Saintly CEO: Building a Just Workplace: 5 Pillars of the Primacy of the Person
Part 1 (of 4) on what the core pillars of Catholic Social Teaching are, and how to implement them. Part 1: Dignity of the Human Person
After our hiatus last week, I’m back. Mostly out of guilt because not putting this out feels like I failed you all.
Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every most Mondays, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.
Each week you’ll find…
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News/Events: (SF, Nash, Houston, DFW, WI)
Feature Content: Integrating Dignity of the Human Person
Heavenly Hustlers: (skipped today)
Highlights: A friend of CF has an incredible Substack
[read time: ~8.5 min | word count 1,837]
News / Updates
We have events happening in Houston, San Francisco, Dallas, Nashville, Wausau, and Columbus. Register to attend.
LMK if you’re in SF this week. I’m there Tuesday until Friday midday. Glad to link up.
Check out the last episode of the pod with Edmund Mitchell. So far, people have liked it. If you think you might have ADHD and want to run a business, or do, this will likely resonate with you.
ICYMI: We had an incredible session with Marco to learn marketing, branding, and positioning. Check out the recording (guild members only)
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Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 1, Dignity of The Human Person
Catholic Social Teaching is something people talk a lot about in the business world. But it’s usually very theoretical. Pie in the sky type of talk. This isn’t usually the way that business owners tend to talk. This has led to a lack of implementation of Catholic Social Teachings in the workplace.
Over the coming weeks, I’m going to attempt to do a breakdown of the 4 core tenets of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). I’m doing this in preparation for a talk I’m giving later this year.
These will by no means be extensive. The intent is to make this SUPER tangible for business owners.
Okay, let’s jump in.
The four key pillars of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) are:
Dignity of the Human Person
Common Good
Subsidiarity
Solidarity
Today, we are going to try to cover the first pillar, Dignity of the Human Person.
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As a heads up, I had a lot of help researching this with Magisterium AI. I also apologize, because some of this stuff is a little wordy, because Church language often is. Even if you don’t have a lot of background reading, things like this, just go slowly, and I am confident that with the aid of the Holy Spirit, you’ll be able to grasp the concepts.
Dignity of The Human Person: The Teaching
The teaching states that every person has an intrinsic worth that society must recognize and protect. Not because of usefulness, talent, or social value, but because the person is human.
The Church states this principle in a classic way: “The human person … is and ought to be the principle, the subject, and the object of every social organization” (from Gaudium et Spes, quoted in the Catechism). 1
In other words, social institutions exist to serve people, not the other way around.
The Why
The Church teaches this because human dignity is grounded in what a person is before God, not in what a person can do currently. Dignitas Infinita clarifies that the most fundamental dignity (“ontological dignity”) belongs to the person simply for the fact that they exist, are created and loved by God, and therefore is “indelible and remains valid beyond any circumstances.” 2
This is why the Church rejects treating people as disposable or as tools: even when someone is vulnerable, the person still has a right to live with dignity. In Dignitas Infinita, Pope Francis says, “this fundamental right cannot be denied… People have this right even if they are unproductive… a dignity based not on circumstances but on the intrinsic worth of their being.” 3
That “why” shows up in how a just society should be built. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches that “A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person,” and it adds a practical rule: the social order must work for the person, since “the order of things is to be subordinate to the order of persons.” 4
It also insists that every program — political, economic, scientific, cultural — must be inspired by the truth that each human being has a primacy over society, so that no one is excluded from protection and care. 5
Said another way: a human’s essence of being is present regardless of their perceived ‘value’ to society, and that is why each person must be treated with Dignity. That is why our businesses must exist to serve people, individuals.
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Now that we have this understood. We need to cover the five ‘sub topics’ that fit under this heading. First, again with the help of Magisterium AI, I’m going to describe the principle, then I’m going to give my two cents on at least one way you could integrate this into your business.
1. Primacy of the human person
Every decision in your business should be weighed against whether it helps or harms the dignity of the people involved. Employees and customers are persons with souls, not expendable factors in a growth plan.
How to implement: Making an employee policy? Setting customer terms? Ask yourself if this policy is genuinely good for the human on the other end. Or is it just convenient for your business? Decide accordingly.
2. Importance of marriage and the family
The family is the basic cell of society. Business structures should support a healthy home life rather than competing with it for a person’s entire focus.
How to implement: What do you give your employees and expect out of them? Does the way you run your company allow for employees to carry out a healthy home life? To be home for dinner? If you’re detracting from an employee’s ability to fulfill his primary duties, find a way to change that.
3. Importance of religion
This protects the freedom of conscience and the spiritual dimension of life. A business culture should respect that moral truth is not subjective and that people have a right to live out their faith.
How to implement: For many of us, this one is pretty straightforward. Do you encourage a culture that allows people to speak openly about their faiths? Assuming you’re not following woke ideology, you should be good. But, be cautious as your company grows because it’s more likely for barriers to be set, usually due to common HR practices.
4. Dignity of work and workers
Work is meant for the person, not the person for the work. Labor has priority over capital. Workplace conditions must never degrade the individual.
How to implement: Ensure the workplace is better than simply neutral. Make it a place that is uplifting. From the music played, to the conversations between work, to the beauty of the place. Elevate your team. If they feel like they have to filter what happens at work to their children, then you should work on fixing that.
5. Morally responsible openness to life
Human life must be respected in every economic decision. We should never treat human life as something to be managed based on cost or utility.
How to implement: Ensure safe working conditions. Never consider rushing or sparing an expense if human safety is involved. I’d also interpret this to mean take good care of your team financially, so they can also be open to life without financial hardships.
That is all for this week. Please feel free to discuss further in the comments. I’m especially curious to hear other suggestions on how we can implement these principles.
The Bottom Line
A just society—and a successful business—is only possible when it’s built on the “transcendent dignity of the human person.”
I’m curious: Which of these five sub-topics is the hardest to implement in a remote or fast-growing environment? Let’s discuss in the comments and of course make sure to tune in next week as we cover the next core pillar, the Common Good.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Heavenly Hustlers
Hey guys! We are having to skip this week because of how behind I was in creating this. If you really want to help me out, send me more people I should cover with the link below. 👇
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Highlights: For Solo Operators
This week, I’m just sharing the link to a friend’s Substack. Lucas Wollschlager runs Veritas Copy and recently launched a really fascinating newsletter called The Solo Operator.
He does deep dives and provides implementation advice on running a solo business. This first piece crushed it as I heard a lot of people in our community commenting on how good it was. He covered how a dryer vent cleaning biz cleared $100k in the first year of business with a super simple strategy.
Give him a follow, and read that first issue here.
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have complied overtime: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).
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