Faculty member receives national award for contributions to Catholic intellectual life

02/04/2008

Daniel K. Finn was presented the Monika K. Hellwig Award on Saturday, Feb. 2, during the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

The award honors outstanding contributions to Catholic intellectual life, and Finn was recognized for his lifelong commitment to economic justice, to open-minded dialogue, and to his continuing scholarly efforts to integrate the wisdom of the Catholic faith tradition with the insights of the secular world.

Finn is the William E. and Virginia Clemens professor of economics and the liberal arts at Saint John’s University, and professor of theology in the Saint John’s School of Theology∙Seminary and the department of theology at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. During more than three decades of teaching, Finn also chaired the department of economics and business administration and served as dean of the School of Theology∙Seminary. In 2000, he received the Robert L. Spaeth Teacher of Distinction Award from SJU.

Finn is the immediate past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and is currently vice president and president-elect of the Society of Christian Ethics. He also is past president of the Association for Social Economics, which in 2005 presented him with the Thomas F. Divine Award for lifetime contributions to social economics and the social economy. He is co-director of the research project, “The True Wealth of Nations,” at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and chairs the steering committee of a project to engage the Catholic Church in Latin America to work with civil society in confronting government corruption.

Finn has published widely on the relation of economics and theology and on justice in economic life. His books include The Moral Ecology of Markets: Assessing Claims about Markets and Justice and Just Trading: On the Ethics and Economics of International Trade. He has co-authored Toward a Christian Economic Ethic: Stewardship and Social Power and co-edited Readings in Ethics for the Analysis of Values.

Known for his fair-mindedness and ethical acuity, Finn was one of four consultants to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Mandatum Committee. In this capacity he was invited to address the bishops’ assembly where he spoke eloquently of both the bishops’ authority and the importance of due process and elemental fairness. More recently, his presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America was hailed by journalist John Allen Jr. as an exceptionally able reproof of the ideological divisions and insensitive uses of power which currently beset so many relationships within the Catholic Church and the academy.