The Catholic Gentleman

A blog for Catholic men that seeks to encourage virtue, the pursuit of holiness and the art of true masculinity.

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5 Ways to Live Like a Monk (Without Actually Being One)

by Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB, Vocation Director, Conception Abbey

1. Cultivate Silence

St. Benedict wrote, “Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen” (RB 6:8). Silence is the environment that allows you to listen to God’s voice and the voices of those around you properly. Many people are uncomfortable with silence or they find it awkward, so they fill their days with needless noise and distractions. Turning off the music and radio, especially when you are in the car, moderating television or Internet use will challenge you to listen to the God who dwells within you and speaks in the depth of your heart. Additionally, being silent helps us to avoid the sins of gossip or detraction. St. Benedict echoed the wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs which says, “In a flood of words you will not avoid sin,” (RB 6:11). By avoiding unnecessary noise in your life, you learn to cultivate inner silence, which is the ideal setting for prayer.

2. Be Faithful to Daily Prayer

St. Benedict said, “Prayer should, therefore, be short and pure, unless perhaps it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace” (RB 20:4). This instruction is comforting for those who have a demanding workweek, hectic schedule, and are burdened with numerous responsibilities at home to the extent that they may not be able to dedicate large periods of time to prayer. Nevertheless, you should find time in the morning to praise God before your day begins, and pray in thanksgiving during the evening before going to bed. You can pray the Liturgy of the Hours to sanctify the day, specifically being faithful to Morning and Evening Prayer. Whatever your practice, you want to be concerned with developing a heartfelt attitude to God while you are praying, offering yourself and your loved ones into God’s care. Many opportunities will arise throughout the day to offer brief prayers of trust in God. The aim of monks (and all Christians) is to pray without ceasing, and you can do this by keeping the memory of God alive in your heart and mind at every moment.

3. Form Authentic Community

Monks support and encourage the brother encountering difficulties, and they celebrate with one another during joyful times. St. Benedict instructed, “No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks, they show the pure love of brothers” (RB 72:7-8). In a world of individualism, social media and superficial relationships, all people long for a deep sense of belonging and communion with one another. The spiritual life is always a journey that we undertake with others. You have to be willing to invest the time and energy to engage personally with other people and show interest in their lives, allowing your conversations to pass from surface level topics to the more meaningful areas of life. You may wish to gather with others who share your faith, values, and desire for God. Praying together, reading and discussing a spiritual book and Bible studies are all ways of coming together to grow in faith.


4. Make time for Lectio Divina

The ancient monastic practice of Lectio Divina or “sacred reading” emphasizes a slow, prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture that is intended to allow you to listen to the Word and seek peace in God’s presence. St. Benedict warned his monks, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading” (RB 48:1). Reflection on the Word of God, if done intensely and prayerfully, has the power of calling you to a continual conversion of life. Familiarize yourself with the method and take between 15-30 minutes a day in a quiet environment to practice lectio divina with Scripture or prayerfully read from the writings of the saints or other great spiritual works. Spiritual reading nourishes your mind and soul and often provides those inspired words that you needed to hear. Encountering the Word of God each day in a prayerful manner draws us into deeper communion with the One who speaks the word to us.

5. Practice Humility

Numerous parts of the Rule of St. Benedict highlight the importance of humility, most notably in Chapter 7 where St. Benedict depicts humility as a ladder with twelve rungs which the monk is to ascend. The first step is that a monk keeps the “fear of God” always before his eyes (RB 7:10). When you fear God or are in “awe” of God, you maintain a right relationship, realizing that you are a creature and not God. Humility is a virtue that needs to be developed, and it entails being down to earth, honest, and truthful, both in prayer, at work, and in everyday matters. St. Benedict wrote, “Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge” (RB 4:41-43). Being a humble person means being grateful for the blessings and opportunities that God gives you and recognizing that your gifts and talents have God as their source. Allow daily struggles, and even falling into sin, to be an invitation to humility, where you admit without hesitation that you must depend entirely on God’s grace, and not on your strength.

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Press On: The Virtuous Power of Endurance

“Endurance is the essence of courage. Endurance is not passivity, for it requires a strong, proactive spirit. In endurance, man’s inmost and deepest strength reveals itself. It can be harder and entail greater courage for a soldier to be pinned down in a cold, damp foxhole than to charge into a hale of bullets, all flags flying.”

