Catholic social activism in the United States
Encyclopedia
Catholic social activism in the United States is the practical application of the notions of Catholic social teaching
into American public life. Its roots can be traced to the 19th century encyclical Rerum Novarum
of Pope Leo XIII.
The Knights of Labor
was the earliest labor organization in the United States, and in the 1880s, the was the largest labor union in the United States. and it is estimated that at least half its membership was Catholic (including Terence Powderly, its president from 1881 onward).
(1891), Leo criticized the concentration of wealth and power, spoke out against the abuses that workers faced and demanded that workers should be granted certain rights and safety regulations.
He upheld the right of voluntary association, specifically commending labor unions. At the same time, he reiterated the Church’s defense of private property, condemned socialism, and emphasized the need for Catholics to form and join unions that were not compromised by secular and revolutionary ideologies.
Rerum Novarum provided new impetus for Catholics to become active in the labor movement, even if its exhortation to form specifically Catholic labor unions was widely interpreted as irrelevant to the pluralist context of the United States. While atheism underpinned many European unions and stimulated Catholic unionists to form separate labor federations, the religious neutrality of unions in the U.S. provided no such impetus. American Catholics seldom dominated unions, but they exerted influence across organized labor. Catholic union members and leaders played important roles in steering American unions away from socialism.
Fr. Edward McGlynn
's work first in St. Stephen's Parish in New York and his later alliance and support of and activity with Henry George
and the land value taxation for social justice movement.
The onset of industrial organizing in the 1930s, particularly with the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) led to a renewed activism by Catholics in the labor movement. Catholics such as Phillip Murray and Jim Carey led CIO unions. Over one hundred "Catholic Labor Schools" were founded by the Catholic Church to teach workers both Catholic social principles and the "meat and potatoes" of union organizing, contract negotiation, grievance handling, and union administration. The most famous of these schools are the Boston Labor Guild and New York's Xavier Labor School.
The Catholic Church's teaching in support of labor unions is not just something of the past. The Church teaches that in today's situation, union are an "indispensible" part of a just social order.
The Program received a mixed reception both within the Church and outside it. The National Catholic War Council was a voluntary organization with no canonical status. Its ability to speak authoritatively was thus questioned. Many bishops threw their support behind the Program, but some, like Bishop William Turner of Buffalo, and more notably, William Henry O'Connell of Boston, opposed it. O'Connell believed some aspects of the plan smacked too much of socialism. Response outside the Church was also divided: labor organizations backing it, for example, and business groups criticizing it.
Historian John McGreevey notes: "Priests across the country in the 1930s encouraging their parishioners to join unions, and some like Pittsburgh's Charles Rice
, Detroit's Frederick Siedenberg, and Buffalo's
Monsignor John P.Boland
, served on regional labor boards and played key roles in workplace negotiations."
The Catholic Worker Movement
and Dorothy Day
grew out of the same impetuses to put Catholic social teaching into action.
created in part as an outgrowth of the work of Msgr. Geno Baroni, who founded the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs (NCUEA). NCUEA spawned, funded and trained hundreds of parish, neighborhood and community based organizations, organizers, credit unions, and local programs. Baroni's Catholic social justice in action included notable proteges, Rep. Marcy Kaptur
, D-OH, currently the longest serving woman in Congress and Sen. Barbara Mikulski
, D-MD. President
Barack Obama's
first community organizing project was funded by the Campaign for Human Development.
and Peter Maurin
, founded a new Catholic peace group, the Catholic Worker
that would embody their ideals of pacifism, commitment to the poor and to fundamental change in American society.
). The Catholic hierarchy was almost universally opposed to the Burke-Wadsworth Act conscription bill of 1940. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Catholic opposition to the war and the draft evaporated. Catholics, like most Americans, became fervent supporters of the war, both out of patriotic duty and from a sense of the justness of the struggle.
, and individuals, including Dorothy Day
, Robert Ludlow, Ammon Hennacy
, and Thomas Merton
. By the late 1950s, however, these small beginnings began to bear fruit in a more widespread religious peace movement that then blossomed during the Vietnam War. The impetus of the war and the reform impulse of Vatican II created a new Catholic peace movement that included the Catholic Worker, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the Daniel Berrigan
, Philip Berrigan
, Elizabeth McAlister and the Catonsville Nine
.
