The name of the venerable Enrique Shaw, Argentine businessman, layman and father of nine children, accompanies the arrival of Leo XIV in Argentina, the second country on his apostolic journey. Journalist Inés San Martín recalls in Crux that Shaw is a bridge between the social doctrine of Leo XIII and the priorities of the current Pontiff, and that his cause for canonization is already one step away from beatification.
Shaw’s granddaughter, María Elena Critto, explained to San Martín that her grandfather attributed his conversion to the social doctrine of the Church, formulated in its modern version by Leo XIII in the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), in defense of the dignity of workers, a just wage and the right of association.
The Pope has already presented him as an example for business leaders
Leo XIV referred to Shaw in the message he addressed to the 31st Argentine Industrial Conference, held in Buenos Aires on November 13, 2025 and published on vatican.va. In it he described the “venerable servant of God” as a businessman who conceived industry as “a true community of persons called to grow together,” whose leadership was distinguished by transparency and the ability to listen, and stated that “his life shows that one can be a businessman and a saint.”
On December 18, 2025, the Holy See announced that the Pope had authorized the decree recognizing a miracle attributed to Shaw’s intercession: the healing, without sequelae, of a five-year-old boy who suffered a severe cranial trauma. That decree clears the way for his beatification, whose date and place, according to the Argentine Episcopal Conference, will be announced later.
From the Navy to the Rigolleau glassworks
Shaw was born in Paris in 1921 and died in Buenos Aires on August 27, 1962, at the age of 41. He left the Argentine Navy to devote himself to business, convinced that economic life is not separate from the Gospel. He came to direct the Rigolleau glassworks and participated in the founding of the Christian Association of Business Leaders (ACDE), Caritas Argentina and the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA).
At Rigolleau he launched health-care and pension programs for some 3,400 workers, supported their families and defended the family wage. In 1961, already gravely ill, he traveled to New York and helped prevent the dismissal of 1,200 employees. Francis declared him venerable on April 24, 2021, and his diocesan cause was opened at the request of the then-Cardinal Bergoglio.
The UCA, setting for the encounter with the world of work
San Martín notes that the Pope’s official meeting with business leaders, workers and popular movements will take place at the UCA, the pontifical university that Shaw helped to create. “Shaw’s example will be hard to overlook,” the journalist concludes.