It was a relief to take off for San Francisco to visit our daughter and her family for a few days. We were worn out in our efforts as volunteers in the struggle at the immigrant worker’s center, Voces de la Frontera, trying to stop the Milwaukee County Sheriff from turning over undocumented non-criminal workers to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when they land in jail for minor infractions. Also, three friends, who were involved in the movement for social justice, had recently died. All three traced their activism to a sense of Catholic Social Justice. Death is part of life, but one of our friends died tragically with devastating implications for his family and the Latino community in Milwaukee.
Dori & John took us on a visit to the Napa Valley Cohn Winery for some sun, relaxation and wine. At the wine tasting, with bread sticks, I asked the bartender attendant about the workers who pick the grapes. Are they migrants? Are they documented? Are they members of the National Farm Workers Union? “I don’t know,” was the answer. “That work is contracted out; I’m sure they’re nice people,” he conceded. “Do you have Kosher wine?” “We sell it but it is not produced here.” Remembering Postville, IA and the I.C.E. raid on the Kosher meat packing plant, I wondered whether Rabbis had been successful to include just wages and safe working conditions for workers as a requirement for the designation of “Kosher.” Then I thought of Gustavo Gomez, a friend who was deported a couple of years ago and was recently killed in an auto accident in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Despite the wine and bread sticks I felt angry. It seems to me that they don’t offer the “work of human hands” in Roman Catholic liturgies; they offer the workers themselves to false gods. I can still see the distorted death face of Gustavo in the casket and my whole being screams silently in horror.
What happened?
In the spring of 1999 we were organizing our annual Labor in the Pulpits program and Deacon Julio Lopez of St. Rose-St. Michael congregations promised to bring Gus Gomez to our meeting. The new comer was introduced as Gustavo Gomez, an Iron Worker and member of the Union. He was also studying for the deaconate. Gustavo agreed to do homilies in English and Spanish at two masses. Their pastor, Father Dennis, was cooperative and helpful in many ways.
I got to know Gustavo and found out he was a grandfather and that his mother Josefina was one of my wife Joanne’s students at the local technical college. Josefina was in Joanne’s bi-lingual math class for dislocated workers. Master Lock “in the race to the bottom” had moved to a low wage area and Josefina lost her job. In mid-July I called Gustavo to ask him how his preparation for Labor in the Pulpits was going. “Bill” he said, “I can’t do it.” He was working at the Miller Park construction site when the gigantic crane, “Big Blue,” toppled over killing three workers – all good friends of Gustavo. The crane accident was avoidable. Gustavo said that wind conditions were prohibitive for sending workers up in a crane to do welding, but Major League Baseball wanted the stadium ready for the next year’s midsummer All Star Game.
Gustavo’s wife Rose is Native American and one of the workers killed in the accident was Native American and a close friend of Rose and Gustavo. That year a relative of one of the sacrificed workers did Labor in the Pulpits at the Native American Roman Catholic Church.
The next I heard about Gustavo was that he was in prison. After the accident he started drinking and made a bad decision allowing arms to be stored in his house. The police got wind of it, raided the house and found the arms. Gustavo pleaded guilty to storing the arms and was sent to prison.
After serving his time Gustavo was transferred to an I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention center for deportation. The 1996 immigration law stated that non citizens with a felony were subject to deportation. Gustavo had a green card – legal resident status, but was not a citizen. Josefina brought Gustavo to the U.S. from Mexico when he was five years old. Although he had grown up in the U.S. and was now a grandfather, he was subject to deportation. Gustavo’s family, the Faith Community for Worker Justice, the Iron Workers, priests and a Bishop advocated for Gustavo’s release and exemption from deportation. Former District Attorney E. Michael McCann was able to get the arms conviction vacated, but a felony conviction when he was nineteen years old remained. I.C.E. let Gustavo out of prison, but he had to report once a month while his case was appealed.
The concern was not only for Gustavo but also for his family. He had a wife, two children and a grandchild at home, three married daughters with children, and three sisters. One of his sisters was a widow with two young children. Her husband, a sheriff’s deputy, had committed suicide. Gustavo was also devoted to his mother Josefina. He provided emotional and financial support to a large extended family. Gustavo was the bond that kept the family together.
Two years ago, when reporting to the I.C.E. in Milwaukee, Gustavo was taken into custody without judicial process. He was sent to a detention center in Dodge County, WI and then deported to Mexico in chains. He arrived at the airport in Ciudad Juarez with the clothes on his back and $40.00. They released him from the chains. Josefina sent him money to travel to Guadalajara where she had relatives. Gustavo had helped Josefina purchase a small four-family apartment complex in Guadalajara as an investment and possible retirement home for her. Now it was a refuge where he could stay.
Joanne and I visited Gustavo in Guadalajara. His spirits were down; it was obvious that he missed his family. Iron Workers are very skilled, but Gustavo couldn’t secure a permanent job. He did do occasional construction work and taught some classes in Tai Chi. His mother, Josefina, in her 70’s, got a job cleaning an office building to help support him.
Gustavo’s family in the U.S. faced severe problems without Gustavo. A hardship visa was suggested as a way to get him back. The paper work was never completed.
A few weeks ago I received an early morning phone call from Guillermo, Gustavo’s brother-in- law. The shocking news was that Gustavo had been killed in an auto accident in Guadalajara. Guillermo’s 18 year old son was with Gustavo and was seriously injured. Josefina and Gloria who is Gustavo’s sister, Guillermo’s wife and mother of the young Gugi (Gustavo Guillermo) who was injured, had left for Mexico. Gugi insisted that his uncle was alive. He said he saw him get out of the car and was singing joyfully under a nearby tree. The police said Gustavo was killed immediately and the body had to be pried out of the smashed car. Two other young men were also in the car and were injured but not seriously. A gold chain was stolen from one of them by the medical personnel or the police.
Mexican and U.S. authorities allowed the body to be sent to the U.S. for a funeral and burial. There was also a funeral service in Guadalajara. The cost of sending the body back to the U.S. and the medical expenses amounted to $13,000 in U.S. currency. Family members in the U.S. and Mexico contributed to defray the cost for Josefina and Gustavo’s wife Rose. It’s more than somewhat ironic that I.C.E. allowed Gustavo’s dead body to return home.
Josefina asked me to call some labor people and some of those with the Faith Community for Worker Justice. The phone call to the Iron Workers was initially received with stunned silence, then the comment, “I worked with Gus; he was a good guy; a terrible thing has happened.” They sent flowers.
The wake was on a very warm evening in a packed funeral home with no air conditioning. Former D.A. E. Michael McCann paid his respects. Josefina was devastated as were Gustavo’s kids. Rose, Gustavo’s wife was numbed with grief. Joanne and I escaped the crowd, the grief and the stifling heat before the praying of the rosary.
The funeral liturgy The funeral was at St. Rose Parish, a former Irish immigrant church now Latino. A large very quiet group filled the Church. Mass was said by Father Dennis and assisted, or you could say “con-celebrated,” by two other priests. Father Dennis, a friend of the family, preached the homily. Dennis was visibly shaken; he said that he thought things were pretty bad and couldn’t be worse, but now he knows it can get worse. That’s why he chose the story of the crucifixion from Mathew for the Gospel reading. The image of the dead, battered and bloody handyman on the cross did it. We knew what he was talking about. But what’s the response? Dennis said the response is faith in Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead and so did Gustavo. Sadly, nothing was said about fighting the immigration law that is destroying families.
This was good enough for Josefina. She will continue with us in the New Sanctuary movement as a member of the “Comité Timón” (New Sanctuary Steering Committee) and “Círculo de Apoyo” (New Sanctuary Support Group). But the Resurrection theology was comforting. She wrote for the funeral:
“I entrust my son to God. I give God thanks for having lent Gustavo to me and to the family. Share with each other the joy of bidding Gustavo farewell. He is happy to be here in this Church surrounded by all of us who loved him. He has gone on with Someone who loves us more than anyone else in this world, Our Lord, who received Gustavo with open arms to give him eternal life. He now rests in the Lord’s arms.”
Josefina’s statement was not shared by word or print at the funeral mass.
But it was not finished; Gustavo’s sister asked us to go to the cemetery with them. A sorrowful and strained Father Dennis read the prayers at the grave. Gustavo’s grandson, five year old Jason, competed with a continuing litany, “no – no – grampa, - don’t do that to him.” Native American relatives provided somber drumming. The casket was lowered into the grave. Jason’s litany became more intense. The Native Americans invited us to sprinkle tobacco on the casket. Some simply dropped soil into the grave. And we still weren’t finished: a dump truck loaded with dirt backed up to the grave. As the truck dumped dirt and covered the grave, Jason continued, now screaming, “no – no – grampa – grampa.”
Jason’s father had been murdered the year before in a drive–by shooting.
A month after Gustavo’s funeral, the 18 year old Gugi was accompanied back to the U.S. by his mom and Josefina. He has a scholarship to a top engineering school, but won’t be able to attend this semester.
Gustavo’s tragic death and the suffering of his family place a severe strain on Faith. Is it really going to be O.K.? And belief; do our myths and rituals serve to explain and inspire? Also, where does Catholic Social Teaching fit? Does it fail as badly as the myths and rituals – is there a difference?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
LABOR DAY 2010
The lack of substantial articles in the National Catholic Reporter concerning Labor Day this year stirred me up to get back to my blog.
The blog started last year after my month-long researched Labor Day article was rejected by the National Catholic Reporter. Editor Tom Fox asked me to do the article, but it was rejected because they said I was too close to the entities I was discussing. N.C.R. wanted journalistic objectivity which of course doesn’t really exist. No compensation was offered for my work. The work included many long distance phone calls, fascinating personal interviews with Catholic officials in San Francisco, a phone interview with one of the last of the “labor priests” in Pennsylvania, and being immersed in a controversy and resolution of the controversy between the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and the Milwaukee Immigrant Workers Center, Voces de la Frontera.