–Alexandre Havard

Endurance enables the depth of a man’s character. It is the mortar that holds his virtues in place. In a humorous short story titled “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg,” Mark Twain tells of a righteous but naive little town that is transformed overnight (literally) from a village of model citizens to back-stabbing thieves by the prospect of unclaimed treasure.

Endurance testifies to the depth of a man’s virtue and the nobility of his heart. Twain obliquely describes the superficiality of virtue in form when one’s character does not have the resolve to maintain integrity.

What Courages Is

As Havard delineates above, Endurance is an aspect of Courage. He continues to clarify in his book, Virtuous Leaderhsip, that courage is only possible after the virtues of Prudence and Justice have been exercised to the best of one’s ability.

For example, as Andrew Leatherborrow chronicles in his book on nuclear development, Chernobyl 01:23:40, on the morning the Manhattan Project was preparing for the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in history, one of the lead scientists was taking wagers with observers as to whether the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy Nevada or the whole world. Proceeding with the detonation with these expectations is not an example of courage. It is an example of stupidity (the barest minimum of prudence was not met).

Courage is often described in terms of the instantaneous glory of a bold, self-sacrificing act, but it is specifically in Endurance that a man may discern a path, guided by prudence and justice, and embark on a long, hard, boring, stifling, seemingly-pointless-at-times, frustrating, interminable, but immensely formative journey of resolutely persevering in pursuit of a noble end. The critical point here is that one need not ingest (in the most literal sense) a live grenade to give one’s life in love. Endurance is the everyday, almost imperceptible glory of self-sacrifice that allows a man to truly live in accordance with his highest calling.

Examples of Endurance

There are countless examples of heroic endurance. Most remain unsung.  Two examples of more widely known models of endurance are Louis Zamperini, a WWII pilot who survived a plane crash in the Pacific ocean, almost two months adrift on a raft, and then more than two years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, and Walter J. Ciszek, an American Jesuit who survived for 23 years in Soviet Russia tending to the spiritual needs of hundreds of peasants despite brutal beatings, torture, and 15 years of hard labor in the infamous Gulag. Both of these men offered their lives day by day in order to bring truth and freedom to countries utterly ravaged by political ideologies.

To develop one’s own endurance, it may be prudent to start small. Make a commitment to some minor but frequent mortification such as skipping creamer in one’s coffee. This will strengthen the muscles of one’s will and allow one to develop endurance by taking on increasingly difficult sacrifices. It may be useful to fortify this effort by absorbing stories of endurance through history. The books on Zamperini and Ciszek are a great place to start. The story of Ernest Shackleton as detailed in Shackelton’s Adventures is also incredible.

The Call to Endurance

As men, we are called to take up our cross and follow Christ. For some, that journey is short. For many of us, living our vocation is a long road that can be eroded by boredom, selfishness and a slew of other temptations. Each virtue will help a man to stay the course. Prudence enables a man to accurately assess the conditions of the road; Justice gives him the love of Truth that will point him towards the Eternal Truth; Endurance will give him the strength to continue placing one foot in front of the other in dutiful service of Christ. Developing the virtue of Endurance through daily mortification and prayer will give us the discipline and resolve follow Him for as far as He leads us.

Pat Archer is a finance professional in Phoenix Arizona. His growing family numbers two sons and a beautiful bride.

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Relics and the Gritty Faith of the Early Church

At the northern tip of Via Giulia in Rome, you’ll find the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. The large dome that crowns this church is one of many that accent the Roman skyline.

San Giovanni dei Fiorentini

If it’s hot, airy churches like San Giovanni provide the weary pilgrim with a spiritual and physical oasis. Most likely, you’ll be sweaty and your feet sore from treading the miles of cobblestone streets in the Eternal City. Walk up the worn marble steps of San Giovanni and enter. Head down the left aisle and, at the end, you’ll notice a striking silver reliquary in the shape of…a foot. Inside this reliquary is the foot of Saint Mary Magdalen. (This is Rome, folks, so get used to seeing bones encased in elaborate gold and silver surrounded by vigil candles and corpses under altars and many other things that will certainly strike some Americans as odd or macabre. The Church has been doing this for ages.)