After the war activities were carried on by such individuals as Joseph Fahey and Eileen Egan
who were instrumental in the creation of Pax Christi
and continuing Catholic peace efforts into the 20th century. Other Catholic peacemakers have included Cesar Chavez
, the Sanctuary movement
, and Witness for Peace
.
." Catholic teaching accepts the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime, and that the state may take appropriate measures to protect itself and its citizens from grave harm, nevertheless, the question for judgment and decision today is whether capital punishment is justifiable under present circumstances. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
(no. 2267) states: "If...non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person".
and the Catholic community of the United States, Catholic Relief Services
draws upon a rich tradition of Scripture and Catholic social teaching, which serve as the foundation for CRS' Guiding Principles. Acting as a guide to what a just world might look like, these Principles are shared across religious and cultural boundaries and articulate values that are common among people who seek to promote and work towards true justice and lasting peace. See also Catholic Relief Services Guiding Principles.
describes the mid-70s as a demarcation between the “old" Catholic social activist and the “new" Catholic social activist or the “pre-Berrigan” and “post-Berrigan” approaches to activism. Both traditions appear to co-exist, today. In “Catholic Social Activism – Real or Rad/Chic
?”, Greeley saw the old social justice action in labor schools, labor priest, and community organizing that “mastered the politics of coalition building with the system.” Leading figures in that “old” tradition for Greeley were Ryan, Higgins, Egan and Baroni. On the other hand, the “new” Catholic action came out of the Berrigan experience and the peace movement and was heavily involved in confrontation and protest. The "new" tradition's lack of tangible success in comparison to the "old" tradition, Greeley scathingly predicted:
Catholic social teaching
Catholic social teaching is a body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state...
into American public life. Its roots can be traced to the 19th century encyclical Rerum Novarum
Rerum Novarum
Rerum Novarum is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on May 15, 1891. It was an open letter, passed to all Catholic bishops, that addressed the condition of the working classes. The encyclical is entitled: “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour”...
of Pope Leo XIII.
Labor union movement
The Catholic Church exercised a prominent role in shaping America's labor movement. From the onset of significant immigration in the 1840s, the Church in the United States was predominantly urban, with both its leaders and congregants usually of the laboring classes. Over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, nativism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-unionism coalesced in Republican politics, and Catholics gravitated toward unions and the Democratic Party.The Knights of Labor
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
was the earliest labor organization in the United States, and in the 1880s, the was the largest labor union in the United States. and it is estimated that at least half its membership was Catholic (including Terence Powderly, its president from 1881 onward).
Effects of Rerum Novarum
This was the context in which Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical letter that articulated the teaching of the Church with a view to the “new things” of the modern world. In Rerum NovarumRerum Novarum
Rerum Novarum is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on May 15, 1891. It was an open letter, passed to all Catholic bishops, that addressed the condition of the working classes. The encyclical is entitled: “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour”...
(1891), Leo criticized the concentration of wealth and power, spoke out against the abuses that workers faced and demanded that workers should be granted certain rights and safety regulations.
He upheld the right of voluntary association, specifically commending labor unions. At the same time, he reiterated the Church’s defense of private property, condemned socialism, and emphasized the need for Catholics to form and join unions that were not compromised by secular and revolutionary ideologies.
Rerum Novarum provided new impetus for Catholics to become active in the labor movement, even if its exhortation to form specifically Catholic labor unions was widely interpreted as irrelevant to the pluralist context of the United States. While atheism underpinned many European unions and stimulated Catholic unionists to form separate labor federations, the religious neutrality of unions in the U.S. provided no such impetus. American Catholics seldom dominated unions, but they exerted influence across organized labor. Catholic union members and leaders played important roles in steering American unions away from socialism.
Fr. Edward McGlynn
Edward McGlynn
Father Edward McGlynn , American Roman Catholic priest and social reformer, was born in New York City of Irish parents, Peter and Sarah McGlynn. His parents had immigrated in 1824, and his father became a contractor, acquiring a small fortune before dying in 1847, leaving a widow and ten children...
's work first in St. Stephen's Parish in New York and his later alliance and support of and activity with Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
and the land value taxation for social justice movement.
The onset of industrial organizing in the 1930s, particularly with the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) led to a renewed activism by Catholics in the labor movement. Catholics such as Phillip Murray and Jim Carey led CIO unions. Over one hundred "Catholic Labor Schools" were founded by the Catholic Church to teach workers both Catholic social principles and the "meat and potatoes" of union organizing, contract negotiation, grievance handling, and union administration. The most famous of these schools are the Boston Labor Guild and New York's Xavier Labor School.
