BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP PRINCIPLES AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Abstract

For years the world of entrepreneur and catholic religion are often separated and even considered contradictory. Entrepreneurship is associated with profitable affair that is highly correlated with greed, deception, and selfishness. On the other hand, Catholic religion preaches about generosity, honesty, and common good which are very contrast with things that are associated with entrepreneurship. It is certainly a problem in the community because entrepreneurship has been proven to stimulate economic growth. Countries with a high number of entrepreneurs are able to become a developed country, while the rest remained behind in poverty. Due to this, many people opt to separate the religious life with the business world which actually caused new chaos. Seeing this phenomenon, we tried to examine the principles contained in entrepreneurship from the point of view of the Catholic religion, based on Catholic Social Teaching. This is expected to create a bridge between the concept of entrepreneurship with the Catholic religion that can be used as a reference for the life of Catholics and entrepreneurs.