Spend some time in prayer before the relic of this saint known first for her conversion and later, her unflagging loyalty to Christ when most of his closest friends bolted. Ensnared by sin, she was set free by the Lord, and never left Him again. During the crucifixion, perhaps some choice words were directed at her by people in the crowd. Maybe her past life was well-known. Regardless, she stayed at the foot of the cross. There’s an inscription near the relic stating that the feet of Mary Magdalen were the first to enter the tomb of Christ after the Resurrection. According to tradition, she later lived as a hermitess for the rest of her life, absorbed in prayer and love. She wasn’t a martyr, but she must have been one of the most fearless saints of the early Church.

Ready to move on?

If you’re walking down Via del Corso, make a short detour to San Silvestro in Capite. Near the huge Zara store, and amidst high-fashion bargain hunters, is this eighth century gem that got its start as a repository for the bones of early Church martyrs. Walk through the main entrance and you’ll find yourself in a peaceful courtyard with palm trees. The thick walls here do a fine job of blocking a lot of the nearby (nonstop) buzzing of vespas, busses and cars.

Walk through the doors and make a sharp left. Enter a small chapel and you’ll notice a large gothic reliquary of gold containing a skull. This, according to tradition, is the skull of Saint John the Baptist. Kneel for a moment and think about this great saint who died defending marriage before the powerful of his day. (A timely reminder for today, to be sure.) There was nothing soft or thin-skinned about John the Baptist. He came, “neither eating or drinking” as Christ Himself said. He stood firm. He spoke the truth. He was martyred.

Given the sporadic, hit or miss nature of Roman busses, you might want to pay the ten Euro for a taxi to our next stop: Tre Fontane (Three Fountains) Abbey. On these serene grounds, you’ll feel like you’ve left the present behind and entered the first century. Tradition tells us Saint Paul was martyred here.

As you approach the cluster of churches on the grounds of this fortress-like abbey, don’t forget to look down. You’re walking along large ancient stones that have been embedded in the ground since Saint Paul himself was brought here. Did he tread these same stones in the final days of his life? The odds are high.

One of the churches here is Saint Paul and the Three Fountains. Enter and you’ll see a small stairway on your left. Go down and you’re in a musty chapel that has changed very little over the centuries. This cell is where Saint Paul was imprisoned shortly before his martyrdom. Look around. You’re sharing the same small space as one of the Princes of the Apostles.

Go back up the stairs and head towards the wall opposite the main entrance. You’ll see three identical shrines with a grill built into each one. At one end is a large pillar encased in a protective iron gate. This pillar is where the Apostle rested his head just prior to the sword’s fatal blow. The “Three Fountains” part of the church’s title refers to the tradition that, when Paul’s head was lopped off, it took three large bounces from the pillar and, at each point of contact with the ground, a fountain emerged. The trio of shrines (two of which you see here) was built over the spots where Paul’s severed head touched the ground.

Reading the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s Epistles, we see how much suffering and how many trials he endured for Christ. For preaching the truth, he was stoned, exiled, beaten, imprisoned and finally martyred. He didn’t back down or cower in the face of difficulty or hostility. Was he worried about his tone, or whether what he said would make him popular among worldly or religious elites? No. Like Saint Mary Magdalen and Saint John Baptist, Saint Paul was faithful in the face of danger, insults and death.

Before heading back to the center of Rome, stop for a recharge at the cafe near the entrance of the abbey. Sit outside in the shaded garden with an espresso and take in the scene and history around you.

You’re back in the center of Rome now in a vast space: Piazza Navona. In the first century, this was the Stadium of Domitian. Now, it’s one of Rome’s most popular hangouts for tourists and Romans alike. Like so many landmarks in Rome, the massive fountain and statues in the middle of the piazza were designed by the incomparable Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But without a doubt, it’s Sant’Agnese in Agone that dominates this ancient space.

This stunning Baroque masterpiece, designed for the most part by Francesco Borromini, is dedicated to the early Church martyr Agnes. Enter and immediately your eyes are drawn up. You’re caught up in heaven. Only God could have inspired this.

Back on solid ground, make your way to a short, curved hallway on the left. It leads to a small chapel often overlooked by tourists. Here in a quiet room, away from the bustle of the streets, you’ll find yourself face-to-face with the skull of Saint Agnes. Its penetrating gaze asks tough questions about the strength of my faith. The skull appears tiny, and you can’t help thinking how small in stature the young Agnes must have been when she offered her life to God.

