When the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued a Note last year on the global financial system, it would be an understatement to say that it generated a stormy debate. Today, however, the president of the same Council, Cardinal Peter Turkson, released a new — and very different — Note entitled, The Vocation of the Christian Business Leader, at a conference in Lyons, France.

Though it doesn’t shy away from making pointed criticisms of much contemporary business activity — and there is much to criticize — the Note articulates, perhaps for the first time in the Catholic Church’s history, a lengthy and thoroughly positive reflection from a body of the Roman Curia about the nature and ends...