THE 'CATHOLIC' CATHOLIC PROBLEM: An Exchange of Views
an exchange of views The 'Catholic' Catholic Problem White Plains, N.Y. To the Editors: Leo Pfeffer [8/1/75] is not the first American of integrity, fairness and scholarly credentials to...
...Nor is it the sum of elitist laymen, such as Wagner, Kerwin, Anne O'Hare Mc-Cormick, and Maritain...
...As a matter of fact, legions of Catholic voters in America believe me hopelessly wrong in politics...
...Both friends and foes of that measure agree that religious lobbying was probably decisive in its passage...
...Copyright 1975, NC News Service) Baltimore, Md...
...Was the Church the bedrock of McCarthy's power in the fifties...
...In 1960 John Kennedy came out strongly against aid to parochial schools, but I do not think it inaccurate to say that the Church favored such aid...
...One of the instances I cited was the opposition of the Church in New York to a Sabbatarian exemption from the Sunday closing laws...
...I don't want to exaggerate the importance of this matter, but it does seem to me that the cause of inter-religious understanding is hampered at least as much by inadequate sociology as it is by inadequate theology-on either side of the dialogue...
...It is not the Nation or Commonweal, but it is a liberal magazine...
...Pfeffer's stimulating article in Commonweal and consider it to be a kind of landmark in the recent history of interreligious dialogue in the United States...
...He had been born and reared in Minnesota and grew up with the belief that if one knew what one Catholic held he knew what all Catholics held...
...Higgins thinks I am too provincial and should not generalize from New York experiences...
...In so reacting, however, he would have been at variance with his own Catholic tradition...
...I should have revised the article by cutting down on the first part and expanding the last, particularly as I was asked to write what I think of the Church, not what I thought of it before Vatican II...
...His memory is, indeed, at fault, and his recollection is more fallible than he makes it out to be...
...Ireland was a Republican...
...A week before the referendum vote in Massachusetts, Boston was flooded with 100,000 reprints of Labor, the journal of the railway brotherhoods, containing a pro-amendment article by the same John A. Ryan, top-ranking Catholic moral theologian and major American economist...
...I could not understand," he writes, "the great silence of the Church on the civil rights revolution of the fifties and early sixties...
...Reply Where Father Smith and I differ is in our understanding as to what is meant by "the Catholic Church...
...On the other hand, with the best of good will and with due appreciation for Mr...
...Quite the contrary...
...Some two years later (we are now in the Vatican II era) a similar measure was introduced...
...To the Editors: Leo Pfeffer [8/1/75] is not the first American of integrity, fairness and scholarly credentials to cort-clude that of necessity the Catholic Church in the United States must be a monolithic institution...
...He had accepted this offer rather than one at a prestigious Catholic university because the latter required of him an assurance that he would not be critical in his classes of Franco's cause...
...Then, Dr...
...The fourth, like the others, east coast Irish, was in Philadelphia...
...Lally-editorialized that it "deserves the support of all conscientious legislators...
...Paul VI, I am aware, is not entirely happy with what is happening and the rate at which it is happening, but neither he nor King Canute can stop it...
...Still it is impossible to find any evidence of any effort on the part of the Church to mass all Catholics behind Franco's banner...
...Jacques Maritain, perhaps the most distinguished Catholic layman of the first half of this century, was teaching at the New School for Social Research at the time...
...LEO PFEFFER...
...Both Msgr...
...Since Mr...
...A generation before, Archbishop John Ireland (1838-1918), a man of totally different temperament and cast of mind, expressed this tradition well: "It is a calumny that we deeply resent to say that in civic political matters Catholic voters are under the influence of the Church...
...Senate January 8, 1925...
...His 1917 pastoral letter vindicating the right of working men to organize was welcomed by social-minded Americans...
...When Protestants and Others United for Separation of Church and State (POAU) was formed, Bishop Francis J. Haas (1889-1953), chairman of the U.S...
...More than thirty years ago, the then esteemed president of the New School for Social Research, the late Alvin Johnson, confided to this writer that he once shared that view...
...Martin Luther King when he gave his celebrated "I have a dream" address...
...The measure passed in a voice vote...
...Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I do not remember any year when the annual statement of the National Catholic Welfare Conference was devoted to the subject of equality for blacks...
...Indeed, although here I may be even more wrong, I do not recall reading of a single prelate, not even the liberal Cardinal Mundelein, who publicly urged its adoption...
...In other words, I got the impression that he tended to generalize much too freely on the basis of partial or distorted information...
...Pfeffer is happy with a number of the changes in the Church and writes in such a way as to imply things are not what they used to be...
...Pfeffer's partial change of heart with regard to the Catholic Church, I cannot help but say that his sociological approach to things Catholic (whatever one may think of his theology) is a bit too careless for a scholar of his admitted competence- and a bit too provincial as well...
