Managing the word of the Church

Modern management owes much to the Church, and can still learn a lot from its current practices. For many centuries, the Church has been the sole guardian of learning and the written word. According to most historians, the matrix of European economy can be found in the medieval Benedictine abbeys - and particularly so in their Cistercian branch. If we look back even further, our own western archetypes of power, the emperors of Rome, wielded both secular and religious power. Indeed, the Church can be seen as a very old and very effective multinational corporation whose production, in layman's terms, is made up of words. Consequently, we will focus on the problem of managing the written and spoken word of the Church at this Breakfast Meeting. Father Olivier de Dinechin is well qualified to speak on the subject. On graduation from Polytechnique, he joined the Jesuits and during the past thirty years has specialised in the particularly sensitive area of bio-medical ethics, an area in which he has taught and published extensively. In this field, he represents the Church at the highest levels. Olivier de Dinechin is going to tell us about his work in this area and afterwards will be available to answer any questions we might have.