After the article was rejected and just before Labor Day 2009, Joanne and I traveled to London to visit our son, daughter-in-law, and one year old grandson. I was angry about the article being rejected, but taking care of our grandson Sean submerged my anger. I did discuss the article and rejection with my son Joel. He suggested putting the article on a blog and doing some writing on “Catholic Social Teaching.” I followed his advice and I have a blog. Not many read the blog, but it is a great outlet and I’ve learned a lot doing it.
Looking back I feel I shouldn’t have been so shocked at the N.C.R. rejecting my article. After all, what commitment does the N.C.R. have to Catholic Social teaching? I suspect the answer is NONE! Granted, with arguments based on Catholic Social Teaching, N.C.R. held Briggs & Stratton C.E.O. and professional R.C. John Shiely’s feet to the fire for moving thousands of jobs from Milwaukee in 1994. I promoted the article. Briggs responded with a ridiculous $30 million liable suit which was thrown out as soon as it went to court. Does the Briggs’ lawsuit mark the beginning of the quest for “objective journalism” by N.C.R.? If so, the law suit was not ridiculous – Briggs won!
Let us fast forward to Labor Day 2010. Harley Davidson, iconic Milwaukee manufacturer of motorcycles, blackmailed workers into accepting massive concessions. There were no complaints from the N.C.R. Late this summer Catholic Social teaching was cited as the reason for Marquette University reneging on a contract with a lesbian who was hired as a social studies Dean. Such bizarre reasoning could only be described as Orwellian. There was no challenge from N.C.R.
Catholic Social Teaching as once defined is gone. As I hope to show, the original Encyclical, Rerum Novarum presented by Leo XIII, had developed into a coherent rationale for social change. Some called it the Roman Catholic Church’s best kept secret, but now it is a deliberately suppressed secret.
The blog started last year after my month-long researched Labor Day article was rejected by the National Catholic Reporter. Editor Tom Fox asked me to do the article, but it was rejected because they said I was too close to the entities I was discussing. N.C.R. wanted journalistic objectivity which of course doesn’t really exist. No compensation was offered for my work. The work included many long distance phone calls, fascinating personal interviews with Catholic officials in San Francisco, a phone interview with one of the last of the “labor priests” in Pennsylvania, and being immersed in a controversy and resolution of the controversy between the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and the Milwaukee Immigrant Workers Center, Voces de la Frontera.
After the article was rejected and just before Labor Day 2009, Joanne and I traveled to London to visit our son, daughter-in-law, and one year old grandson. I was angry about the article being rejected, but taking care of our grandson Sean submerged my anger. I did discuss the article and rejection with my son Joel. He suggested putting the article on a blog and doing some writing on “Catholic Social Teaching.” I followed his advice and I have a blog. Not many read the blog, but it is a great outlet and I’ve learned a lot doing it.
Looking back I feel I shouldn’t have been so shocked at the N.C.R. rejecting my article. After all, what commitment does the N.C.R. have to Catholic Social teaching? I suspect the answer is NONE! Granted, with arguments based on Catholic Social Teaching, N.C.R. held Briggs & Stratton C.E.O. and professional R.C. John Shiely’s feet to the fire for moving thousands of jobs from Milwaukee in 1994. I promoted the article. Briggs responded with a ridiculous $30 million liable suit which was thrown out as soon as it went to court. Does the Briggs’ lawsuit mark the beginning of the quest for “objective journalism” by N.C.R.? If so, the law suit was not ridiculous – Briggs won!
Let us fast forward to Labor Day 2010. Harley Davidson, iconic Milwaukee manufacturer of motorcycles, blackmailed workers into accepting massive concessions. There were no complaints from the N.C.R. Late this summer Catholic Social teaching was cited as the reason for Marquette University reneging on a contract with a lesbian who was hired as a social studies Dean. Such bizarre reasoning could only be described as Orwellian. There was no challenge from N.C.R.
Catholic Social Teaching as once defined is gone. As I hope to show, the original Encyclical, Rerum Novarum presented by Leo XIII, had developed into a coherent rationale for social change. Some called it the Roman Catholic Church’s best kept secret, but now it is a deliberately suppressed secret.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
TOWARDS QUADRAGESIMO ANNO II
In preparation for considering Quadragesimo Anno and the search for the third way, we should ask if the third way pointed to by the encyclicals was fascism. What is the evidence? What is fascism? How about anti-Jewish rhetoric in the New Testament, support for Salazar in Portugal, Franco in Spain, Dollfuss in Austria, the Cristeros in Mexico, the Ustashi in Yugoslavia, and concordats with Hitler and Mussolini? You won’t find solid answers in this blog, but the question needs to be raised and researched.
But how did the U.S. Roman Catholic Church react to Rerum Novarum? Capitalism is not based on the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, but the U.S. is identified as a capitalist nation at home and abroad.
Father Coughlin saw no problem with anti-Judaism or complete control of labor (the economy) by the government. But the bishops and major commentators such as John Ryan thought the U.S. capitalist system could be reformed. As mentioned above, the U.S. capitalists considered the reforms as socialism.
Let us jump ahead to 1958 for a rationale for the reform platform. A flat out rejection of capitalism might have meant a financial disaster for the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. For Harvard Ph. D. and Marquette University economics professor Bernard Dempsey, S.J., it was a matter of definition. The U.S. economic system needed only to be adjusted to move it toward justice for all. Dempsey reasoned that “…cutting the jugular of the fictional dragon, capitalism,…” was not the answer to form a just society. Dempsey thought the current use of the word “capitalism” was a Marxist fantasy and a rhetorical tool. The Functional Economy, p. 162, Prentice Hall, 1958. Note that Dempsey’s book was written after Mussolini and Hitler gave fascism a bad name.
However, Dorothy Day of the U.S. Catholic Worker Movement denounced the capitalism as “a dirty rotten system.” As mentioned before Dorothy Day was a distributist along with English Catholic writers such as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Vincent McNabb, O.P. Belloc defined capitalism:
“I use the term ‘Capitalism’ here to mean a state of society in which a minority controls the means of production, leaving the mass of citizens dispossessed. Such a dispossessed body of citizens is called a ‘Proletariat.’” An Essay On The Restoration of Property, IHS Press, 2002, p. 29. First published, 1936.
The third way for the distributists was not fascism. Belloc understood the two fundamental encyclicals of Roman Catholic teaching (Rerum Novarum and Quadregesima Anno) as pointing to a system with a fair distribution of power and property. He wrote:
“There is a third form of society, and it is the only one in which sufficiency and security can be combined with freedom, and that form is a society in which property is well distributed and so large a proportion of the families in the State severally OWN and therefore control the means of production as to determine the general tone of society; making it neither Capitalist nor Communist, but Proprietary.” Ibid. Restoration of Property, p. 29
Was the Roman Catholic Church looking for a monolithic society, guided morally and infallibly by the Vatican? Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. wrote in 1990:
“My concern is that the further we move away in history from Vatican II, the more some people begin to interpret unity as uniformity. They seem to want to go back to the monolithic church which must form a bulwark on the one hand against communism and on the other hand against the Western liberal consumer society.” N.C.R. Jan. 8, 2010
In 1894, three years after Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII wrote the encyclical, Longinqua Oceani, which was critical of U.S. law separating church and state:
“… it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be as in America, dissevered and divorced.” Op.cit. American Catholic History, Ellis, p. 517
The Encyclical was also critical of U.S. organized labor during the depression of the 1890’s. The Homestead Steel strike in 1892 and the Pullman strike in 1894 are significant events in U.S. labor history. “These two outbreaks differed from the uprising of railway workers in 1877. (Federal troops called out in 13 states) because they were strikes by powerful unions rather than spontaneous expressions of revolt, but they were marked by almost comparable violence and bloodshed.” Labor in America, Foster Rhea Dulles, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1966, p. 166.
In the 1894 Encyclical, Longinqua Oceani, Leo XIII also reiterated that workers had the right to organize, but questioned Roman Catholic workers belonging to organizations that included non- Catholics. He saw the violence of the strikes as a failure to follow the principles of Rerum Novarum. “Nay, rather, unless forced by necessity to do otherwise, Catholics ought to prefer to associate with Catholics, a course which will be very conducive to the safeguarding of their faith.” Op. Cit. American Catholic History, p. 524.
U.S. Bishops’ Pastoral on the Economy of 1919: is this a response? Separation of Church and State – a freedom of conscience issue: “With great wisdom our American Constitution provides that every citizen shall be free to follow the dictates of his conscience in matter of religious beliefs and observance.” The Pastoral reminds Rome of the financial generosity of American Catholics, for war-ravaged Europe. The Pastoral brags, “We entered the war (WW 1) with the highest of objectives, proclaiming at every step we battled for the right and pointing to our country as a model for the world’s imitation.” The Pastoral reaffirmed worker’s right to organize but did not mention a right to strike. Concern was expressed that management and labor neglected the public welfare when there were strikes. No insistence or suggestion that Catholics join Catholic labor unions was presented.
It’s a moral question, not a problem in physics where numbers and charts give the answers. The Pastoral quotes Leo XIII. “It is the opinion of some, and the error is already very common, that the social question is merely an economic one, where in point of fact, it is first of all a moral and religious matter, and for that reason its settlement is to be sought mainly in the moral law and the pronouncements of religion.” Apostolic Letter, Graves de Communi, January 18, 1901.
