Catholic Social Teaching and the Nike Corporations
Uploaded by bulldawg on Oct 27, 2011
This essay examines the Nike Corporation and what it must do to bring its policies into line with the tenets of human behavior outlined by the Catholic Church.
I Introduction
Today’s corporations seem to be driven solely by profit, at the expense of job security, pension plans, health benefits and even safe working conditions. Of course it’s not fair to assume that every corporation is an Enron or Worldcom, but there have been enough examples of egregious business practices to make most people aware of the fact that Corporate America can be a vicious place.
This paper examines Catholic Social Teaching and then applies it to a corporation, to see what corporate policies should be changed to bring them more in line with the Church’s teachings. Since there is a lot of information available about them, we’ll use Nike as our example.
II Catholic Social Teaching
I expected some sort of vague statement of purpose, and was surprised to find that “Catholic Social Teaching” is in fact a body of 13 “instructions” handed down by the Popes to believers to help them live a decent life, and most importantly, to define what their duties are to their fellow men. The 13 writings are: the “Rerum Novarum” (On the Condition of Labor); the “Quadragesimo Anno” (After Forty Years); “Mater et Magistra” (Christianity and Social Progress); “Pacem in Terris” (Peace on Earth); “Gaudium et Spes” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World); “Populorum Progressio” (On the Development of Peoples); “Octogesima Adveniens” (A Call to Action); the “Justicia in Mundo” (Justice in the World); “Laborem Exercens” (On Human Work); “Solicitudo Rei Socialis” (On Social Concern); “Centesimus Annus” (The Hundredth Year); “Evangelium Vitae” (The Gospel of Life); and the “Fides et Ratio” (Faith and Reason). (“Catholic Social Teaching,” PG).
Looking through the titles of the writings is instructive. They mention the condition of labor, social progress, development of peoples, justice, human work, and social concerns. These issues go beyond religious instruction and impact directly on the social and economic conditions of man; in particular, the laborer.
The website that contains these texts is very valuable, since it provides both the full texts of the teachings, and notable quotations from each. A quick scan of the six I’m using reveals that the Church is fully aware of the abuses that the poor suffer at the hands of the wealthy, and it condemns such...