Respect for workers was a moral matter for the Rev. Ed Boyle, who early in life stepped away from what could have been a lustrous career in management to champion those who toiled for the smallest paychecks.  "The Christian community has always held suspect the tendency in America to scorn physical labor and the so-called blue-collar world," he told the Globe in 1996. "That type of elitism is contrary to the Gospel."

As director of the Labor Guild of the Boston Archdiocese, Father Boyle spent years emphasizing the hyphen in labor-management relations. The sides needed to work together, he believed, for the good of workers and bosses. But there was no question where his heart lay.  "There are, of course, some wonderful businessmen," he told the Globe in 1983. "But I don't think business has a creed that is ennobling."  Father Boyle, who earned an Ivy League MBA before finding his calling as a Jesuit priest, died of renal cancer Tuesday at the Campion Health Center in Weston. He was 76.

"He was so dedicated to his mission to social justice and supporting the dignity of workers," said Thomas A. Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker professor of management at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "He really believed this was the way that God spoke through him - he said it that way."  Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley issued a statement saying that through his work with the Labor Guild, Father Boyle helped support "working families during nearly four decades in the area of labor relations. . . . We will miss his energy, knowledge, and passion for the ministry he was called to do by God."

The call did not come until Father Boyle was living in New York City in the 1950s and rolling along the road to affluence and power in the financial community.  The second of six children, Edward F. Boyle grew up in Belmont, where he was a stellar athlete. He attended Dartmouth College on a Navy ROTC scholarship, graduating with a degree in economics, then received a master's degree in business administration from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School.  After three years as a Navy officer stationed in New Zealand, he moved to New York and began working in finance for the Seatrain Lines shipping company. Sensing that something was missing in his life, he began attending Jesuit retreats.

"As he said, he came to the conclusion that he was on the wrong path going 100 miles an hour," Kochan said.  "Ed marched to a different drummer," said Father Boyle's older brother, Jack of Charlestown. "He was an intensely committed person - to his studies, to his friends, on playing fields. He put that aside with the Jesuits, and this is a very significant thing. He was a real power guy. Handsome, strong, bright - a compulsive hand-shaker. He put all of that aside to follow Christ."

Father Boyle entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1958 and was ordained 11 years later after lengthy studies in theology and philosophy. During those years, he met the Rev. Mortimer Gavin, who directed the archdiocese's Labor Guild.  Gavin and Father Boyle, who succeeded his mentor as director, both were known as "the labor priest" in Boston. And both preferred the term "labor-management priest." Speaking to the Globe in 1984 for Gavin's obituary, Father Boyle said, "He believed in the hyphen, and that we have to get along with each other."

After he was ordained, Father Boyle taught high school for a year before beginning his ministry with the Labor Guild in 1970. There, too, accomplishments came as swiftly as they had on the playing fields at Belmont High School and Dartmouth, and in the world of finance in New York City. Still, he wore those achievements lightly.  "Father Ed was a very humble man despite the many things he did to quietly improve labor-management relations," Kochan said. "He was always quick to credit everyone else for whatever good came out of his efforts. Even when asked about the Labor Guild, he always referred to the executive board and others to whom he attributed the success."

Robert J. Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, called Father Boyle "one of the nicest people in the world" and praised his "unwavering commitment and dedication to the struggle to create a more fair and just workplace."  Said Father Boyle's brother: "He always somehow had a feel for the poor guy that was getting hammered. I think he really, really sought equality. I mean, he's a real democrat - all capitals."

Diagnosed with cancer several months ago, Father Boyle continued to speak about the need to remain focused on how society's financial disparities hurt the most vulnerable, according to a tribute written by Kochan and Joseph J. Fahey, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College.

The two quoted from Father Boyle's last Mass, which they said was "fittingly televised on Labor Day Sunday": "The labor market climate in almost all sectors continues to deteriorate; the gap between work and manager, between rich and poor, threatens the very moral foundation of society," Father Boyle said.

True to his humility, Father Boyle asked that he not be eulogized. Years ago, when he faced heart bypass surgery, he had penned a statement to be read at his funeral.  "I simply want to say thank you, not only to the Lord who rescued me in 1958 while I was working in New York City, but to all of you who loved and supported me in so many, many ways - some of which I suspect I was so insensitive as to not even notice - these many years," he wrote. "My life in the priesthood was so full of blessings; so too in the Society of Jesus, and in the ministry of the Labor Guild. I ask your forgiveness for any and all wounds I may have inflicted, and I pray that God will bless each of you with an ever growing sense of His attending presence and peace til he calls you into the mystery of everlasting life."

In addition to his brother, Father Boyle leaves three sisters, Suzanne Doherty of Medford and Marylee Pelosky and Patricia Coughlan of Dennis; and another brother, Gerard of Woburn.  A funeral Mass will be said today at 10:30 a.m. in St. Angela Merici Church in Mattapan. Burial will be in the cemetery at the Jesuit community's Campion Renewal Center in Weston