Another early Church martyr beloved by the Romans since the fourth century, thirteen-year-old Agnes faced relentless, unimaginable pressure to deny the Lord through impurity. She refused and was beheaded, but only after repeated attempts to seduce and even rape her. (Tradition says the lust-driven men who tried to assault her were struck dead on the spot.) In one sense, how easy it would have been to give in, to cave in order to escape physical torment and death. But thirteen-year-old Agnes didn’t cave. What gave this young girl such astonishing courage, such fortitude? Faith provides the answer.

Christians of the early Church knew they were sinners in need of Christ’s healing. But visiting these ancient sites helps me appreciate a strength and grit they possessed that often seems in short supply today. They knew there was a clear choice in this life: God or Mammon. Recognition of their weakness fueled a fierce, unquenchable devotion. Has anyone put it better than Augustine? “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.”

For the martyrs, there was no meet-in-the-middle compromise or deal brokering on the fundamental choice between God and the world. They prayed. They fasted. They entered into battle.

Saint Cecilia, another beloved Roman martyr, died a slow, painful death after repeated attempts to kill her failed. She held firm to the end. Her body rests in the ancient church that bears her name in the Trastevere district of Rome. The striking statue directly above Cecilia’s tomb captures her final moments (and how her body was discovered, incorrupt after centuries). The exposed neck displays a deep gash, while the fingers on each hand show her final, silent witness to the Triune God.

Saint Sebastian, a Roman soldier and Christian, was pierced with arrows for his faith in Christ, a scene depicted countless times in art over the centuries. He recovered and went right back to the dangerous work of defending fellow Christians facing imperial persecution. The astonished (and ticked-off) Diocletian finally had him clubbed to death. His body was thrown into a sewer, but thankfully recovered by devout Christians.

Ornate ceiling of the Basilica of Saint Sebastian.

And then there’s Saint Lawrence, who was burned alive on a gridiron. Tradition tells us he even joked about it, telling his executioners to turn him over, as he was cooked enough (well done?) on one side.

Along with Saint Stephen, Saint Lawrence is buried behind this altar.

Headlines about the Church today are often dispiriting, to say the least. Often it seems like conforming to the world’s assumptions and expectations, whether in liturgy, schools, seminaries, families, entertainment, dress, culture, etc. is what some are actually gunning for. Where is that scrappy resolve and faith of the early Christians, especially the martyrs, to stand apart from the demands of the world, no matter the consequences? Where is that grit and fire? Where is the resolute defiance in the face of the world’s empty promises? Where is the attitude that says, “Go ahead and kill me. I’m not budging.”? Perhaps most importantly, where is the honesty of the saints to recognize our sinfulness, our “deepest wounds” and our need for Christ’s healing?

This gritty early Church resolve and rock-ribbed faith are precisely what Catholics, from leaders to laity, need to rediscover in 2018. Visiting the relics of the martyrs in Rome’s ancient churches, from a thirteen-year-old girl to a seasoned Roman soldier, helps me to see that more clearly.

This post originally appeared at Cream City Catholic and is reprinted with permission. 

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Mastering Manhood Through Mary

Some years back, I heard a priest say something shocking during a homily. It was before I was Catholic, and I was present at the Mass on a holy day of obligation as a way of keeping a faux peace in my marriage. My wife converted to Catholicism in 2004, a year before we met, and, even after we wed in 2006 and after I agreed to raise our kids in the Faith, I still had no intention of becoming Catholic.

 “Mary is a gift to all men,” the priest said rather plainly. I recall we gathered together to celebrate the feast of the Assumption. At first, I thought he meant Mary was a gift to all humanity. Many priests emphasize how our Lord presented his mother, the Woman, to the beloved disciple at the foot of his cross, and how we are all called beloved disciples who must also dutifully take Mary into our own homes. However for me, this argument had no real impact. I resigned ready for this priest to make the same argument. Instead, he took a different approach, even intensifying his tone.

“Mary offers men, in particular, a way out of a difficult problem. For women, loving Jesus comes easily and naturally. But it does not feel so easy or natural for a man to love another man as intimately as we ought to love our Lord. Mary presents men with a solution to this difficult challenge.”