The 1919 U.S. Bishop’s Pastoral expresses concern for immigrants. “There is much to be done in behalf of those who, like our forefathers, come from other countries to find a home in America. …But what they chiefly need is that Christian sympathy which considers in them the possibilities for good rather than the present defects, and instead of looking on them with distrust, extends to them the hand of charity.”
Difficult to imagine but true:
Pablo, age 16, was with two friends on Milwaukee’ main thoroughfare when he was stopped by the police and given an $80.00 ticket for underage smoking. The police searched his back pack and found a full package of cigarettes. He didn’t tell his mother until the day before his court date. His mom called Voces de la Frontera because she was at a loss as to what to do. Lawyers were consulted and the consensus was to pay the ticket, but to first contact the City Attorney’s office. There was the possibility that if the ticket would be contested, both mom and Pablo would be deported. (Pablo’s father was deported about two years ago.) The City Attorney was called in the name of Voces de la Frontera. The office secretary suggested that Pablo come in and pay the fine. Pablo and his mom went to the Municipal Court where he was informed that the police did not want to press charges. Pablo and his mom were given a document stating that no court action would be taken. Pablo’s mom lost a day of work at her low wage job: a fast food restaurant. By the way, have you read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America?
But how did the U.S. Roman Catholic Church react to Rerum Novarum? Capitalism is not based on the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, but the U.S. is identified as a capitalist nation at home and abroad.
Father Coughlin saw no problem with anti-Judaism or complete control of labor (the economy) by the government. But the bishops and major commentators such as John Ryan thought the U.S. capitalist system could be reformed. As mentioned above, the U.S. capitalists considered the reforms as socialism.
Let us jump ahead to 1958 for a rationale for the reform platform. A flat out rejection of capitalism might have meant a financial disaster for the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. For Harvard Ph. D. and Marquette University economics professor Bernard Dempsey, S.J., it was a matter of definition. The U.S. economic system needed only to be adjusted to move it toward justice for all. Dempsey reasoned that “…cutting the jugular of the fictional dragon, capitalism,…” was not the answer to form a just society. Dempsey thought the current use of the word “capitalism” was a Marxist fantasy and a rhetorical tool. The Functional Economy, p. 162, Prentice Hall, 1958. Note that Dempsey’s book was written after Mussolini and Hitler gave fascism a bad name.
However, Dorothy Day of the U.S. Catholic Worker Movement denounced the capitalism as “a dirty rotten system.” As mentioned before Dorothy Day was a distributist along with English Catholic writers such as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Vincent McNabb, O.P. Belloc defined capitalism:
“I use the term ‘Capitalism’ here to mean a state of society in which a minority controls the means of production, leaving the mass of citizens dispossessed. Such a dispossessed body of citizens is called a ‘Proletariat.’” An Essay On The Restoration of Property, IHS Press, 2002, p. 29. First published, 1936.
The third way for the distributists was not fascism. Belloc understood the two fundamental encyclicals of Roman Catholic teaching (Rerum Novarum and Quadregesima Anno) as pointing to a system with a fair distribution of power and property. He wrote:
“There is a third form of society, and it is the only one in which sufficiency and security can be combined with freedom, and that form is a society in which property is well distributed and so large a proportion of the families in the State severally OWN and therefore control the means of production as to determine the general tone of society; making it neither Capitalist nor Communist, but Proprietary.” Ibid. Restoration of Property, p. 29
Was the Roman Catholic Church looking for a monolithic society, guided morally and infallibly by the Vatican? Dutch theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. wrote in 1990:
“My concern is that the further we move away in history from Vatican II, the more some people begin to interpret unity as uniformity. They seem to want to go back to the monolithic church which must form a bulwark on the one hand against communism and on the other hand against the Western liberal consumer society.” N.C.R. Jan. 8, 2010
In 1894, three years after Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII wrote the encyclical, Longinqua Oceani, which was critical of U.S. law separating church and state:
“… it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be as in America, dissevered and divorced.” Op.cit. American Catholic History, Ellis, p. 517
The Encyclical was also critical of U.S. organized labor during the depression of the 1890’s. The Homestead Steel strike in 1892 and the Pullman strike in 1894 are significant events in U.S. labor history. “These two outbreaks differed from the uprising of railway workers in 1877. (Federal troops called out in 13 states) because they were strikes by powerful unions rather than spontaneous expressions of revolt, but they were marked by almost comparable violence and bloodshed.” Labor in America, Foster Rhea Dulles, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1966, p. 166.
In the 1894 Encyclical, Longinqua Oceani, Leo XIII also reiterated that workers had the right to organize, but questioned Roman Catholic workers belonging to organizations that included non- Catholics. He saw the violence of the strikes as a failure to follow the principles of Rerum Novarum. “Nay, rather, unless forced by necessity to do otherwise, Catholics ought to prefer to associate with Catholics, a course which will be very conducive to the safeguarding of their faith.” Op. Cit. American Catholic History, p. 524.
U.S. Bishops’ Pastoral on the Economy of 1919: is this a response? Separation of Church and State – a freedom of conscience issue: “With great wisdom our American Constitution provides that every citizen shall be free to follow the dictates of his conscience in matter of religious beliefs and observance.” The Pastoral reminds Rome of the financial generosity of American Catholics, for war-ravaged Europe. The Pastoral brags, “We entered the war (WW 1) with the highest of objectives, proclaiming at every step we battled for the right and pointing to our country as a model for the world’s imitation.” The Pastoral reaffirmed worker’s right to organize but did not mention a right to strike. Concern was expressed that management and labor neglected the public welfare when there were strikes. No insistence or suggestion that Catholics join Catholic labor unions was presented.
It’s a moral question, not a problem in physics where numbers and charts give the answers. The Pastoral quotes Leo XIII. “It is the opinion of some, and the error is already very common, that the social question is merely an economic one, where in point of fact, it is first of all a moral and religious matter, and for that reason its settlement is to be sought mainly in the moral law and the pronouncements of religion.” Apostolic Letter, Graves de Communi, January 18, 1901.
The 1919 U.S. Bishop’s Pastoral expresses concern for immigrants. “There is much to be done in behalf of those who, like our forefathers, come from other countries to find a home in America. …But what they chiefly need is that Christian sympathy which considers in them the possibilities for good rather than the present defects, and instead of looking on them with distrust, extends to them the hand of charity.”
Difficult to imagine but true:
Pablo, age 16, was with two friends on Milwaukee’ main thoroughfare when he was stopped by the police and given an $80.00 ticket for underage smoking. The police searched his back pack and found a full package of cigarettes. He didn’t tell his mother until the day before his court date. His mom called Voces de la Frontera because she was at a loss as to what to do. Lawyers were consulted and the consensus was to pay the ticket, but to first contact the City Attorney’s office. There was the possibility that if the ticket would be contested, both mom and Pablo would be deported. (Pablo’s father was deported about two years ago.) The City Attorney was called in the name of Voces de la Frontera. The office secretary suggested that Pablo come in and pay the fine. Pablo and his mom went to the Municipal Court where he was informed that the police did not want to press charges. Pablo and his mom were given a document stating that no court action would be taken. Pablo’s mom lost a day of work at her low wage job: a fast food restaurant. By the way, have you read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
TOWARD QUADRAGESIMO ANNO
Rerum Novarum was a revolutionary document that challenged capitalism at the core, but only right wing capitalists recognized this. Unfortunately the Encyclical missed so much that was happening, and advocated idealized structures of the middle-ages that were repressive.
The Encyclical focused on the horrible situation of working people in Europe. It’s as if Leo XIII went for a fifteen minute walk in the White Chapel neighborhood on the east end of London, threw up, then wrote Rerum Novarum – “The Condition of Labor,” from the catacombs of Rome.
There was no comment on the policy of Great Britain toward Ireland during the Potato famine of 1845 -1850. ‘Capitalism - economic liberalism’ was a cause of the famine and allowed millions to starve to death. Couldn’t the revolution in Mexico be for-seen? Inequality of wealth and economic power between nations was evident. World War I was not far in the future. What about racism, and women’s rights? Such issues needed to be related to economic policy.
Some more hushed voices from the past:
Women were admitted to Marquette in 1909, and Marquette then became the first co-ed Roman Catholic college in the world. “Nina Polcyn Moore, Jour. M.U. ’35, was a student activist when she visited the Catholic Worker house in New York’s Bowery. She journaled, ‘It was so bleak so agonizing. Red bugs, bread lines, dirt, drunks, narcotic addicts, senile old people, perpetual crises - and a demure young lady from Milwaukee.’” Nina Polcyn Moore started a Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee and was a life long friend of Dorothy Day. “Marquette Magazine,” Fall, 2009. The Duty of Delight, the Diaries of Dorothy Day, Ed. Robert Ellsberg, p.227.
St. Benedict the Moor Parish was founded in 1908 by African American Charles Valle who struggled against discrimination in Roman Catholic churches. Gesu Church on the Marquette ‘campus’ was the main Roman Catholic Church for Blacks, but they were relegated to the balcony for mass. Saint Benedict the Moor – A Legacy Revisited, Dolores A. Foster Williams. pp. 7 - 8.
“In 1922 the Pfister-Vogel tannery on South Sixth Street recruited about 100 Mexican men to take the jobs of striking Anglos.” “Oppression of the Catholic Church in Mexico provoked armed intervention by a group that became known as ‘Los Cristeros.” Like thousands of others, in 1926, Miguel Sevilla Chavez fled his country. Latinos in Milwaukee, J.A. Rodriquez, Ph.D., and Walter, Ph.D., ch.1.
