'Economic Justice for All': Where does it fit in today's society?

Published: 2006-11-10

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Since 1997, more than 36,000 copies of a 10th-anniversary edition of "Economic Justice for All," the U.S. bishops' pastoral letter on the economy and Catholics' role in it, have been sold, as well as about 57,000 copies of a U.S. bishops' reflection on the 1986 pastoral's 10th anniversary. No figures are available on sales when the document was first issued. Its legacy, though, suggests that the pastoral letter has staying power beyond that of the sales figures. One outgrowth of "Economic Justice for All" is "the explosion in corporate social responsibility and linking business practices to our higher calling," according to Charles Clark, associate dean of the economics and finance department at St. John's University in Jamaica, N.Y. "There are tons of groups that look at spirituality in business, both Catholic and non-Catholic, and even outside of that a larger percentage of management professors are now looking at questions of corporate social responsibility," he added in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service. "Everything is framed in terms of the corporation as citizen."

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