The Working Catholic: Labor Day by Bill Droel

Two Catholic laymen are credited with starting Labor Day: Matthew McGuire (1855-1917) and, no relation, Peter J. McGuire (1852-1906). Matthew McGuire was a machinist from Paterson, NJ who began factory work at age 14. Throughout the 1880s he was involved in the Knights of Labor, the first successful national union in this country.

Peter McGuire was born in New York City. He moved to St. Louis where he was a carpenter. In 1881 he moved to Chicago and formed the United Brotherhood of Carpenters out of 12 small unions. He eventually became the first secretary of the American Federation of Labor.

In 1882 the two men organized a Knights of Labor parade in New York City. It was repeated in 1883 and 1884. The 1884 parade was the first time the day was called Labor Day. Subsequently, the idea of an official Labor Day caught on in Oregon and then in a few other states. The first Saturday of June was the designated holiday. Soon enough the day was changed to the first Monday in September. Finally in 1894 the U.S. Congress voted to make that day a national holiday.

The relationship between organized labor and U.S. Catholicism has been mutually beneficial. Why not? Until recently, the constituencies were the same.

A key incident occurred in 1887 when Pope Leo XIII held a consistory to commission new cardinals. Among his picks was Archbishop James Gibbons (1834-1921) of Baltimore. A bishop in Quebec had just condemned the Knights of Labor, calling it a secret society akin to the Masons. Vatican officials supported the Canadian decree and were prepared to extend it universally. Gibbons used his opportunity in front of the pope to prevent any such thing from applying in the U.S. Of note: Four years after this consistory, Leo XIII issued the first modern social encyclical, On the Condition of Labor.

The relationship between U.S. Catholicism and organized labor is less prominent these days. Catholic institutions get their donations from suburbia and significantly less from urban immigrants, who were once the base for unions. Also, unions have fewer members than in the past, including fewer Catholics. The relationship is so ignored that here-and-there trustees of Catholic institutions violate our doctrine on labor relations with impunity.

How can U.S. Catholics observe Labor Day, September 7, 2020? First, treat it has a Sabbath. Specifically, don’t shop on Labor Day so that as many workers as possible have an easy day of it. Second, read about Catholic labor doctrine. Start with St. John Paul II’s beautiful meditations on work. (See below.) Third, participate in the liturgy despite the Covid-19 alterations. Praying a portion of the liturgy of the hours at home is recommended. It is equally safe to participate at the live stream Mass on www.catholiclabor.org at 1 PM Central, September 7th. (Prior registration is requested.)

A final word on liturgy. Back in the day I was part of a lobby group to change the feast of St. Joseph the Worker from May 1^st to the first Monday in September—in the U.S. only. The proposal got a fair hearing from several bishops, but the liturgy police in Washington, DC squelched it.

The May 1^st feast was instituted to counter the Communist celebration of May Day or Workers’ Day, which is still observed in some European countries. Ironically, the communists picked that day because of the 1886 Haymarket incident here in Chicago. A rally for an Eight Hour work day turned violent—seven police and four workers died. Eight workers were quickly arrested and seven were convicted. A few of us in Chicago honor this history but it is lost on almost all U.S. Catholics, including those who observe May 1^st as the St. Joseph feast. The U.S. origin of May Day is also, I suspect, lost on those who observe the holiday in Europe.

Droel is the editor of John Paul II’s Gospel of Work (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629; $8).

The Working Catholic: Turning to Politics by Bill Droel

Young adults are forcing our society to deal with several injustices and tensions. The long neglect is no more. Their protest movements are remarkably strong, even though the young adult leaders mobilize amid a deadly pandemic. The movements are now though at a crossroads. Thus, some of those leaders are studying U.S. history to learn what to do and what not to do next. Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), for example, is for some young adults a source for consideration, particularly his 1964 essay, “From Protest to Politics.”

Rustin was a leader on the original 1941 March on Washington and again at the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom. He was a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and involved with the Freedom Rides. Later in life he was instrumental in integrating several unions and went on humanitarian missions to assist refugees. Rustin was a gay rights supporter even before the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Most substantially, Rustin brought the philosophy of non-violent social action to the civil rights efforts of the 1950s-1960s. He spent time in India and elsewhere studying the applied strategies of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948).

 A protest movement, says Rustin, must take a “turn toward political action.” The movement’s fervor must aggregate people “into power units capable of effecting social change.” To counter police brutality, for example, it might be necessary “to get rid of the local sheriff.” During Rustin’s time and in the South, “that meant political action which in turn meant, and still means, political action within the Democratic Party.” Protesters, in this example, must figure out a way to get inside the party’s decision-making—through voter registration, through campaigning for a candidate, by forming a local caucus and more. The turn to power requires getting allies and making compromises.

