By Andy Gustafson

In June, I attended an Economy of Communion conference at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis.  Its an interesting conference because, while there are professors and academics at the conference, it is also made up of entrepreneurs, business owners, and laypeople inspired by the notion that business and spirituality can go together, and that the providence of God can be seen in and through business practice.

Highlights of this years conference were a showing of “Poverty Inc” with Michael Miller, the director with us to do Q&A.  Also Michael Naughton gave a fantastic keynote presentation on Subsidiarity, highlighting key aspects of that concept.  There were also powerful testimonies of real life situations from some of the business people at the conference.

I first became aware of the Economy of Communion in 2015 when I attended a  conference in Manilla, Philippines, and met John Gallagher, a professor of management from Maryville College in Tennessee.  He had done research on EOC businesses in the U.S..

I immediately identified with two of the core descriptors of the EOC: gratuity and reciprocity.  I found that a lot of the ways they described business fit very well with the ways that we run our house renovation and rental business.  It was inspiring to know that there were other Christians trying to live out their values and spirituality not only alongside but actually through their business practices.  I had often thought of our redemption of buildings as a strange sort of theological practice– imitating the redemptive work of God in the world.

EOC itself began in 1991 as a movement of the Focolare, a Catholic Spiritual group founded n 1943 by Chiara Lubick in Trent, Italy.  It has hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide.  In May 1991, while Chiara Lubich was on a plane approaching the city of San Paolo, Brazil, she was struck by the sight of the vast ring of ”favelas“ or ”shanty-towns“ surrounding one of the greatest concentrations of skyscrapers in the world. When she arrived at the little city of the Focolare Movement, Mariapolis Ginetta, near San Paolo, she learned that the communion of goods carried out by members of the Focolare Movement was insufficient to help all those Brazilians so close to her heart who were experiencing difficult times. This realization motivated her to provide food, shelter, medicine and, if possible, a job for as many as possible.  Having in her heart the newly published Encyclical by John Paul II, ”Centesimus Annus“, she launched the Economy of Communion: Businesses will freely put their profits in common just as the early Christian communities did.  Profits could be divided into three parts (not equal): for aid for the poor, for education and formation that could help foster a culture of giving, and for the development of the businesses themselves.

Economy of Communion is a vision of doing business with a concern for the human person, particularly the poor, with ideals of unity, brotherhood, eyes to see providence of God.  It began as Roman Catholic but is now multi-faith.  Currently, the EOC has ~800 member companies worldwide (50+ in U.S).   Some of its key characteristics are:

• EOC focuses on Business as human interaction
• EOC sees value and dignity of all people, and seeks unity with all.
• EOC has eyes to see Providence at work in the world
• EOC attempts to conduct business around the principles of gratuity and reciprocity
• EOC promotes a lifestyle of communion with others through business

It was very encouraging to be with so many like minded friends who are very thoughtful about the ways and whys of how they do business.

For a brief article about my participation in the EOC, see this:   https://eocnoam.org/2015/11/07/meeting-new-eoc-member-andrew-gustafson-of-communion-properties/