Enrique Shaw

After leaving the navy, Enrique Shaw turned toward the business world on the advice of a priest who showed him that he could sanctify his life as a business leader. He joined the company Cristalerías Rigolleau, a major Argentine glassworks, of which he quickly became the general manager.

Concerned with applying the social doctrine of the Church in a concrete way, he refused to consider the company as a simple tool for profit or capital accumulation. For him, it was above all a "human community." He implemented fair wages, training programs for workers, aid for their families, and carefully looked after their health.

In 1952, he founded the Christian Association of Business Executives (ACDE - Asociación Cristiana de Dirigentes de Empresa), affiliated with UNIAPAC, to promote Christian ethics in business. He also participated in the founding of the Christian Family Movement (Movimiento Familiar Cristiano) and became president of the Argentine Catholic Action (Acción Católica Argentina).

In 1955, during the anti-Catholic persecution led by the government of Juan Perón, Enrique Shaw was briefly imprisoned, maintaining an attitude of peace and prayer in his cell. In 1957-1958, he was diagnosed with malignant melanoma (skin cancer). Despite the illness, he continued to work and defend his workers, firmly opposing the dismissal of 1,000 employees when the company went through difficulties. In July 1962, while he was seriously ill, his workers lined up to donate their blood to him. Moved, he declared that he was dying "like a worker," since all his blood came from them. He passed away on August 27, 1962, in Buenos Aires, at the age of 41.

The reputation of holiness of Enrique Shaw spread rapidly after his death. In 1996, Archbishop Jorge María Mejía encouraged the dissemination of his message. The diocesan process officially opened on September 25, 2001, in Buenos Aires, under the direction of the archbishop at the time, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis).

On April 24, 2021, Pope Francis signed the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues, thereby declaring him "Venerable."

The path toward his beatification reached a decisive stage with the recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession. On June 21, 2015, a five-year-old child named Matías was seriously injured in the nape of the neck by a horse's kick at a farm near Buenos Aires (in Suipacha). Suffering from severe cranial and brain injuries, the child was hospitalized in Chivilcoy and then transferred to the Austral University Hospital in Buenos Aires in critical condition, clinically dead according to some diagnoses. His father and relatives then invoked the intercession of Enrique Shaw. Against all medical expectations, the child recovered completely and without any sequelae.

Following the favorable examination by the medical commission and the theological commission of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Leo XIV officially approved this miracle through a decree signed on December 18, 2025. This decision definitively paves the way for the beatification of Enrique Shaw, making him the first modern business leader to be raised to the altars.

Enrique Shaw's spirituality is based on the profound unity between Christian faith and temporal action, particularly in the economic sphere. Nicknamed "God's entrepreneur," he demonstrated that economic efficiency and fidelity to the Gospel are not incompatible. His thought is summarized by his famous formula: "In the company, there is a human community... Being a boss is not a privilege, it is a function."\n\nHis legacy endures through the ACDE, which continues to promote corporate social responsibility in Argentina, and through the annual Enrique Shaw award given to socially committed companies.