What on earth was he saying? I recall thinking. I sat up straight in the pew and leaned in close. The priest continued to make other good points, but mentally I lagged behind and lingered on his penetrating statement. Mary is a gift to men.

For many years, his words simmered on the back burner of my mind. Eventually, in 2014, I would fully enter the Church on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception. However, I never forgot the priest’s words. It was not until years later, after encountering Saint John Paul II’s teaching on Theology of the Body, that the priest’s wisdom finally led to great insight into what it means to be a man.

The New Eve

Mary’s role in the Church is always to reflect and advance the glory of her son. In fact, Mary never ceases to defend and protect Jesus. For example, the Church’s teaching on Mary’s title as Theotokos—Mother of God—merely reflects the truth of her son’s divinity, and is not exclusively a praise of Mary alone. In the Church’s teaching on Mary’s perpetual virginity, the Church protects the miraculous nature of Jesus’ earthly birth, which early church fathers describe as “light [passing] through glass without harming the glass” (Miravalle 2012). This analogy has bears greater meaning as we profess in the Nicene Creed belief in Jesus Christ, who is consubstantial with the Father, as being “God from God, Light from Light.”

Jesus Christ is the divine Light, “the life of the light of the human race” (Jn 1:3b), that passed through the precious womb of the blessed Virgin. As such, we can imagine Mary as a sort of prism for that Light. In view of her singularly unique qualities illuminated by the divine Light, we can see certain mysteries concerning God’s plan for humanity come to life.

In an Apostolic Exhortation titled Marialis Cultus (1974), his Holiness Paul VI writes, “Mary, the New Woman, stands at the side of Christ, the New Man, within whose mystery the mystery of the human being alone finds true light; she is given to us as a pledge and guarantee that God’s plan in Christ for the salvation of the whole human person has already achieved realization in a creature: in her.”

God designed humanity in His image, “in the image of God He created them, male and female, He created them” (Gn 1:27). This incredible passage from Genesis signifies not merely that God created each individual alone to bear the imago dei, but also He imprinted His image upon the communal life of man with woman. In a homily delivered on June 14, 2015, Pope Francis explains, “…not only is man taken in himself the image of God, not only is woman taken in herself the image of God, but also man and woman, as a couple, are the image of God.” Moreover, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Man and woman were made “for each other” – not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones…”) and complementary as masculine and feminine” (CCC 372).

This of course makes perfect sense in view of God’s divine nature. Through Sacred Revelation, we know that God is not merely one Being, but also a trinity of Three Divine Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Himself, He brings to perfection both singularity and plurality. This is a rather abstract idea, but what it means for us concretely is that man bears Gods image singularly, as does woman, but then so does the complementarity of the sexes.

We further know from Theology of the Body that the complementarity of the sexes is given a particular grace in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. From the very origins of the human race, man and woman were made “to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other” (CCC 372).

The Mother of Men

Here is where the Priest’s words from earlier comes into perfect focus. Mary is the Immaculate Conception, the New Eve, perfectly complementary to every human male. As the New Eve, Mary is our helper, perfectly compatible with every human male and yearning to help us master manhood to become who God called us to be in our families, in our marriages, and in society.

With her aid and graces, we can secure the victory delivered for us by the pure sacrifice of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As men, consecration to her is not merely a spiritual act of faith, but an essential act of manhood. She completes us, which is not to say God left us half-made and incomplete. Instead, God created us to be in communion with perfect femininity, which, we find in her. Like the priest said, Mary is a gift to men.

—

Matthew D. Pride is an U.S. Army active duty officer assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth Kansas, where he earn a Masters of Military Arts and Science in Strategic Studies. His thesis work was on Just War Theory. In 2012, he earned a Masters of Science from the University of Missouri Science & Technology in Engineering Management. In 2006, Matt graduated from the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. He is married to his wife of 11 years, Christina, and together that have four children.

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A Force for Good: Character Counts in the Workplace

 

When I was asked to serve as interim dean of the business school at the Catholic University of America, I thought it pru­dent to attend a seminar for new deans sponsored by the leading business school accreditation organization, the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

The seminar lasted two days and consisted of presentations by current and former educational leaders on what it takes to be successful as a business-school dean. One of the early presenters listed his top five keys to success, and the first key was “Never lie to your faculty.” Later that day, another of the presenters stated, “My first recommendation to new deans is always be truthful to your faculty.” The following day, a third dean repeated the same admonition about veracity and the probability that faculty will turn against you if you can’t be trusted to tell the truth.

