wasn't working for the tobacco company. Rather, he was with a nonprofit company that helped for-profit firms hire people who had been out of work.

"I thought about what you said," the student told Byron, author of Finding Work Without Losing Heart, Answers from Within: Spiritual Guidelines for Managing Setbacks in Work and Life, and other books on business topics.

Byron and James Nolan, executive director of Woodstock Business Conference (see box story below), use stories like this one to help business people reflect about the practice of ethics in general and Christianity in particular. The two men regularly give retreats and small-group seminars about the relevance of Christian faith to business practice.

A recent three-day retreat, "Affirming the Relevance of Faith to Business Practice," was given by Byron and Nolan at St. Ignatius Retreat House on Long Island. Among the 40 retreatants were lawyers, Wall Street investors, and small-business managers. They praised the retreat for addressing real-life issues encountered in business and offering spiritual perspectives to deal with them.

"Fr. Byron's spiritual criteria are really valuable," says a participant at a retreat Fr. William Byron, SJ, gave for businessmen at St. Ignatius Retreat House on Long Island. "If you bring these values to the workplace, they can make all the difference."

"Anytime that you can listen to Fr. Byron, it's something to take advantage of," says Gary Smith, who operates Penny-Saver News of Brookhaven, a 270,000-circulation shopping newspaper on Eastern Long Island.

"The retreat dealt with issues like losing your job, being passed over for promotion, difficulties in operating a family business, pressures to downsize. These are the kinds of issues that people in business face every day," says Smith. "People in these situations face tremendous pressures. We need to learn how to turn it over to the Lord."

Joe Metz, a pension attorney and consultant on human resources for employers, also sees the value of this kind of retreat.

"People who are in business often compartmentalize themselves, separating their faith and family life from their professional life," says Metz, who is on the national board of the Woodstock Business Conference and who made a similar retreat at St. Isaac Jogues Retreat Center in Wernersville, Pa.

"Someone who goes to church on Sunday can come in on Monday and be terrible to the people they work with." This kind of retreat drives home the idea that "your faith life, your family life, and your business life are all connected to each other," says Metz. "Obviously, you are all one person, and you yourself have a vocation, not just priests and nuns."

Tough Everywhere

Byron and Nolan note the tension between Christian values and business culture. Still, they emphasize the existence of generosity and ethical conduct in the business world and the openness of many in business to discuss ethics and religious values.

Nolan, who worked as a corporate attorney before earning a master's degree in theology and joining the Woodstock Business Conference, disputes the suggestion that business is a more difficult profession for living a Christian life. "I think it's tough everywhere," Nolan says.

Through retreats, courses, publications, and other efforts, Nolan and Byron encourage business professionals to reflect on the relationship between faith and work.

"Studies of American business life today have found that people often compartmentalize their faith life and their work life," says Nolan. This allows them to live out the demands of their job while neglecting the ethical content and human impact of their decisions and actions.

"Often the person's religious development is not as advanced as their professional development," which often makes it easier to separate the two. "Yet the same studies show that people are troubled by that."

In that discomfort, Byron and Nolan see an openness to efforts such as theirs, which include not only giving retreats but also facilitating discussion groups across the country. These groups, which bring together professionals of various religious backgrounds to explore the relationship of faith and business, have been established in thirteen cities nationwide with the help of the Woodstock Business Conference.

Spiritual Criteria

Byron offers retreatants "spiritual criteria" based on Galatians 5:19-23 as an aid in self-examination. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes of the spirit of self-indulgence manifested in fornication, gross indecency, idolatry, feuds, jealousy, bad temper, envy, drunkenness, and similar things. On the other hand, those led by the Spirit show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

"Some would look at the first list and say: Those sound like the qualities of a businessman to me," says Byron with a wry grin. "Yet no one living life by those principles is going to find happiness."

Living by the principles of the Spirit will lead to a sense of joy and fulfillment, Byron says, and it is possible to live that way and succeed in business.

