The heads of the Vatican City-based Centesimus Annus - Pro Pontifice Foundation have held meetings with Church authorities and business leaders with a view to setting up a Malta chapter.
Named after Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, the pontifical organisation aims to spread the human, ethical, social and Christian values named in the papal letter, and support the late Pontiff's charitable initiatives through fundraising. Set up in 1993, it is governed by the Church's Canon Law and Vatican City's civil law and by-laws.
Last Tuesday, foundation president Lorenzo Rossi di Montelera, vice-president Domingo Sugranyes Bickel, and general secretary Massimo Gattamelata briefed a group of executives and professionals. Fr Joe Galea Curmi later addressed the gathering on how the organisation's values may be applied in the real business world. The following day, they were received by the Archbishop and Apostolic Nuncio.
Dr Rossi di Montelera says the foundation has held conferences on issues which are particularly important to the Holy Father, like human development and ethics in finance.
"The foundation's 500-odd members worldwide are leaders in their own society and active in various areas. The Malta chapter will be free to address issues it feels are important to local society, and make its advice and opinions public. It will be invited to the annual convention at the Vatican when it will report on its activities and be received by Pope Benedict."
Membership of the foundation (www.centesimusannus.org) is by invitation or recommendation. Dr Rossi de Montelera worked his way up the Bacardi Martini Group, and is now chairman of Canadian and US jeweller Birks and Mayors Inc., and of a Geneva-based financial institution.
Spaniard Domingo Sugranyes Bickel is a past president of the International Christian Union of Business Executives which he has formed part of since 1969. Between 1981 and his retirement in 2007, he held senior positions with the MAPFRE insurance group in Madrid. Dr Gattamelata was involved with the Confederation of Italian industry for 28 years, and with Federcalcio, Italy's football ruling body.
Last May, former Bank of Valletta chairman Joseph F.X. Zahra, who organised the officials' visit to Malta, was invited to a foundation event in Rome by Domingo Sugranyes Bickel, with whom he has sat on company boards in the past. Mr Zahra says he was "captured by the intellectual atmosphere of the event" and understood that the foundation had a particular role to play in the current financial crisis.
"Any person can be a role model in the way they do business and in their decision-making," Mr Zahra says.
"The people we are meeting are all inspired by the Church's social teachings and are very interested in the foundation's objectives. The encyclical upheld the notion of a free market, but had cautioned that the model was not the only answer to social ills.
"The document had warned that profit purely for gain would lead to crisis. It is very relevant to the situation we are living today. It is important to put morality back into business."