The fact that one dean made such a comment was curious. Shouldn’t honesty go without saying? After all, it’s one of the Ten Commandments. But the fact that three deans felt it was important enough to rank as their number-one recommendation is a sad indictment of today’s society. Surprisingly, no one said anything about lying to administrators, staff, students, parents, donors, or alumni. Apparently, that’s perceived to be okay, as long as you don’t lie to faculty!

In order to be honest, one must be practiced in the cardinal virtues, which include prudence, justice, courage, and modera­tion. Prudence allows us to keep confidential information confidential; justice allows us to present information with sensitivity and respect for others affected; courage allows us to admit our failings and faults; and moderation allows us to rein in our excesses and provide balance in our discussions.

Forming Virtue

The army, the navy, the air force, and the marines conduct training camps with an eye toward character development so that recruits become schooled in the cardinal virtues. Recruits are put through physical and mental challenges in such a way that each learns prudence, justice, courage, and moderation while practicing teamwork and developing a high degree of trust in other team members. Individuals learn to do the right thing every time, even under stressful conditions. People of character make great business practitioners, and because veterans have undergone character training, they tend to be highly effective employees.

What happens when virtue is missing?

I remember my excitement a number of years back when I was in­vited to attend the quarterly marketing meeting for MCI/World-Com, which was then the largest telecommunications company in the world. The meetings were held in a large ballroom at a prominent Jackson, Mississippi, hotel not far from MCI/World-Com corporate headquarters in Clinton. One by one, marketing managers in charge of various divisions within the company were called to the front of the room. With elaborate PowerPoint pre­sentations, they presented their divisions’ quarterly performance as related to assigned goals.

When performance exceeded the goal, applause ensued. When performance was short of the goal, the room became tension-filled and very uncomfortable. Someone, usually the underperforming marketing manager’s boss, would stand up and deliver a public tongue-lashing to the offending manager about the importance of achieving goals and reminding him or her that any further failures to achieve the assigned numbers would not be tolerated. There was no questioning whether conditions had changed or other factors had affected the outcome. It was all reduced to whether the numbers had been achieved or not. You were either a hero or a goat.

My host informed me that these public humiliations were an important means of promoting the virtue of goal orientation among managers. Anyone witnessing this spectacle would strongly desire to make sure that goals were achieved at all costs so that he or she would not be publicly embarrassed. I came away thinking that something was inherently wrong with this approach.

Performance Can’t Trump Character

What was wrong? Certainly goal orientation is important for any manager to learn, and many regard it as a virtue, but if goal orientation is held as the highest of virtues — the one that trumps all other virtues — then the emphasis is potentially dangerous.

We know from the ancient Greeks, together with Christian tradition, that prudence, justice, courage, and moderation form the foundation of natural morality. These four must always be at the forefront in a manager’s thinking, and all other virtues (except the theological virtues) should be secondary.

Fortunately, at least one manager didn’t forget to apply the cardinal virtues in the MCI/WorldCom situation. Cynthia Coo­per was employed in the audit department and demonstrated all four cardinal virtues when she stepped forward to blow the whistle on what turned out to be the most significant case of financial reporting fraud ever perpetrated. Prudence was needed to uncover the problem, justice to make sure that investors’ rights were protected, moderation to keep her investigation hidden until it reached fruition, and courage to make the charges public in the face of company sanctions and personal threats.

As a result of Cynthia’s adherence to the cardinal virtues, her testimony was able to stop an insider group directed by CEO Bernie Ebbers that had been doctoring the books so that it appeared that the company’s financial goals were being met. Unfortunately, this group held goal orientation as their highest virtue. In 2005, Ebbers was convicted of fraud and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Cynthia Cooper wrote an outstand­ing book and today speaks to students and corporate groups about virtue.