“The Economist, James Wilson, answered Irish pleas for public assistance with the claim that ‘it is no man’s business to provide for another.’ He asserts that official intervention would shift resources from the more to the less deserving, since ‘if left to the natural law of distribution, those who deserved more would obtain it.’ One of the most evocative images of the Irish Famine is of a people being left to starve while their corn was being shipped off under military protection to pay rents. Poverty in the midst of Plenty crudely put.” The Great Irish Famine, Ed. Cathal Poirteir, p.249
It wasn’t strict neo-Platonism, but Socialists were put off by ‘pie in the sky’ theology, anti-socialist rhetoric, and the inability of Leo XIII and his advisors to recognize and point out that ‘class warfare’ was a fact, at least in a capitalist system.
Some of those that accepted the Encyclical as prophetic missed the point, and they saw Rerum Novarum as advocating a “kinder gentler capitalism.”
Father John Ryan when he wrote, Bishops Program of Social Reconstruction in 1919, made an important criticism of the AFL plan for post WWI economic change. He noted that the union federation plan did not include those who were not members of a union or most likely not to be unionized. He opposed the AFL plan to tax unused land. Ryan anticipated the more clear language of future encyclicals such as ‘preferential option for the poor’ to be implemented by changes in ‘economic and political structures.’
Hold it, wait a minute:
The Calvinist Protestants are supposed to be the advocates of individualism; if you’re poor, it’s your own fault, but the Roman Catholic Papal Encyclicals put the blame on economic and political structures. At the current ground level, however, the Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church is one of the strongest supporters of Milwaukee Voces de la Frontera New Sanctuary Movement. In contrast from the Roman Catholic side, a lay volunteer from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at a youth center in Quito, Ecuador stated, “Membership in the Working Boys Center is contingent on taking personal responsibility for one’s condition …Poverty is a moral problem rather than an economic one.” The Catholic Herald, Milwaukee, Oct. 15, 2009.
Whoa – Nelly, hold it another minute:
Sister Mary McCauley, B.V.M., whose father was at one time the Milwaukee County D.A., provided sanctuary and protested vehemently the raids on immigrant workers in Postville, IA.
Rerum Novarum trashed both capitalism and communism. Would a successful third way ever be found?
The Encyclical focused on the horrible situation of working people in Europe. It’s as if Leo XIII went for a fifteen minute walk in the White Chapel neighborhood on the east end of London, threw up, then wrote Rerum Novarum – “The Condition of Labor,” from the catacombs of Rome.
There was no comment on the policy of Great Britain toward Ireland during the Potato famine of 1845 -1850. ‘Capitalism - economic liberalism’ was a cause of the famine and allowed millions to starve to death. Couldn’t the revolution in Mexico be for-seen? Inequality of wealth and economic power between nations was evident. World War I was not far in the future. What about racism, and women’s rights? Such issues needed to be related to economic policy.
Some more hushed voices from the past:
Women were admitted to Marquette in 1909, and Marquette then became the first co-ed Roman Catholic college in the world. “Nina Polcyn Moore, Jour. M.U. ’35, was a student activist when she visited the Catholic Worker house in New York’s Bowery. She journaled, ‘It was so bleak so agonizing. Red bugs, bread lines, dirt, drunks, narcotic addicts, senile old people, perpetual crises - and a demure young lady from Milwaukee.’” Nina Polcyn Moore started a Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee and was a life long friend of Dorothy Day. “Marquette Magazine,” Fall, 2009. The Duty of Delight, the Diaries of Dorothy Day, Ed. Robert Ellsberg, p.227.
St. Benedict the Moor Parish was founded in 1908 by African American Charles Valle who struggled against discrimination in Roman Catholic churches. Gesu Church on the Marquette ‘campus’ was the main Roman Catholic Church for Blacks, but they were relegated to the balcony for mass. Saint Benedict the Moor – A Legacy Revisited, Dolores A. Foster Williams. pp. 7 - 8.
“In 1922 the Pfister-Vogel tannery on South Sixth Street recruited about 100 Mexican men to take the jobs of striking Anglos.” “Oppression of the Catholic Church in Mexico provoked armed intervention by a group that became known as ‘Los Cristeros.” Like thousands of others, in 1926, Miguel Sevilla Chavez fled his country. Latinos in Milwaukee, J.A. Rodriquez, Ph.D., and Walter, Ph.D., ch.1.
“The Economist, James Wilson, answered Irish pleas for public assistance with the claim that ‘it is no man’s business to provide for another.’ He asserts that official intervention would shift resources from the more to the less deserving, since ‘if left to the natural law of distribution, those who deserved more would obtain it.’ One of the most evocative images of the Irish Famine is of a people being left to starve while their corn was being shipped off under military protection to pay rents. Poverty in the midst of Plenty crudely put.” The Great Irish Famine, Ed. Cathal Poirteir, p.249
It wasn’t strict neo-Platonism, but Socialists were put off by ‘pie in the sky’ theology, anti-socialist rhetoric, and the inability of Leo XIII and his advisors to recognize and point out that ‘class warfare’ was a fact, at least in a capitalist system.
Some of those that accepted the Encyclical as prophetic missed the point, and they saw Rerum Novarum as advocating a “kinder gentler capitalism.”
Father John Ryan when he wrote, Bishops Program of Social Reconstruction in 1919, made an important criticism of the AFL plan for post WWI economic change. He noted that the union federation plan did not include those who were not members of a union or most likely not to be unionized. He opposed the AFL plan to tax unused land. Ryan anticipated the more clear language of future encyclicals such as ‘preferential option for the poor’ to be implemented by changes in ‘economic and political structures.’
Hold it, wait a minute:
The Calvinist Protestants are supposed to be the advocates of individualism; if you’re poor, it’s your own fault, but the Roman Catholic Papal Encyclicals put the blame on economic and political structures. At the current ground level, however, the Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church is one of the strongest supporters of Milwaukee Voces de la Frontera New Sanctuary Movement. In contrast from the Roman Catholic side, a lay volunteer from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at a youth center in Quito, Ecuador stated, “Membership in the Working Boys Center is contingent on taking personal responsibility for one’s condition …Poverty is a moral problem rather than an economic one.” The Catholic Herald, Milwaukee, Oct. 15, 2009.
Whoa – Nelly, hold it another minute:
Sister Mary McCauley, B.V.M., whose father was at one time the Milwaukee County D.A., provided sanctuary and protested vehemently the raids on immigrant workers in Postville, IA.
Rerum Novarum trashed both capitalism and communism. Would a successful third way ever be found?
Monday, November 2, 2009
RERUM NOVARUM – A REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENT
Rerum Novarum challenged the nascent “liberalism” (laissez fair capitalism) of the late 19th century. Most controversial was and is that the encyclical insisted on workers’ right to organize and the need – necessity – of government to intervene in economic affairs. Both propositions were based on the natural law flowing from the fundamental principle of the transcendent dignity of each and every person. “The greatest good for the greatest number” was not good enough. The encyclical challenged the “every man for himself” theory of Adam Smith by claiming the human person was a social being and that the economy was to be directed for the common good.
Here we see a basic difference between the economic theory of the encyclicals and that of the capitalists. Capitalist theory says that the economic system is given by nature and inductive analysis of the system is enough to understand it. The encyclicals see the economic system as created by human beings and is validly criticized by deduction from principles of the natural law such as the transcendent value of each and every person. The reasoning is backed by scripture.
A voice to the New Sanctuary Movement: Was - Is the trip (“Via Dolorosa”) from the Davidic sanctuary of the Mount of Olives to ‘Vera Cruz’ really necessary? (1 Sam. 21:1; 2 Sam15:32; Luke22:39)
Dr. Lux, professor of scripture at the Sacred Heart Seminary of Milwaukee, enlightened us at a Christian-Jewish conference on atonement that St. Augustine invented original sin. Dr. Lux challenged us to get involved in re-thinking Christianity.
A voice from the New Sanctuary Movement: The family, a mom and two boys, a grandmother and grandfather – both sick, and a volunteer driver left Milwaukee for Vera Cruz last week. They had two cars, a trailer, a bag of groceries and a $100 gas card. The dad, recently deported, was in Vera Cruz – homeless – no job and depressed. The fourteen year old was concerned about school in Mexico. “I can speak Spanish, but I can’t read or write it.” The younger boy was excited about getting to see his dad. The Second Station: Little Rock, Arkansas – the trailer broke down.
QUOTES FROM RERUM NOVARUM
THE “VIA DOLOROSA”
Section 14: “As regards bodily labor, even had man (I thought it was Eve’s fault) never fallen from the state of innocence, he would not have been wholly unoccupied; but that which would then have been his free choice, his delight, became afterwords compulsory, and the painful expiation of his sin. …To suffer and endure, therefore is the lot of humanity.”
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
Quotes from a letter Frank Zeidler (Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee1948 – 1960) wrote to me in 2003. “Even Leo XIII was against unregulated capitalism almost as much as he was against 19th century socialism.” “Today we live in an era of attempts at Progressivism which is an effort to regulate capitalism and the self interest of the business enterpriser. It was the concept of democratic socialists that capitalism could not be regulated because the regulating authorities would be captured by the very people they were supposed to regulate. Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee Emil Seidel (1910-1912) strongly held this view. He was correct to a great extent.”
Section 11: “True, if a family finds itself in great difficulty, utterly friendless, and without prospect for help, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid; for each family is part of the common wealth.”
Section 31: “When work-people have recourse to a strike, it is frequently because the hours of labor are too long, or the work too hard, or because they consider their wages insufficient.” “The grave inconvenience of this not uncommon occurrence should be obviated by public remedial measures.”
Radio Priest Charles Coughlin’s interpretation: “(Coughlin) relied on compulsory arbitration to secure peace and justice in the industrial field. He suggested that organized labor – which he strongly favored be placed under the tutelage of the Department of Labor.” Many of Coughlin’s critics considered this a Fascist policy.” Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life, ed. T. McAvoy, C.S.C. p. 83.
