Jesuit: Globalization is not just economics, it's also about ethics

Published: 2007-11-02

TORONTO (CNS) -- If globalization is necessary and inevitable, then economic progress everywhere is connected ethically to development in countries like Zambia, said a prominent U.S. Jesuit. True globalization is not just economic, Jesuit Father Peter Henriot, director of the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Lusaka, Zambia, told audiences in Canada as they marked the 40th anniversary of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. He said if Canadians look at today's economy through the eyes of Catholic social teaching, they will embrace globalization. "It's beyond the economic and political interdependence," he said. "We're ethically interconnected." Father Henriot said when he arrived in Zambia 19 years ago, life expectancy in the landlocked, southern African country was a rather dismal 52 years. Today, life expectancy of Zambians is about 37 years. While Zambia's life expectancy has dropped, the country's economic indicators, such as gross domestic product and investment, are looking up.

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