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Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Faith Lost and Found in the Marketplace

When I was teaching a summer writing course at a local college, I asked students to write a term paper. One of the students on an athletic team turned in a paper that was, word for word, written by journalist Daniel Schorr. Realizing the skilled writing could not be that of this particular student, I researched the topic and found Schorr’s paper. I confronted the student who was more or less dumbfounded that I had discovered his theft. I believe plagiarism is a form of theft, and I explained this with a certain amount of vehemence to the student. He was in trouble, and then later, I was in trouble with the athletic department for giving him a failing grade on the assignment.

His behavior was completely unethical. You don’t take someone else’s work and call it your own. This also applies to every business in the marketplace. If you take your car to be repaired, you don’t want to pay for new parts if the parts were previously used. If you build a house, you don’t want the contractor to use shoddy materials. When you hire someone to do a job, you expect a fair price from an ethical business person. That’s not always what you get, given the number of scams we see, hear or read about on any given day.

The Messenger recently recognized eight people this year for taking their faith to work with them. Called the Faith in the Marketplace recognitions, we have made this an annual event, marking it with a dinner and a gift. Time and again, people who filled out nominations, spoke of the caring and concern the nominees showed to employees and customers alike.

These eight people represent a far larger number of people who live and work in our diocese, who do not seek recognition for the way they live their lives. Often, their attitudes and beliefs originated in families that passed them on to their children. Many of them spoke about their parents, other relatives who did not preach at them but served as examples for them throughout their lives. Now, they are living as examples not only to their own children but also to all those they meet.

Before the dinner began, Msgr. Vince Haselhorst spoke about these folks in prayer, thanking God for “their example of Christian living in their business and professional dealings with others.”

It’s more than a shame that all young people do not have such examples to guide them into adulthood, into lives where ethical behavior is the norm and not the exception. Too often we see the results of people who not only steal words from others but most recently in the theft of billions of dollars in people’s savings. We wonder aloud how these seemingly upstanding citizens could do such things to others.

Maybe we should look into their pasts to see when they were not held accountable for their actions, where they missed out on the ethical examples of others who help design a blueprint of behavior that is both honorable and faith-filled. In the microcosm of our diocese, we are meeting many who do lead by faith and carry that faith into every marketplace for which we are ever grateful.