Section 35: – “The law, therefore should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many people as possible to become owners. … If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the result will be that the gulf between the vast wealth and deep poverty will be bridged over.” “The right to possess private property is from nature, from nature not from man; and the state has only the right to regulate its use in the interest of the public good, but by no means abolish it altogether. The State is, therefore, unjust and cruel, if, in the name of taxation, it deprives the private owner more than is just.” These are basic quotes for McNabb and the Distributists.
THE RIGHT OF LABOR TO ORGANIZE
Section 36: “The most important of all are Workingmen’s Associations; … History attests what excellent results were effected by the Artificer’s Guilds of a former day. … For to enter into a ‘society’ of this kind is a natural right of man; and the State must protect natural rights, not destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence …”
The Encyclical was written from a European perspective and indicated that these “Workingmen’s Associations” should be Roman Catholic. Another problem was the Church’s prohibition of joining secret societies. (e.g. the Mollie Maguires) Former Milwaukee Archbishop and now Archbishop of New York addressed this problem from the past in a 2003 Labor Day article for the Milwaukee Catholic Herald. Dolan noted that even before the Encyclical was written, Archbishop and later Cardinal, James Gibbons, urged Leo XIII in 1887 not to condemn the U.S. Knights of Labor which was open to all workers. The appeal was successful. Dolan wrote, “The (future) Cardinal was firm in his belief that workers in the United States had the right to organize, to defend their rights, and to protect themselves and their families.” Dolan notes that 20 years later Gibbons responded to a Pius X question on why U.S. workers were so loyal to the Church by saying, “The Church has been and is on the side of the worker. And that’s where we must be.”
For those who are interested to the point of doing some research, it would be worth while to study the turbulent years of U.S. labor unrest in the late 19th and early 20th century – e.g. Federal troops in 14 states called out in 1877 to put down a railroad strike. Immigrants were blamed. Look up the Dillingham report on immigration commissioned by President T. Roosevelt.
Leo XIII saw the medieval guild as the ideal. Such guilds included masters – owners journeymen and apprentices. Leo and his advisors did not recognize that in liberal capitalism class conflict of interest was simply a fact. Had they read Marx’ Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844?
Milwaukee’s Victor Berger, later the first socialist to be elected to congress and was imprisoned for opposing U.S. entering WWI, stared a socialist newspaper in 1911 to contest the hostility of the local newspapers toward socialists. The inaugural editorial stated, “We shall preach no class hatred, but we will preach class consciousness and class conscience six days a week.” (John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee. p. 217.
“Some Catholic leaders, chiefly German-American, were sure that trade unions were becoming ‘hot beds of anarchy and socialism’ suggested that Catholics withdraw and form separate unions of their own. For a time at least, Sebastian Messmer, the Milwaukee Archbishop (1903 – 1930), was of this opinion.” Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life, ed. T. McAvoy, C.S.C. p.74.
Where was the search for a third way between capitalism and socialism going? Is the answer fascism? Did the next encyclical Quadragesimo Ano – 1931 point in this direction?
THE ECONOMY IS FOR ALL – THE DIGNITY OF THE PERSON
Section 16: Rerum Novarum quotes St. Thomas Aquinas. “for no one should live unbecomingly.” (Summa Theologiae, Secunda Secundae, Q. 66, art.2)
Section 20: “Religion teaches the rich man and the employer that their work people are not their slaves; that they must respect in every man his dignity as a man and as a Christian. … to make one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine.”
SUPPORT OF THE CHURCH – CATHOLIC ACTION
Section 41: The Laity: “Those Catholics are worthy of all praise – and there are not a few who, understanding what the times require, have by various enterprises and experiments, endeavored to better the conditions of working people without any sacrifice of principle.”
The Clergy:“The Bishops, on their part, bestow their ready good will and support; with approval and guidance many members of the clergy, both secular and regular (religious), labor assiduously on behalf of the spiritual and mental interests of the members of associations.”
In time Catholic worker centers for study and recreation such as the Cardijn center in Milwaukee were developed. Early “labor priests such” as Milwaukee seminary professor and later Bishop, Francis Hass, Father Peter Dietz who served in Milwaukee, and Father Aloysius Muensch who was rector of the seminary in Milwaukee, became known for their social teaching based on Rerum Novarum. Muensch was later named as a Cardinal. Of the many early “labor priests” the most influential and well known was Father John Ryan. His writings are still of interest.
The Young Christian Worker Movement was started; 20th century worker priests and nuns found factory jobs.
REACTION TO THE ENCYCLICAL
In 1919 Roman Catholic bishops comprising the Administrative Committee of the National Catholic War Council issued a document basically written by Father John Ryan called “Social Reconstruction.” The document was based on Rerum Novarum and was strongly criticized by the business community and politicians. “The proposals were thought so radical at the time that Stephen C. Mason, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, protested to Cardinal Gibbons that it was partisan, pro-labor union, socialistic propaganda.” “A decade later the pamphlet (“Social Reconstruction”) was described by a committee of the New York State investigating seditious activities, in a report filed on April 24, 1929 as the work of ‘a certain group in the Catholic Church with leanings toward Socialism.’” Documents of American Catholic History, ed. John Tracy Ellis, p. 611
A voice to the New Sanctuary Movement: National Conference of Catholic Bishops 2009, “In the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor), Pope Leo XIII established that persons have a right to work to survive and to survive and to support his or her family. Pius XII referred Rerum Novarum in Exul Familia (On the Spiritual Care of the Migrant) “Then according to the teachings of Rerum Novarum, the right of the family to a life worthy of human dignity is recognized.”
Here we see a basic difference between the economic theory of the encyclicals and that of the capitalists. Capitalist theory says that the economic system is given by nature and inductive analysis of the system is enough to understand it. The encyclicals see the economic system as created by human beings and is validly criticized by deduction from principles of the natural law such as the transcendent value of each and every person. The reasoning is backed by scripture.
A voice to the New Sanctuary Movement: Was - Is the trip (“Via Dolorosa”) from the Davidic sanctuary of the Mount of Olives to ‘Vera Cruz’ really necessary? (1 Sam. 21:1; 2 Sam15:32; Luke22:39)
Dr. Lux, professor of scripture at the Sacred Heart Seminary of Milwaukee, enlightened us at a Christian-Jewish conference on atonement that St. Augustine invented original sin. Dr. Lux challenged us to get involved in re-thinking Christianity.
A voice from the New Sanctuary Movement: The family, a mom and two boys, a grandmother and grandfather – both sick, and a volunteer driver left Milwaukee for Vera Cruz last week. They had two cars, a trailer, a bag of groceries and a $100 gas card. The dad, recently deported, was in Vera Cruz – homeless – no job and depressed. The fourteen year old was concerned about school in Mexico. “I can speak Spanish, but I can’t read or write it.” The younger boy was excited about getting to see his dad. The Second Station: Little Rock, Arkansas – the trailer broke down.
QUOTES FROM RERUM NOVARUM
THE “VIA DOLOROSA”
Section 14: “As regards bodily labor, even had man (I thought it was Eve’s fault) never fallen from the state of innocence, he would not have been wholly unoccupied; but that which would then have been his free choice, his delight, became afterwords compulsory, and the painful expiation of his sin. …To suffer and endure, therefore is the lot of humanity.”
GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
Quotes from a letter Frank Zeidler (Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee1948 – 1960) wrote to me in 2003. “Even Leo XIII was against unregulated capitalism almost as much as he was against 19th century socialism.” “Today we live in an era of attempts at Progressivism which is an effort to regulate capitalism and the self interest of the business enterpriser. It was the concept of democratic socialists that capitalism could not be regulated because the regulating authorities would be captured by the very people they were supposed to regulate. Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee Emil Seidel (1910-1912) strongly held this view. He was correct to a great extent.”
Section 11: “True, if a family finds itself in great difficulty, utterly friendless, and without prospect for help, it is right that extreme necessity be met by public aid; for each family is part of the common wealth.”
Section 31: “When work-people have recourse to a strike, it is frequently because the hours of labor are too long, or the work too hard, or because they consider their wages insufficient.” “The grave inconvenience of this not uncommon occurrence should be obviated by public remedial measures.”
Radio Priest Charles Coughlin’s interpretation: “(Coughlin) relied on compulsory arbitration to secure peace and justice in the industrial field. He suggested that organized labor – which he strongly favored be placed under the tutelage of the Department of Labor.” Many of Coughlin’s critics considered this a Fascist policy.” Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life, ed. T. McAvoy, C.S.C. p. 83.
Section 35: – “The law, therefore should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many people as possible to become owners. … If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the result will be that the gulf between the vast wealth and deep poverty will be bridged over.” “The right to possess private property is from nature, from nature not from man; and the state has only the right to regulate its use in the interest of the public good, but by no means abolish it altogether. The State is, therefore, unjust and cruel, if, in the name of taxation, it deprives the private owner more than is just.” These are basic quotes for McNabb and the Distributists.
THE RIGHT OF LABOR TO ORGANIZE
Section 36: “The most important of all are Workingmen’s Associations; … History attests what excellent results were effected by the Artificer’s Guilds of a former day. … For to enter into a ‘society’ of this kind is a natural right of man; and the State must protect natural rights, not destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence …”
The Encyclical was written from a European perspective and indicated that these “Workingmen’s Associations” should be Roman Catholic. Another problem was the Church’s prohibition of joining secret societies. (e.g. the Mollie Maguires) Former Milwaukee Archbishop and now Archbishop of New York addressed this problem from the past in a 2003 Labor Day article for the Milwaukee Catholic Herald. Dolan noted that even before the Encyclical was written, Archbishop and later Cardinal, James Gibbons, urged Leo XIII in 1887 not to condemn the U.S. Knights of Labor which was open to all workers. The appeal was successful. Dolan wrote, “The (future) Cardinal was firm in his belief that workers in the United States had the right to organize, to defend their rights, and to protect themselves and their families.” Dolan notes that 20 years later Gibbons responded to a Pius X question on why U.S. workers were so loyal to the Church by saying, “The Church has been and is on the side of the worker. And that’s where we must be.”
