The Economy of Communion (EoC) project was initiated by Chiara Lubich in 1991 when she visited the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and first saw the slums which surround the city’s skyscrapers like a crown of thorns. After 25 years, EoC today has become an economic paradigm with more than 700 businesses worldwide adhering to its principles.

Time Magazine’s May 23 issue featured an interesting article ‘“Saving Capitalism”, by economist and author Rana Faroohar, who wrote: “Globally, free-market capitalism is coming under fire, as countries across Europe question its merits, and emerging markets like Brazil, China and Singapore run their own forms of statedirected capitalism.

An ideologically broad range of financiers and elite business managers – Warren Buffet, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Vanguard’s John Bogle, McKinsey’s Dominic Barton, Allanz’s Mohamed El-Rian and others – have also started to speak out publicly about the need for a new and more inclusive type of capitalism, one that helps businesses make better longterm decisions rather than focusing only on the next quarter.” She even pointed out how Pope Francis has become a vocal critic of this failed modern market capitalism.

That same week, an international forum on the Economy of Communion was held, first at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila from May 23-24, and later from May 25-29 in Mariapolis Peace, Tagaytay, with more than 400 delegates from all over world.

The Congress in Tagaytay chose an interesting theme: “Economy of Communion, an Economy for All” where 300 participants from the academe, the youth sector, NGOs and GOs, as well as entrepreneurs discussed the life of EoC in the past 25 years, showcasing business enterprises and entrepreneurs who are practising its principles in a successful way.

Briefly, we wish to share with you some distinctive features of EoC as described by Dr. Anouk Grevin, a professorat the University of Nantes (France). She is also part of the International EoC Commission.

The first feature is communion as a mission and a fundamental value.This means “paying particular attention to the quality of relationships between all the stakeholders” and ensuring that human beings are always at the center of any EoC business enterprise, more than focusing on profit and the company’s hierarchical organization.

Second, and an original feature of EoC, is the value given to difficulties and hardships in the workplace, making them precious occasions for growth and maturity.

Third is the creation of shared values.

One of the fundamental issues for an economic model is that of making profit and determining who should benefit from it. EoC asserts, and this is something quite unique in EoC as Dr. Grevin emphasized: “When the business makes profits, entrepreneurs and their partners commit to sharing them in order to achieve three objectives, to which they attribute equal importance: a) helping indigent individuals through various initiatives that promote communitarian and productive inclusion; b) developing the business by empowering its structure and improving the quality of its products. Particular attention is dedicated to initiatives which would favor the formation of new activities and thereby create new jobs, particularly for the disadvantaged, eventually leading to the remuneration of partners, and to care for the environment; c) and lastly, spreading of the culture of communion.”

With these objectives, EoC aims to enable everyone to create value and to share it. It intends to empower everyone the capacity to become producers of communion, since it is in giving more than in possessing that we can attain true happiness.

Another important element is its being a collective model. EoC is such only with those who elaborate the economic theory, those who contribute to the formation of a culture of communion, those who spread this culture, and all those who practise it. EoC companies cannot be a place of communion, a cure for the relationship pathologies of our society, without all their partners with whom they build relationships of trust and reciprocal giving on a daily basis.

And finally, the factor of the “Invisible Associate” depending on one’s faith or belief. This invisible partner is at the core of its activity, constantly contributing needed resources, new markets and ideas. He is also the one who supports entrepreneurs and workers, who bestows on them courage to go on and believe in the fecundity of crisis, and the strength of communion, in one’s vocation to contribute to a new economy.