The implications of Cynthia’s story go further than revealing the company’s fraud and ensuring that justice was achieved. Her story reveals to all of us that virtue is paramount to long-term success. As Aristotle once said, “Virtue makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.”60 Had MCI/WorldCom aimed at the “right mark” of virtuous busi­ness rather than a win-at-any-cost mentality, perhaps they would not have found themselves in the situation that they did. If they had practiced the cardinal virtues, they might have achieved the long-run success that their CEO desired.

Which are the key virtues in business?

Social relationships can exist at three levels of goodness — plea­sure, utility, and virtue.61 In a pleasure relationship, each party seeks enjoyment from the other, and in a utility relationship, each expects something useful. Most business relationships are modeled as one or the other. However, in a virtuous relationship, each individual not only receives some enjoyment and utility but also delights in the authentic character and basic goodness of the other.

Each individual comes to expect that the other will exercise virtue in all his or her dealings, and because each party sees the good in the other, each will correct the other if one ever makes a mistake. Virtues — and particularly the four cardinal virtues — al­low the very best kind of relationships: the kind that are needed among coworkers to encourage beneficial change.

  • Businesspeople have a desire for pleasure — to win sales, gain promotions, dine at expensive res­taurants, and be perceived to be among the elite at what they do. Moderation helps us avoid excess. Although pleasure has an allure, moderation takes control. Mod­eration allows us to enjoy pleasures without harm to ourselves, to our firms, or to others.
  • Courage masters fear of pain. Businesspeople are sometimes reluctant to take a principled stand for fear of criticism from various stakeholders. But avoiding criticism or pain is not always the best course of action. We need a touch of bravery along with mental disci­pline to tough things out. Courage frees us and helps us overcome our aversion to pain by placing the potential pain in service of a genuine good.
  • Justice (sometimes referred to as fairness) gov­erns our right relationships with others. Often the dif­ficulty in being just is controlling our tendencies to seek advantage at the expense of others. Justice jolts businesspeople out of their desires for advantage and invites them to see things from the perspective of others. This virtue shows us that our standards should be measured not by material success but by moral success.
  • Prudence involves distinguishing ends from means, to­gether with an ability to be attentive to the nature of things. Prudence gives businesspeople the grace to ap­preciate the true, the good, and the beautiful in their work. Without prudence they will lack insight and direc­tion. Aristotle puts it this way: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.” And further, “If he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.”62

One day I got a phone call from an executive search firm. The voice on the phone told me that the parent company of our leading competitor was impressed with what I had done and wanted to interview me for an executive vice president slot that was opening up in one of their noncompeting divisions. “Sure, I’d like to explore the opportunity,” I said. The next week, I traveled to the competitor’s location and met with the CEO of the parent company. I was prepared to talk about how my skills and experi­ence could have an immediate impact in the new position. But the president’s first question related to the marketing initiatives I was implementing in my current position, so I outlined them in very broad terms without revealing anything confidential. He then asked for specific details, and I explained that I was not willing to divulge such details to a competitor.

He paused, leaned toward me, and said, “Your firm is out­maneuvering us in the marketplace, and it is imperative that I know how you are doing it.”

Suddenly I realized that this interview was a charade. There was no opening for a vice president. He was asking me ques­tions with the hope that I would reveal something confidential, something that his staff couldn’t figure out.

“I wouldn’t expect your executives to divulge trade secrets to a competitor, so I hope you don’t expect me to do so either,” I said as I walked out of his office.

I later found out that dangling job opportunities in front of managers at competing firms was a standard practice for this CEO. Apparently, there were many people who were duped into divulging information in the hopes of getting a better job. This is how he gained competitive intelligence that he couldn’t get through legitimate means. But there is no virtue in this scheme. It is patently dishonest, unjust, and imprudent. If we are to develop integrity-infused organizations, we need to work with colleagues who have high moral character, and that requires an understanding of both virtue and ethics.

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Dr. Brian Engelland is Associate Dean of the School of Business and Economics, the Edward J. Pryzbyla Chair of Business and Economics, and Ordinary Professor of Marketing. He teaches market research, market strategy and other marketing electives in support of the BSBA and MSBA degrees. Prior to becoming an academic, he was a product development executive and served in a series of leadership positions for two Fortune 500 corporations. Later, he became president of a marketing consultancy agency, Engelland and Associates, which helped clients successfully introduce new products and services. The above is an excerpt from his new book, Force for Good: The Catholic Guide to Business Integrity