For those who are interested to the point of doing some research, it would be worth while to study the turbulent years of U.S. labor unrest in the late 19th and early 20th century – e.g. Federal troops in 14 states called out in 1877 to put down a railroad strike. Immigrants were blamed. Look up the Dillingham report on immigration commissioned by President T. Roosevelt.
Leo XIII saw the medieval guild as the ideal. Such guilds included masters – owners journeymen and apprentices. Leo and his advisors did not recognize that in liberal capitalism class conflict of interest was simply a fact. Had they read Marx’ Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844?
Milwaukee’s Victor Berger, later the first socialist to be elected to congress and was imprisoned for opposing U.S. entering WWI, stared a socialist newspaper in 1911 to contest the hostility of the local newspapers toward socialists. The inaugural editorial stated, “We shall preach no class hatred, but we will preach class consciousness and class conscience six days a week.” (John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee. p. 217.
“Some Catholic leaders, chiefly German-American, were sure that trade unions were becoming ‘hot beds of anarchy and socialism’ suggested that Catholics withdraw and form separate unions of their own. For a time at least, Sebastian Messmer, the Milwaukee Archbishop (1903 – 1930), was of this opinion.” Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life, ed. T. McAvoy, C.S.C. p.74.
Where was the search for a third way between capitalism and socialism going? Is the answer fascism? Did the next encyclical Quadragesimo Ano – 1931 point in this direction?
THE ECONOMY IS FOR ALL – THE DIGNITY OF THE PERSON
Section 16: Rerum Novarum quotes St. Thomas Aquinas. “for no one should live unbecomingly.” (Summa Theologiae, Secunda Secundae, Q. 66, art.2)
Section 20: “Religion teaches the rich man and the employer that their work people are not their slaves; that they must respect in every man his dignity as a man and as a Christian. … to make one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine.”
SUPPORT OF THE CHURCH – CATHOLIC ACTION
Section 41: The Laity: “Those Catholics are worthy of all praise – and there are not a few who, understanding what the times require, have by various enterprises and experiments, endeavored to better the conditions of working people without any sacrifice of principle.”
The Clergy:“The Bishops, on their part, bestow their ready good will and support; with approval and guidance many members of the clergy, both secular and regular (religious), labor assiduously on behalf of the spiritual and mental interests of the members of associations.”
In time Catholic worker centers for study and recreation such as the Cardijn center in Milwaukee were developed. Early “labor priests such” as Milwaukee seminary professor and later Bishop, Francis Hass, Father Peter Dietz who served in Milwaukee, and Father Aloysius Muensch who was rector of the seminary in Milwaukee, became known for their social teaching based on Rerum Novarum. Muensch was later named as a Cardinal. Of the many early “labor priests” the most influential and well known was Father John Ryan. His writings are still of interest.
The Young Christian Worker Movement was started; 20th century worker priests and nuns found factory jobs.
REACTION TO THE ENCYCLICAL
In 1919 Roman Catholic bishops comprising the Administrative Committee of the National Catholic War Council issued a document basically written by Father John Ryan called “Social Reconstruction.” The document was based on Rerum Novarum and was strongly criticized by the business community and politicians. “The proposals were thought so radical at the time that Stephen C. Mason, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, protested to Cardinal Gibbons that it was partisan, pro-labor union, socialistic propaganda.” “A decade later the pamphlet (“Social Reconstruction”) was described by a committee of the New York State investigating seditious activities, in a report filed on April 24, 1929 as the work of ‘a certain group in the Catholic Church with leanings toward Socialism.’” Documents of American Catholic History, ed. John Tracy Ellis, p. 611
A voice to the New Sanctuary Movement: National Conference of Catholic Bishops 2009, “In the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor), Pope Leo XIII established that persons have a right to work to survive and to survive and to support his or her family. Pius XII referred Rerum Novarum in Exul Familia (On the Spiritual Care of the Migrant) “Then according to the teachings of Rerum Novarum, the right of the family to a life worthy of human dignity is recognized.”
Sunday, October 18, 2009
RERUM NOVARUM 1891
RERUM NOVARUM 1891
It seems strange to spend time writing about the Papal Encyclicals when I remember the debate when I went to Bolivia in 1969. Critics of the Dominican social studies and action institute, IBEAS (The Bolivian Institute for Education and Social Action), said that the agency was mistaken in promoting New Deal economics supported by the theology of the Papal Encyclicals. I agreed. Besides Haiti, Bolivia was the poorest Latin American nation. The situation was desperate and explosive. Che Guevara had been murdered in Bolivia in 1967 under the direction of the C.I.A. The response by some in the religious community was radical. Former Racine Dominicans sisters harbored urban guerillas, Loretto nuns from Columbia stored guerilla armaments. Modified or more compassionate capitalism was obviously not the answer to U.S. control of Latin America and the subsequent poverty. Some predicted a Latin American Viet Nam.
But, “upon further review,” it was an exciting time and hope was in the hearts of many. Irish Dominican Paul Bowe had written a perceptive commentary on Populorum Progressio. Latin American Bishops at Medellin, Columbia had pointed out that economic and political structures were the cause of poverty. Gustavo Gutierrez in Peru was developing a revisited “Lectio Divina” with his “Liberation Theology,” Cesar Chavez claimed prayer and fasting was fundamental in the struggle for social justice. Both Chavez and Martin Luther King insisted on non-violence. Maryknoll priest, Roy Bourgeois, future leader of the campaign to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning GA, experienced the “concientizacion” effect of the late 60’s early 70’s Bolivian milieu.
Where did all this come from? I think it is worth the trouble to look at one of the sources, the papal encyclicals, even the seemingly outdated Rerum Novarum, and suffer the brutal rhetoric of Roman Catholic and male chauvinism, to get to the worthwhile classic message, which is the inspired message of the ancient prophets for the industrialized consumer society.
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement…
We met with a family from Oaxaca, Mexico. Their underage daughter had been picked up near Phoenix traveling from Mexico to Milwaukee with a “coyote.” The dad speaks enough Spanish to be understood, but the mom and son in law (husband of the daughter picked up by Immigration) speak an Indian dialect and very little Spanish. Summer 2009
Vincent McNabb, O.P. 1868 – 1943
…and Rerum Novarum
Has anyone ever heard of Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.? Because of my Dominican background I knew of him, but not much. However the name McNabb calls my attention. My stepfather was Francis McNabb and I have many wonderful McNabb relatives. The McNabb – Lange connection goes way back. My grandfather and Francis’ brother Ed were a team in bar room brawls with a reputation of always winning. Such was recreation for early 20th century workers in the railroad town of Franklin Park, Illinois. The father of Ed and Francis McNabb had his leg severed in a railroad accident and later died from its complications.
I doubt if Vincent McNabb, O.P. was involved in bar room brawls, but he did serve in the slums of London in the late 19th and early 20th century. His “brawls” were at Hyde Park where he would take on anyone in debate including Socialist George Bernard Shaw.
You can imagine the slums of London in Vincent McNabb’s day by reading Dickens’ stories or watching a Jack the Ripper movie. Gilda O’Neill in her book, My East End, cites Henry Mayhew’s description of London’s East End in, London Labour and the London Poor. Mayhew “describes the docks of the 1850’s as being ‘real hell’, where men with ‘sweaty faces dyed blue from the cargoes of indigo, and others ‘coughing and spluttering as they stacked the yellow bins of sulphur and lead-coloured copper-ore’ all battled to earn a living.” The East End was and is the first stop for immigrants. Franklin Park R.R. yards weren’t that bad, but it’s a matter of degree.
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement
We met with a family of five from Honduras. Both parents have deportation orders. They are desperate for food, clothing and shelter. Why come to the U.S.? The dad says he wants to make enough money to get a plot of land in Honduras to support his family. Summer, 2009
It is said that Vincent McNabb had three points of reference for his work: the Bible, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Rerum Novarum. His experience with the working poor must be included.
McNabb was part of the distributist movement which included his friends Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, founders of the Catholic Worker Movement in the U.S., are also considered distributists. Could we include Father Charles Coughlin the anti-Jewish radio priest of the 30’s who often referred to Rerum Novarum and the need for a wider distribution of wealth?
Distributists advocate economic justice for all by a just distribution of wealth. McNabb and others promoted a “back to the land movement”, and denounced usury. In Marx’ terms, does this mean surplus value? In contemporary terms does this mean derivatives, hedge funds, high interest mortgage loans with little or suspicious collateral? The Distributists insisted on private property as basic. They based their ideas on the Rerum Novarum doctrine of private property and distributive justice.
Dorothy Day wrote in her diary, May 14, 1955, “My pamphlet published by the Catechetical Guild, ‘Gospel in Action,’ with imprimatur is out. They doctored it, modifying such sentences as that quotation from Vincent McNabb – ‘St. Peter could go back to his nets but St. Mathew could not go back to his tax gathering,’ - putting in possibly before could not.” Here are my questions for discussion: Why would McNabb pen such a line? Why would Dorothy Day quote him? What’s wrong with taxes?
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement
We are saying goodbye to a family leaving for Mexico today. There will be prayers and tears. We will provide them some food and a gas card from our New Sanctuary Emergency Fund. Fall, 2009
A visit to St. Dominic Church in London…
When we were in London, Joanne and I attended, and somewhat celebrated, Mass at Vincent McNabb’s home parish, the Priory Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Dominic. The Priory and church were built in Gothic style in the late 19th century. In the back of the church is a pillar excavated at the site of the original Black Friars Priory which was destroyed by Henry VIII. Black Friars is now a stop on the tube, and close by, you will find the Black Friars Pub.