Is Greed Good?

Both Byron and Nolan react strongly to Wall Street financier Ivan Boseky's slogan "greed is good," both for the person who practices it and for business and society in general.

"That's ridiculous," Byron says. "To say that you need to work hard or have competitive drive is one thing. That's different from greed."

"Greed is a false god," adds Nolan.

Both cite examples of business professionals they know who strive to live their faith in their business practices.

Nolan tells of one manager who, rather than order around his employees, sees himself more as a coach, trying to bring out the talents of his workers. The result is a more motivated, adaptable, and loyal work force.

Byron recalls a CEO of a Minnesota computer part manufacturer who, after one unprofitable quarter, decided not to pay out dividends to avoid laying off employees. That raised some questions with many of the stockholders, some of whom argued that the CEO's job is to maximize profits.

"The CEO replied that profits are to a business as food is to a body. If anyone said that his goal was to maximize his consumption of food, people would say that isn't healthy."

In the same way, the CEO argued, maximizing profits is not the only goal. Rather, a CEO has to consider the firm's long-term interests, such as a steady, reliable, and motivated work force.

Certainly someone in business trying to live out Christian values is going to face pressures, Byron says, but such pressures can be dealt with. "You can find like-minded people and align yourself with them."

Retreat participants say that they found insights and encouragement from the retreat that they will be able to apply in their day-to-day work life.

"Fr. Byron's spiritual criteria are really valuable," Smith comments. "If you bring these values to the workplace, they can make all the difference. In business, you are always going to encounter difficulties, but if you have faith you understand that there is a reason behind it all."

Metz says that the retreat, along with Byron's book and conversations with other business people at the local chapter of the Woodstock Business Conference, have reaffirmed his conviction that living out one's faith and success in business are not mutually exclusive but quite compatible.

"What you're looking at is not some abstract ideal but something very fundamental for everyone. There will be times when you will be called upon to make certain sacrifices in the short term," making decisions out of such considerations as ethics and the human impact as well as the economic consequences.

"In the long run, however," Metz says, such considerations "will pay off both financially and spiritually."

Woodstock Business Conference James Nolan "In our country, the business community has a lot to say about how we live," says James Nolan, executive director of the Woodstock Business Conference (WBC) at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center. "Sometimes it's difficult for schools, churches, and the government to affect this culture, so the idea is to go directly to the business world¯where many people spend lots of time¯and try to make an impact there." WBC brings business leaders together in monthly meetings to integrate faith, family, and business life and bring Judeo-Christian values to the marketplace. Boston, Omaha, Washington, New York, and Louisville are among the thirteen cities with WBC chapters; there's even a student chapter at Notre Dame. "Most chapters started with a Jesuit connection," says Nolan. "In Milwaukee, it was Fr. Doug Leonhardt, SJ, president of Marquette University High School, who spread the word among alumni and community leaders, while in Detroit, it was former dean of University of Detroit Mercy's business school, Greg Ulferts, who brought the idea to his board of advisors." The number of chapters is growing, says Nolan, because, "simply put, there is a need. These business people are highly educated and successful, and they are looking for a way to integrate faith and work." Each chapter is led by a coordinator, usually a lay businessperson, and a chaplain, usually a Jesuit. A typical monthly chapter meeting lasts about an hour and a half and includes prayer, scripture reading, reflection, and discussion of a topic selected by participants. The WBC supports chapters by providing a newsletter and resources for topics and offering retreats and workshops for chapter leaders. For more information about WBC, contact James Nolan at (202) 687-6565 or e-mail to: wbc@gusun.georgetown.edu

Pete Sheehan, senior reporter for the Long Island Catholic, has written on the Church and issues relating to business for twenty years. A graduate of John Carroll University in Cleveland ('78), Sheehan has written for religious and secular publications at the national and local levels. He lives on Long Island with his wife, Mary, and their son, Joseph Peter.