Rustin is clear that this turn does not mean moderation, which is usually adjusting to the status quo. It is easy and sometimes convenient for those entities that control the current state of affairs to symbolically endorse the spirit of a protest movement without changing power relationships. Those who march for real change could be fooled when, for example, a major sports league (not individual players) or a major technology company endorses the cause in general terms.

The established system knows that the predictable news coverage of a protest soon fades. Then, says Rustin, those protesters who’ve given insufficient attention to political organizing are left “with no forces prepared to move toward radical solutions. From this they conclude that the only viable strategy is shock; above all, the hypocrisy of white liberals must be exposed… They think they can frighten white people into doing the right thing.” Too often for the apolitical protesters “militancy is a matter of posture and volume and not of effect.”

Instead, Rustin concludes, leaders of a protest movement must find ways to institutionalize power through alliances with like-minded groups, including those whose support comes with tradeoffs. “The leader who shrinks from this task reveals not purity, but lack of political sense.”

Back in the day, the phrase “the powerful 2%” meant that only a minority of idealists were involved in the movement. So it is today, though the protesters of 2020 might be the 4%, 10%, 25%. No matter the percentage, they are powerful because, as Rev. Martin Luther King (1929-1968) preached, “though the arc of the moral universe is long it bends toward justice.” Yet, the power of a demonstration, Rustin and others would say, will be sustained to the extent that the protest aims at specific reforms and will be effective if it grows alongside units of power.

Droel is with National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

Time on Two Crosses (Cleis Press; $21.95) is a collection of Rustin’s essays.

 

 

 

THE CREED OF AN ACTIVIST

James Cusack sent a postcard to the director of Voces de la Frontera a few weeks before his death on June 14, 2020.

“Dear Christine and all Voces,

 I see myself in you and VDLF (Voces de la Frontera – Immigrant Workers Organization).  Be not afraid – I am not afraid.  We are asked to walk together, love and take care of one another. – Francis.  Jim” 

Jim grew up on the south side of Chicago he loved to talk about White Sox greats such as Minnie Minoso and Nellie Fox.  He was a working man, a proud member of the Carpenters’ Union.  His dedication to workers rights was unsurpassed.

Jim was not afraid; he was a man of Faith. (Jn. 6:20)  His joy in living the The Word of God was obvious and infectious.  The Irish eyes were always smiling.

He believed that the Justice we hoped for, Justice for immigrants, African Americans and all workers was a secure reality.  (Heb. 11:1-2)

Jim believed that the ‘principalities and powers’ were nothing as a challenge to God’s will.  (Eph. 2:21)

Jim believed that the reign of God was present when:

   We continued the non-violent fight for Justice.

   We love our neighbor including those of a different color or ancestry.

   We humbly accept the will of God. (Lev, 19, Mi, 6:8 )

Thanks Jimmy – Hasta la Victoria

The Working Catholic: A Labor Apostle by Bill Droel

There’s a new edition of Christian Socialism: An Informal History by John Cort (Orbis Books, 2020). Gary Dorrien of Union Theological Seminary provides its introduction. The book generally goes in chronological order from the New Testament onto the Church Fathers (East and West), then St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and St. Thomas More (1478-1535). Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) appears in a chapter about France and Most Rev. William Temple (1881-1944) in one about England. The chapter on Catholic socialism draws upon papal encyclicals, the thoughts of Msgr. John A. Ryan (1869-1945) of St. Paul and on liberation theology. Now, something about Cort himself.

                John Cort (1913-2006), a 1935 Harvard University graduate, served our country as a Peace Corps volunteer in Philippines, as a local director in the Office of Economic Opportunity and as a director of a municipal program. He is best known as founder of Association of Catholic Trade Unionists in February 1937.

In the 1940s the Communist Party controlled 15 major labor unions in the U.S. and had influence within others. Many blue-collar workers at the time were immigrant Catholics. If Catholicism was indifferent to the world of work, Cort reasoned, the door is open to communists to use unions for their ideological purpose.  Thus ACTU would encourage Catholic workers to join unions and be active members, Cort said. It assisted with CIO membership drives, battled racketeers and sponsored labor schools where workers learned leadership skills and discussed Catholic social principles. At ACTU’s peak there were 5,500 members in 14 cities. Many ACTU chapters published hard-hitting newspapers.

                ACTU was controversial. Some Catholics accused it of cooperating with communism. The greater criticism came from the other end: ACTU was a voting-block within union locals, so fixated on anti-communism that it turned a progressive labor movement hopelessly rightward. Indeed, a few ACTU chapters got so obsessed with communism that they lost ACTU’s original purpose. Cort repeatedly said that the U in ACTU stood for unionists, not unions. He did not advocate Catholic trade unions or Catholic political parties, as sometimes occurred in Europe. Catholics display their faith in public life simply by being good unionists, good union members--or in other examples, good politicians, good civil servants, good nurses, good teachers. The workers in ACTU met outside their job site with fellow Catholics for mutual support, spiritual formation and instruction on social doctrine. Communists in the 1930s and 1940s were not socialists or progressive prophets who planted seeds of reform, said Cort. They were Stalinists who denied the spiritual life and who jeopardized national security. ACTU, Cort insisted, “was a progressive organization most of whose leaders and members were dedicated to honest democratic trade unionism.” Thus for Cort non-violence was a non-negotiable religious principle. No exceptions.