St. Dominic’s Church’s space for liturgy has not been adjusted according to the spirit of Vatican II. The vestments, the Dominican habits, the altar rail, made it clear where the real action was, and who was in charge. Girls functioned as acolytes, and a woman did one of the readings.
There was a large congregation in attendance including many people of color.
The Church bears the name Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Dominic so it is appropriate that each side of the inner space of the Church has seven oratorios dedicated to a mystery of the Rosary. The fifteenth mystery, the Crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven is depicted in stone work over the main entrance. If Carl Jung saw this would he say Mary was a fourth God? The friars wore traditional habits, but none had rosaries on their belts.
The friars we talked to didn’t know much about Vincent McNabb nor did they claim to continue his mission. I was told I could find out more about him at the archives in Edinburgh.
I get the impression that Benedict XVI’s social and economic encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, has already been forgotten, but St. Dominic’s advertised for a discussion group this fall. The bulletin stated, “This is especially topical in the current economic climate.”
“Voices” to the Sanctuary Movement
A speaker from Honduras at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee said that the Cardinal Archbishop of Honduras, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga a progressive candidate for Pope, supported the coup that attempted to overthrow the Zelaya government. The Cardinal denounced Zelaya because of his support for the morning after pill. The Vatican condemned the coup.
It seems strange to spend time writing about the Papal Encyclicals when I remember the debate when I went to Bolivia in 1969. Critics of the Dominican social studies and action institute, IBEAS (The Bolivian Institute for Education and Social Action), said that the agency was mistaken in promoting New Deal economics supported by the theology of the Papal Encyclicals. I agreed. Besides Haiti, Bolivia was the poorest Latin American nation. The situation was desperate and explosive. Che Guevara had been murdered in Bolivia in 1967 under the direction of the C.I.A. The response by some in the religious community was radical. Former Racine Dominicans sisters harbored urban guerillas, Loretto nuns from Columbia stored guerilla armaments. Modified or more compassionate capitalism was obviously not the answer to U.S. control of Latin America and the subsequent poverty. Some predicted a Latin American Viet Nam.
But, “upon further review,” it was an exciting time and hope was in the hearts of many. Irish Dominican Paul Bowe had written a perceptive commentary on Populorum Progressio. Latin American Bishops at Medellin, Columbia had pointed out that economic and political structures were the cause of poverty. Gustavo Gutierrez in Peru was developing a revisited “Lectio Divina” with his “Liberation Theology,” Cesar Chavez claimed prayer and fasting was fundamental in the struggle for social justice. Both Chavez and Martin Luther King insisted on non-violence. Maryknoll priest, Roy Bourgeois, future leader of the campaign to close the School of the Americas at Fort Benning GA, experienced the “concientizacion” effect of the late 60’s early 70’s Bolivian milieu.
Where did all this come from? I think it is worth the trouble to look at one of the sources, the papal encyclicals, even the seemingly outdated Rerum Novarum, and suffer the brutal rhetoric of Roman Catholic and male chauvinism, to get to the worthwhile classic message, which is the inspired message of the ancient prophets for the industrialized consumer society.
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement…
We met with a family from Oaxaca, Mexico. Their underage daughter had been picked up near Phoenix traveling from Mexico to Milwaukee with a “coyote.” The dad speaks enough Spanish to be understood, but the mom and son in law (husband of the daughter picked up by Immigration) speak an Indian dialect and very little Spanish. Summer 2009
Vincent McNabb, O.P. 1868 – 1943
…and Rerum Novarum
Has anyone ever heard of Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.? Because of my Dominican background I knew of him, but not much. However the name McNabb calls my attention. My stepfather was Francis McNabb and I have many wonderful McNabb relatives. The McNabb – Lange connection goes way back. My grandfather and Francis’ brother Ed were a team in bar room brawls with a reputation of always winning. Such was recreation for early 20th century workers in the railroad town of Franklin Park, Illinois. The father of Ed and Francis McNabb had his leg severed in a railroad accident and later died from its complications.
I doubt if Vincent McNabb, O.P. was involved in bar room brawls, but he did serve in the slums of London in the late 19th and early 20th century. His “brawls” were at Hyde Park where he would take on anyone in debate including Socialist George Bernard Shaw.
You can imagine the slums of London in Vincent McNabb’s day by reading Dickens’ stories or watching a Jack the Ripper movie. Gilda O’Neill in her book, My East End, cites Henry Mayhew’s description of London’s East End in, London Labour and the London Poor. Mayhew “describes the docks of the 1850’s as being ‘real hell’, where men with ‘sweaty faces dyed blue from the cargoes of indigo, and others ‘coughing and spluttering as they stacked the yellow bins of sulphur and lead-coloured copper-ore’ all battled to earn a living.” The East End was and is the first stop for immigrants. Franklin Park R.R. yards weren’t that bad, but it’s a matter of degree.
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement
We met with a family of five from Honduras. Both parents have deportation orders. They are desperate for food, clothing and shelter. Why come to the U.S.? The dad says he wants to make enough money to get a plot of land in Honduras to support his family. Summer, 2009
It is said that Vincent McNabb had three points of reference for his work: the Bible, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Rerum Novarum. His experience with the working poor must be included.
McNabb was part of the distributist movement which included his friends Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, founders of the Catholic Worker Movement in the U.S., are also considered distributists. Could we include Father Charles Coughlin the anti-Jewish radio priest of the 30’s who often referred to Rerum Novarum and the need for a wider distribution of wealth?
Distributists advocate economic justice for all by a just distribution of wealth. McNabb and others promoted a “back to the land movement”, and denounced usury. In Marx’ terms, does this mean surplus value? In contemporary terms does this mean derivatives, hedge funds, high interest mortgage loans with little or suspicious collateral? The Distributists insisted on private property as basic. They based their ideas on the Rerum Novarum doctrine of private property and distributive justice.
Dorothy Day wrote in her diary, May 14, 1955, “My pamphlet published by the Catechetical Guild, ‘Gospel in Action,’ with imprimatur is out. They doctored it, modifying such sentences as that quotation from Vincent McNabb – ‘St. Peter could go back to his nets but St. Mathew could not go back to his tax gathering,’ - putting in possibly before could not.” Here are my questions for discussion: Why would McNabb pen such a line? Why would Dorothy Day quote him? What’s wrong with taxes?
“Voices” from the Sanctuary Movement
We are saying goodbye to a family leaving for Mexico today. There will be prayers and tears. We will provide them some food and a gas card from our New Sanctuary Emergency Fund. Fall, 2009
A visit to St. Dominic Church in London…
When we were in London, Joanne and I attended, and somewhat celebrated, Mass at Vincent McNabb’s home parish, the Priory Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Dominic. The Priory and church were built in Gothic style in the late 19th century. In the back of the church is a pillar excavated at the site of the original Black Friars Priory which was destroyed by Henry VIII. Black Friars is now a stop on the tube, and close by, you will find the Black Friars Pub.
St. Dominic’s Church’s space for liturgy has not been adjusted according to the spirit of Vatican II. The vestments, the Dominican habits, the altar rail, made it clear where the real action was, and who was in charge. Girls functioned as acolytes, and a woman did one of the readings.
There was a large congregation in attendance including many people of color.
The Church bears the name Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Dominic so it is appropriate that each side of the inner space of the Church has seven oratorios dedicated to a mystery of the Rosary. The fifteenth mystery, the Crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven is depicted in stone work over the main entrance. If Carl Jung saw this would he say Mary was a fourth God? The friars wore traditional habits, but none had rosaries on their belts.
The friars we talked to didn’t know much about Vincent McNabb nor did they claim to continue his mission. I was told I could find out more about him at the archives in Edinburgh.
I get the impression that Benedict XVI’s social and economic encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, has already been forgotten, but St. Dominic’s advertised for a discussion group this fall. The bulletin stated, “This is especially topical in the current economic climate.”
“Voices” to the Sanctuary Movement
A speaker from Honduras at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee said that the Cardinal Archbishop of Honduras, Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga a progressive candidate for Pope, supported the coup that attempted to overthrow the Zelaya government. The Cardinal denounced Zelaya because of his support for the morning after pill. The Vatican condemned the coup.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
THE ENCYCLICALS AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Let me relate some of the many reasons I am doing this blog. First: the Labor Movement and the Faith Community can have a greater political impact for justice with a combined effort. Second: to show the path to reconciliation of positions if there is conflict between them such as the wedge issues of abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research. Third: A valuable contribution of the Encyclicals is that they establish the ‘why’ of an economic system and the ‘how’ follows. Contemporary economics assumes the ‘why’ as a given with little comment.
On the negative side, women’s issues are for the most part ignored, little attention and credit is given to Jewish, Muslim and secular writings on justice. I hope to point this out where appropriate.
The articles will be relatively short and probably will raise more questions than answers. Comments are appreciated, and gross errors will be corrected. This is a community project. The purpose is to maintain interest and inspire further research. The goal is political action for justice.
Starting with the first papal encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ I will discuss several encyclicals including Vatican II documents and the latest ‘Caritas in Veritate.’
In my own limited studies of the encyclicals, several have influenced my opinions such as Dominicans Vincent McNabb, Thomas Gilby, J.D.Malone, Gustavo Gutierrez, Regina Williams, Benedict Ashley, Therese VanThull, Lucy Edelbeck and Paul Bowe and J.M. O’Connor. Others would be Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Father Fran Eshweiler, Dorothy Day and Father John Ryan. By starting to write this in England I am especially aware of Julian of Norwich, Vincent McNabb, O.P. Thomas Gilby, O.P. and my former economics professor Paul Bowe, O.P., an Irish Dominican who studied at Cambridge. David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, David Riccardo John Malthus and Karl Marx lurk in the background. I am aware that my comments could never do justice to the work of these great scholars, but I feel a duty to mention them and hope to foster interest in their work. In my autumn years I enjoy remembering them.
