DETAILS

Paul Voss and Donald Prudlo trace Western attitudes toward money, merchants, and the market through 3,000 years of history. They focus particular attention on Omobono of Cremona (1117–1197), a major figure in the wholesale reappraisal of the value of business, entrepreneurship, and white-collar work in Christian Europe. As the authors note, "His story resonates today with an unexpected poignancy for the contribution it makes to the pressing issues of economic justice, free markets, work-life balance, the 'theology of work,' and Catholic history." Omobono stands as the first lay individual proposed by the Catholic Church as a model of heroic virtue, and through him commercial life came to be 'canonized' as a possible path to sanctity.