The Catholic Church's teaching in support of labor unions is not just something of the past. The Church teaches that in today's situation, union are an "indispensible" part of a just social order.
National Catholic War Council
Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction
On February 12, 1919, the National Catholic War Council issued the "Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction," through a carefully planned public relations campaign. The plan offered a guide for overhauling America's politics, society, and economy based on Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and a variety of American influences.The Program received a mixed reception both within the Church and outside it. The National Catholic War Council was a voluntary organization with no canonical status. Its ability to speak authoritatively was thus questioned. Many bishops threw their support behind the Program, but some, like Bishop William Turner of Buffalo, and more notably, William Henry O'Connell of Boston, opposed it. O'Connell believed some aspects of the plan smacked too much of socialism. Response outside the Church was also divided: labor organizations backing it, for example, and business groups criticizing it.
Historian John McGreevey notes: "Priests across the country in the 1930s encouraging their parishioners to join unions, and some like Pittsburgh's Charles Rice
Charles Owen Rice
Monsignor Charles Owen Rice was a Roman Catholic priest and an American labor activist.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA to Irish immigrants...
, Detroit's Frederick Siedenberg, and Buffalo's
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
Monsignor John P.Boland
John P. Boland (labor priest)
Monsignor John P. Boland was a Roman Catholic priest in Buffalo, New York involved in unionization and other social justice issues.-Labor Relations:...
, served on regional labor boards and played key roles in workplace negotiations."
The Catholic Worker Movement
Catholic Worker Movement
The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ." One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on...
and Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
grew out of the same impetuses to put Catholic social teaching into action.
National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs
More recent examples of catholic social justice in action is the Catholic Campaign for Human DevelopmentCatholic Campaign for Human Development
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is the domestic antipoverty and social justice program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ....
created in part as an outgrowth of the work of Msgr. Geno Baroni, who founded the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs (NCUEA). NCUEA spawned, funded and trained hundreds of parish, neighborhood and community based organizations, organizers, credit unions, and local programs. Baroni's Catholic social justice in action included notable proteges, Rep. Marcy Kaptur
Marcy Kaptur
Marcia Carolyn "Marcy" Kaptur is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1983. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, anchored by the city of Toledo, includes all of Ottawa and Erie counties, and part of Lucas and Lorain counties.Serving her fourteenth term in the House of...
, D-OH, currently the longest serving woman in Congress and Sen. Barbara Mikulski
Barbara Mikulski
Barbara Ann Mikulski is the senior United States Senator from Maryland and a member of the Democratic Party. Mikulski, a former U.S. Representative, is the longest-serving female senator in U.S...
, D-MD. President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Barack Obama's
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
first community organizing project was funded by the Campaign for Human Development.
Catholic worker movement
With the twentieth century and World War I, American Catholics began to emerge from their isolation. The immigrant church, in fact, began to go out of its way to assert its Americanness and ultra-loyalty. There was little Catholic protest against World War I. In May 1933 in New York City two American Catholics, Dorothy DayDorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
and Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin
Peter Maurin was a Roman Catholic social activist who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.Maurin expressed his ideas through short pieces of verse that became known as - Biography :...
, founded a new Catholic peace group, the Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...
that would embody their ideals of pacifism, commitment to the poor and to fundamental change in American society.
Opposition to World War II
By 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, 97% of all Catholics polled opposed U.S. entry into World War II, far greater than the percentage of any Protestant denomination. Opposition to war, including pacifism, had a respectable and widespread appeal among American Catholics. This opposition took several forms, including the internationalist approach of CAIP (Catholic Association for International PeaceCatholic Association for International Peace
The Catholic Association for International Peace was founded in 1927 by John A. Ryan. It based its opposition to war on the traditional just war doctrine.-Opposition to the Vietnam War :...
). The Catholic hierarchy was almost universally opposed to the Burke-Wadsworth Act conscription bill of 1940. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Catholic opposition to the war and the draft evaporated. Catholics, like most Americans, became fervent supporters of the war, both out of patriotic duty and from a sense of the justness of the struggle.
Post World War II
After the war Catholic peacemaking narrowed down to a very few institutions, including the Catholic WorkerCatholic Worker
The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...
