Ethics means business

Jesuit finds hunger for ethical advice in the midst of Calgary's tall towers

Fr. Max Oliva

By GLEN ARGAN
WCR Editor
Edmonton

Father Max Oliva is but one man walking among all the corporate headquarters in downtown Calgary.

"I kept looking at all those big buildings and I thought, 'This is like David and Goliath.' Then I thought, 'Yeah, but David won.'"

Oliva may or may not be winning, but he's trying. Trying to respond to a desire for ethical direction and meaning among those people working in those office towers. Trying to feed the hungry souls who come to him with their problems, their moral dilemmas.

For four years, Alberta's only Jesuit has been offering advice to Calgary business people through his ministry which he calls Spirituality at Work.

A lot of the ethical concerns people raise in their discussions with Oliva are age-old office issues such as dealing with bullies or a manager with minimal people skills, balancing work and family, sexual temptation, and raising challenges to something that is morally wrong.

Others are more contemporary.

One person working in the petroleum industry was struggling to make the industry more sensitive to the environment, Oliva told a May 17 gathering of St. Peter Speaks at the Marriott Hotel.

Another person in the same industry wanted to get management to understand the culture of Aboriginal peoples on whose land the company was drilling wells, the Jesuit said.

Others are concerned about possible conflicts of interest, he said. He held a seminar with a group of petroleum industry landsmen who had clients wanting to give them extravagant Christmas gifts in hopes of receiving some future favour.

Some times people feel they are the only ones who see a serious ethical problem. "It's not a moment of pride; it's a moment of terror." They experience "moral loneliness" and can find no one with whom to discuss the issue.

"I haven't run into big-time stuff like fraud and insider trading," Oliva said in an interview. "I run into things that can make you miserable where you work."

One person deeply affected by Oliva is Len Rodrigues, now the university architect at the University of Alberta.

Radio interview

Rodrigues, at that time president of the Alberta Association of Architects, was driving from his home in Calgary to Lethbridge one morning in 2002 when he heard Oliva interviewed on CBC Radio.

The priest was talking about the Enron scandal, concerns with business accountability and other ethical issues. The architect was trying to face down ethical matters in his own profession. The interview struck a chord.

"I called the CBC and said I had to talk to this guy. I had no idea where it would lead," Rodrigues told the WCR.

They met for lunch and talked about the issues raised in the interview. "Then he looked at me and said, 'What are you looking for?'"

Oliva gently probed Rodrigues' view of the world and at the end encouraged him to take his one-week "commuter retreat." In that retreat, retreatants continue their day job, talk with Father Max for an hour every day at St. Mary's Cathedral and spend daily time in prayer.

Profound impact

"When I took the retreat, the impact was profound," said Rodrigues. "By the end of the six days, I had gone to Confession and received Communion after 30 years away from the Church."

The annulment of his first marriage came through during the retreat and he and his second wife Carolyn were soon remarried in the Catholic Church. Carolyn herself became Catholic last year.

Rodrigues changed his job, coming to work for the U of A and is now active in St. John the Evangelist Parish and a Regnum Christi men's group.

Oliva said, "My purpose is (not to make more Catholics. It's to help people become the best person they can be."

Still, a few people are on their way to joining the Church after receiving his counsel.

Oliva came to Calgary from California several years ago to lead parish retreats. But after having run retreats across the diocese, he wanted something different. In his prayer, it seemed God wanted him to stay in Calgary.

He read an article in Fortune magazine about God and Business and he pondered the idea of launching an ethical consultancy to business people.

Moral desert

Oliva floated the idea past a friend who responded, "Father Max, it's a moral desert out there. We need you."

Then came the CBC interview which drew calls from several people. When the Calgary Herald ran a story in its business section on him with a front-page cue saying, "Priest brings faith to business community," he said, "It just took off.

"There was no going back after that."

He began his program with the commuter retreats. Then he started two groups where business people come to discuss their issues. He gives seminars to industry groups and edits a newsletter.

"I do a lot of lunches. That's the time when the business people in Calgary want to talk."

Now offers of speaking engagements are coming from across Canada. And Oliva is looking for people in other cities to take up the role of ethical consultant to people in business.

Oliva is the author of The Masculine Spirit and Free to Pray - Free to Love. He can be reached at frmaxolivasj@yahoo.com.

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