The first papal encyclical on economics was proclaimed in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII. The text is attributed to Cardinal Zigliara a Dominican.
THE INFLUENCE OF THOMISM
Leo XIII had earlier announced that ‘Thomism,’ the philosophy and theology of 13th century Dominican friar and of the Dominicans order, would be the preferred theology of the Church. Thomism saw no conflict between faith and reason therefore a reasonable treatise on economics would be for all not just Roman Catholics. The devastating poverty in Europe and the U.S. demanded a strong response. The most cogent was that of Karl Marx.
Faith and Reason
Historically not all agreed on the compatibility of faith and reason. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all had internal battles over the validity of philosophy – reason – the secular, especially when there was an apparent contradiction between the doctrines of faith and philosophy. The problem extended to politics. The ‘Spiritual Franciscans,’ disgusted with the politics and the corruption of the Avignon popes and claimed the pope should stay out of secular affairs and limit papal pronouncements to the spiritual. This is part of the background for U.S. revolutionaries’ insistence on separation of church and state. Avignon was not happy with the pointed criticism by the Franciscans, and although the basic philosophical and theological positions of Thomas Aquinas were condemned by the Bishop of Paris in 1277, Thomas was canonized by Avignon Pope John XXII fifty years after his death..
Thomistic Realism
Until Aquinas, Christian writers – the fathers of the Church, even St. Paul, used neo-platonic structures to explain the faith. The Church was saved from full blown Gnosticism by John’s gospel and later St. Irenaeus. The really real was the spiritual and the cause of sin was the material. Muslim writers introduced the complete Aristotle to the West in the 11th and 12th centuries. Aquinas used Aristotle to explain the faith and moved toward healing the spiritual – material rift.
Year ago I remember asking the famous English Aquinas scholar Thomas Gilby, O.P. what was the key to Dominican philosophy and theology. He replied that it was to recognize that the spiritual and material were simply two aspects of the same reality.
The moderate realism of the encyclicals has the ability to relate to real problems of poverty and injustice. Thomistic natural law ethics insists that reason is the rule of morality and social justice. Thomas reasoned that circumstances determined the morality of an act.
The encyclicals focus on the common good and this includes the well being of each and every individual. The Thomistic Aristotelian view that the person is a social being coupled with the insistence that fundamentally all are of equal value, goes against the basic modern economic principles of capitalism proposed by David Hume, Adam Smith John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, David Riccardo and John Malthus.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Christian reformers of the 16th century noted Jesus was not conversant with neo-platonic or Aristotelian categories and insisted that Christian theology should be biblically based. But the reformers faced a similar problem as the Medieval Christian writers. How do you explain first century writings, at least one step removed from Jesus, as dogma to those of advanced learning – the founders of modern science? Augustinian Neo-Platonism won the day again for the reformers and a significant portion of Roman Catholics. For most Christians the spiritual was divorced from the material – religion from politics – reason from faith. People of faith live two lives – Sunday morning and the rest of the week. Muslims and Jews attempted to keep a low profile in a situation of prejudice and persecution.
The Reformation did provide support for the emerging capitalist system in that it emphasized individualism; its ethics required honesty and it fostered the belief that the wealthy, but austere, were blessed and called by God to be leaders and do his work. Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope lost prominence. (Max Weber)
The search for the historical Jesus has discovered that Jesus, in the best of Jewish tradition, led a non-violent challenge to the Roman Empire and was executed as a political criminal. The Gospels were recognized as works of theology to explain faith, and not historical accounts of the life of Jesus.
With the Encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ we have come full circle. ‘Rerum Novarum’ denounced ‘liberalism’ as a cause of poverty in the late 19th century. The world economy now faces the policies of neo-liberalism - ‘free’ trade, Structural Ajustment Programs by the World Bank, devolution of the union movement, and anti-government politics resulting in de-regulation. What does ‘Caritas in Veritate’ have to say about this?
Let me relate some of the many reasons I am doing this blog. First: the Labor Movement and the Faith Community can have a greater political impact for justice with a combined effort. Second: to show the path to reconciliation of positions if there is conflict between them such as the wedge issues of abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research. Third: A valuable contribution of the Encyclicals is that they establish the ‘why’ of an economic system and the ‘how’ follows. Contemporary economics assumes the ‘why’ as a given with little comment.
On the negative side, women’s issues are for the most part ignored, little attention and credit is given to Jewish, Muslim and secular writings on justice. I hope to point this out where appropriate.
The articles will be relatively short and probably will raise more questions than answers. Comments are appreciated, and gross errors will be corrected. This is a community project. The purpose is to maintain interest and inspire further research. The goal is political action for justice.
Starting with the first papal encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ I will discuss several encyclicals including Vatican II documents and the latest ‘Caritas in Veritate.’
In my own limited studies of the encyclicals, several have influenced my opinions such as Dominicans Vincent McNabb, Thomas Gilby, J.D.Malone, Gustavo Gutierrez, Regina Williams, Benedict Ashley, Therese VanThull, Lucy Edelbeck and Paul Bowe and J.M. O’Connor. Others would be Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Father Fran Eshweiler, Dorothy Day and Father John Ryan. By starting to write this in England I am especially aware of Julian of Norwich, Vincent McNabb, O.P. Thomas Gilby, O.P. and my former economics professor Paul Bowe, O.P., an Irish Dominican who studied at Cambridge. David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, David Riccardo John Malthus and Karl Marx lurk in the background. I am aware that my comments could never do justice to the work of these great scholars, but I feel a duty to mention them and hope to foster interest in their work. In my autumn years I enjoy remembering them.
The first papal encyclical on economics was proclaimed in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII. The text is attributed to Cardinal Zigliara a Dominican.
THE INFLUENCE OF THOMISM
Leo XIII had earlier announced that ‘Thomism,’ the philosophy and theology of 13th century Dominican friar and of the Dominicans order, would be the preferred theology of the Church. Thomism saw no conflict between faith and reason therefore a reasonable treatise on economics would be for all not just Roman Catholics. The devastating poverty in Europe and the U.S. demanded a strong response. The most cogent was that of Karl Marx.
Faith and Reason
Historically not all agreed on the compatibility of faith and reason. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all had internal battles over the validity of philosophy – reason – the secular, especially when there was an apparent contradiction between the doctrines of faith and philosophy. The problem extended to politics. The ‘Spiritual Franciscans,’ disgusted with the politics and the corruption of the Avignon popes and claimed the pope should stay out of secular affairs and limit papal pronouncements to the spiritual. This is part of the background for U.S. revolutionaries’ insistence on separation of church and state. Avignon was not happy with the pointed criticism by the Franciscans, and although the basic philosophical and theological positions of Thomas Aquinas were condemned by the Bishop of Paris in 1277, Thomas was canonized by Avignon Pope John XXII fifty years after his death..
Thomistic Realism
Until Aquinas, Christian writers – the fathers of the Church, even St. Paul, used neo-platonic structures to explain the faith. The Church was saved from full blown Gnosticism by John’s gospel and later St. Irenaeus. The really real was the spiritual and the cause of sin was the material. Muslim writers introduced the complete Aristotle to the West in the 11th and 12th centuries. Aquinas used Aristotle to explain the faith and moved toward healing the spiritual – material rift.
Year ago I remember asking the famous English Aquinas scholar Thomas Gilby, O.P. what was the key to Dominican philosophy and theology. He replied that it was to recognize that the spiritual and material were simply two aspects of the same reality.
The moderate realism of the encyclicals has the ability to relate to real problems of poverty and injustice. Thomistic natural law ethics insists that reason is the rule of morality and social justice. Thomas reasoned that circumstances determined the morality of an act.
The encyclicals focus on the common good and this includes the well being of each and every individual. The Thomistic Aristotelian view that the person is a social being coupled with the insistence that fundamentally all are of equal value, goes against the basic modern economic principles of capitalism proposed by David Hume, Adam Smith John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, David Riccardo and John Malthus.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Christian reformers of the 16th century noted Jesus was not conversant with neo-platonic or Aristotelian categories and insisted that Christian theology should be biblically based. But the reformers faced a similar problem as the Medieval Christian writers. How do you explain first century writings, at least one step removed from Jesus, as dogma to those of advanced learning – the founders of modern science? Augustinian Neo-Platonism won the day again for the reformers and a significant portion of Roman Catholics. For most Christians the spiritual was divorced from the material – religion from politics – reason from faith. People of faith live two lives – Sunday morning and the rest of the week. Muslims and Jews attempted to keep a low profile in a situation of prejudice and persecution.
The Reformation did provide support for the emerging capitalist system in that it emphasized individualism; its ethics required honesty and it fostered the belief that the wealthy, but austere, were blessed and called by God to be leaders and do his work. Priests, Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope lost prominence. (Max Weber)
The search for the historical Jesus has discovered that Jesus, in the best of Jewish tradition, led a non-violent challenge to the Roman Empire and was executed as a political criminal. The Gospels were recognized as works of theology to explain faith, and not historical accounts of the life of Jesus.
With the Encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ we have come full circle. ‘Rerum Novarum’ denounced ‘liberalism’ as a cause of poverty in the late 19th century. The world economy now faces the policies of neo-liberalism - ‘free’ trade, Structural Ajustment Programs by the World Bank, devolution of the union movement, and anti-government politics resulting in de-regulation. What does ‘Caritas in Veritate’ have to say about this?
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