, and individuals, including Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
, Robert Ludlow, Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Ashford Hennacy was an Irish American pacifist, Christian anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly...
, and Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
. By the late 1950s, however, these small beginnings began to bear fruit in a more widespread religious peace movement that then blossomed during the Vietnam War. The impetus of the war and the reform impulse of Vatican II created a new Catholic peace movement that included the Catholic Worker, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan, SJ is an American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet. Daniel and his brother Philip were for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for their involvement in antiwar protests during the Vietnam war....
, Philip Berrigan
Philip Berrigan
Philip Francis Berrigan was an internationally renowned American peace activist, Christian anarchist and former Roman Catholic priest...
, Elizabeth McAlister and the Catonsville Nine
Catonsville Nine
The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured homemade napalm over them, and...
.
After the war activities were carried on by such individuals as Joseph Fahey and Eileen Egan
Eileen Egan
Eileen Egan was a journalist, Roman Catholic pacifist and activist, and co-founder of the Catholic peace group, American PAX Association and its successor Pax Christi-USA, the American branch of International Pax Christi...
who were instrumental in the creation of Pax Christi
Pax Christi
-History:Pax Christi was established in France in 1945 as a reconciliation work between the French and the Germans after the Second World War. In 2007, it existed in more than 60 countries...
and continuing Catholic peace efforts into the 20th century. Other Catholic peacemakers have included Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
, the Sanctuary movement
Sanctuary movement
The Sanctuary Movement was a religious and political campaign that began in the early 1980s to provide safe-haven for Central American refugees fleeing civil conflict...
, and Witness for Peace
Witness for Peace
Witness for Peace is an United States-based activist organization founded in 1983 that opposed the Reagan administration's support of the Nicaraguan Contras, alleging widespread atrocities by these counterrevolutionary groups. Witness for Peace brought U.S. citizens to Nicaragua to see the effects...
.
Opposition to capital punishment
The U.S. Catholic Bishops' Statement on Capital Punishment of 1974, declared a commitment to the value and dignity of human life. Bishop John May, of Mobile, Alabama, proposed a brief resolution which said simply: "The U.S. Catholic Conference goes on record in opposition to capital punishmentCapital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
." Catholic teaching accepts the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime, and that the state may take appropriate measures to protect itself and its citizens from grave harm, nevertheless, the question for judgment and decision today is whether capital punishment is justifiable under present circumstances. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official text of the teachings of the Catholic Church. A provisional, "reference text" was issued by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1992 — "the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council" — with his apostolic...
(no. 2267) states: "If...non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person".
Catholic Relief Services
As the international humanitarian agency of the United States Conference of Catholic BishopsUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops and United States Catholic Conference, it is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic...
and the Catholic community of the United States, Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the U.S. bishops, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 90 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and...
draws upon a rich tradition of Scripture and Catholic social teaching, which serve as the foundation for CRS' Guiding Principles. Acting as a guide to what a just world might look like, these Principles are shared across religious and cultural boundaries and articulate values that are common among people who seek to promote and work towards true justice and lasting peace. See also Catholic Relief Services Guiding Principles.
"New" Catholic social activisim
Andrew GreeleyAndrew Greeley
Father Andrew M. Greeley is an Irish-American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and fiction writer....
describes the mid-70s as a demarcation between the “old" Catholic social activist and the “new" Catholic social activist or the “pre-Berrigan” and “post-Berrigan” approaches to activism. Both traditions appear to co-exist, today. In “Catholic Social Activism – Real or Rad/Chic
Radical chic
Radical chic is a term coined by journalist Tom Wolfe in his 1970 essay "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's," to describe the adoption and promotion of radical political causes by celebrities, socialites, and high society...
?”, Greeley saw the old social justice action in labor schools, labor priest, and community organizing that “mastered the politics of coalition building with the system.” Leading figures in that “old” tradition for Greeley were Ryan, Higgins, Egan and Baroni. On the other hand, the “new” Catholic action came out of the Berrigan experience and the peace movement and was heavily involved in confrontation and protest. The "new" tradition's lack of tangible success in comparison to the "old" tradition, Greeley scathingly predicted:
"The old social actionists are largely men of action, doers, not talkers. The new social actionists are intellectuals...They are masters at manipulating words and sometimes ideas...They are fervent crusaders. [But] winning strikes, forming unions, organizing communities are not their 'things', they are much more concerned about creating world economic justice."