                Only in the 1970s did Cort publicly call himself a socialist. But he was clear that socialism is not crazy radicalism, not totalitarianism and not communism. For Cort it came from a vision of society based on religious principles, not on Marxism. The vision is sketched in Catholic social encyclicals and develops through the efforts of ordinary Catholics, in cooperation with like-minded colleagues, to improve policies in their workplace and their community. By the way, these encyclicals—from 1891 to 2000—equally critique total systems like communism and unrestricted systems like neoliberal capitalism. Cort gave an example. A 1937 encyclical by Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) was, of course, published in Latin. It is often titled in English as On Atheistic Communism. “I analyzed this encyclical and found that one-quarter of it is devoted to the evils of communism and three-quarters are devoted to the evils of capitalism,” he said. “It might well have been entitled On Atheistic Capitalism.

For those not interested in the history lessons contained in Cort’s Christian Socialism, get a used copy of Cort’s autobiography, Dreadful Conversions (Fordham University Press, 2003).  It is terrific spiritual reading.

St. Basil (329-379) gives “the best and shortest summary of Catholic social teaching,” Cort was fond of saying. “The coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor.”

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter on faith and work.

The Working Catholic: Student Athletes by Bill Droel

Early this month James Daniels, now a guard for our Chicago Bears, called out racial disparity in the Iowa Hawkeyes program. Many other former students then reported prejudice and outright racial comments by athletic staff at University of Iowa. A coach has been dismissed from the school, taking a $1.1million severance with him. (His yearly salary had been in excess of $800,000.)

Productive conversations about race are occurring among players at many other schools and many coaches now realize that athletics can be a force for social improvement.

  Chicago was totally taken by the Loyola University Ramblers basketball team during March Madness 2018. They were 15-3 in their Missouri Valley Conference and then won thrilling games in the NCAA tournament, advancing all the way to the Final Four. Media attention to this remarkable team gave an occasion to recall another Ramblers team.

In 1963 Loyola won the title game with a last second basket in overtime against University of Cincinnati Bearcats. The tournament is an important moment in NCAA history, but not because of its thrilling finish. The Ramblers used four Black starters during the season, violating a gentleman’s agreement among coaches to limit the number of Black starters. At some games during the season the Chicago team took abuse from opponent’s fans. In the second round of the March 1963 tournament, Loyola was matched against Mississippi State Bulldogs. That team had to use two airplanes (in case half the team got caught) to sneak out of town ahead of a court order prohibiting them from playing an integrated team like Loyola. There’s a famous photo of the pre-tip off handshake between a Black Rambler and a white Bulldog.

            In January 1965 the integrated basketball team at Father Ryan High School in Nashville beat an all-Black team from Pearl High School by one point. Thomas Freedman (N.Y Times, 1/9/15) supplies details on the game’s bigger significance. The white players at Ryan were not supposed to play the Blacks from Pearl or from any other segregated school. Ryan was the first integrated high school in Tennessee and in 1897 Pearl was the first high school for Blacks in that state. In 1945 Ryan took its first prophetic step by including a Black student on its inter-mural speech team. Around that time Ryan’s principal was asked to tally the school’s racial composition. We don’t have white or Black students, he asserted. “We have Father Ryan students.”

Pearl, which became Pearl-Cohn at a new location in 1983, also had to violate racial strictures to play Ryan. Perry Wallace (1948-2017) was a star Pearl player in that game. He went on to be the first Black player in the Southeastern Conference for Vanderbilt.

John Seigenthaler (1927-2014) was a Ryan student back when the school integrated. A priest at the school gave him a copy of Mind of the South by W.J. Cash, a 1941 analysis of racial caste in the South. Reading it was my “first exposure to issues of race,” Seigenthaler later reflected. “My idealism began” with that book and during my days at Ryan, he said. And who was Seigenthaler? He became a courageous editor for The Tennessean, covering many civil rights stories. He also served U. S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925-1968). In that capacity he was sent to Montgomery in 1961 to protect the Freedom Riders. Seigenthaler was seriously injured by a segregationist mob there, causing Kennedy to make civil rights a high priority for the administration.

Freedman concludes his story by noting that the practical reforms from the 1950s-1960s civil rights movement depended “on a reservoir of moral decency among whites, some of them secular liberals, but many of them sharing the religious principles proclaimed by activist black ministers.” And so it is today; more evidently so in recent weeks. When Blacks and whites cooperate, racial reforms can happen. Not fully enough; not quickly enough. But change occurs. Schools, including their athletic programs, are part of the new humanity.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a newsletter about faith and work.