...He had, however, the ear of Cardinal O'Connell...
...For my own part, I never really thought of him in those terms...
...The ablest pronouncement, undoubtedly, on either side of the controversy was made by Senator Thomas Walsh, prominent and active Catholic, in the U.S...
...Had I done so, I would have added two illustrative instances, one involving John Courtney Murray, and the other America...
...But in neither case was the bedrock of his strength among the better informed...
...One can understand, however, how the author of the article and others equally open-minded and fair as he came to this conclusion...
...As indicated above, I have singled out Pfeffer's reference to the civil rights problem as only one of several illustrations of what I consider to be the major weakness of his aproach to things Catholic both before and after Vatican II: a certain carelessness about easily verifiable facts, the kind of carelessness which, as a lawyer, he would never tolerate in his own field of professional competence...
...It would be impracticable for me to retrace the research I did some forty years ago as a law student, or to initiate fresh research...
...Higgins and Father Cronin take exception to my characterization of the Church's efforts in the civil rights struggle as silence and foot dragging...
...This was strongly supported by the NCWC, including a very substantial financial contribution...
...I was moderately active in the civil rights movement during this period and my recollection, fallible as it is, was that there was a general consensus that the Catholic Church was dragging its feet...
...Before the International Catholic Alumnae in 1925, Ryan advocated the ratification of the amendment in the forenoon session...
...His brother Edward does not favor amending the Constitution to prohibit abortion...
...The University of Notre Dame in one of those years gave its podium to George Kennan for the annual address to the graduates...
...Considered in the light of (a) the resources and influence of the Church, (b) what other denominations, including the miniscule Friends, were doing, (c) the Church's efforts in other campaigns such as obscenity, Communism and aid to parochial schools, and (d) above all, the tragedy and immorality of Christian America's treatment of the black people, I do not think the characterization was unfair...
...They did, and the measure was killed...
...This time the Pilot-its editor was still Msgr...
...In the aftermath of Vatican II, Pfeffer continues, "I still do not like (the Catholic Church), but I do not like it less than I did not like it during (the pre-Vatican II period), and the reason is that, while it is still what it was before, it is considerably less so, if you can make out what I mean...
...Compare what happened to Dollinger with what happened, or more accurately did not happen to Hans Kung...
...The record will show that Father Cronin, working in close cooperation with his Protestant and Jewish counterparts in a then unprecedented ecumenical task force, spent almost all of his time on this issue for a period of many months...
...The Archbishop of Boston was unhappy and protested...
...This fact speaks volumes...
...The Pilot printed the names of "those Senators who so unwisely" voted for the exemption, and expressed "the hope" that they would reconsider...
...Pfeffer argues that one can dislike or disagree with the Catholic Church without being an anti-Catholic bigot (I agree), just as one can dislike the State of Israel without being anti-Semitic "even though there is strong and practically universal identification between Jews and the State of Israel and Catholics and the Church...
...I have been reading it regularly for more than 20 years, and nobody can tell me it has not changed...
...By the standards of the fifties and sixties, they were reasonably good statements, as Mr...
...The best that one can say it would seem is that too many persons, Catholic and non-Catholic, supported the late Senator and for too long...
...The Child Labor Amendment was defeated by the power of the NAM in union with super patriotic and pseudo-patriotic organizations which see a threat to the Constitution and American political traditions and policy in every effective piece of social legislation...
...To me, it is not the 400-million-plus faithful, although some day it might be that...
...The Spanish Civil War was a divisive issue among American Catholics- among Spanish Catholics also...
...Adams, an experienced Protestant journalist, concludes that the role of the churches, including the Catholic Church, in the enactment of the 1964 civil rights bill was a key one...
...As for America, I do consider it part of the Church...
...During the period he refers to, two of the annual statements of the old National Catholic Welfare Conference (now the U.S...
...I would say that the Conference-in the person of Father John Cronin, who was my associate in the Social Action Department-lobbied more persistently and more effectively in favor of the 1964 landmark civil rights bill than it has ever lobbied before or since on any other single issue...
...Higgins seems to think it should have been, I would have done so, but since it is not, I feel justified in relying on my memory...
...I may yet get to like the Catholic Church, if anyone cares...
...Even if I were disposed to argue this point with Mr...
...In summary, Mr...
...For example, only a man who had spent too much time on the sidewalks of the very provincial city of New York could have concluded that in the pre-Vatican II period "the Catholic Church was one of if not the single most powerful political force in the nation"-or could have convinced himself that Cardinal Spellman's disastrous involvement in the New York cemetery strike was in any way typical of the Church's approach to the labor problem in the United States...
...Alliance is hardly the precise word for this limited and local agreement involving only two persons really-James A. Emery (1876-1955), a Catholic, general counsel for the NAM and a man of outstanding ability, and William Cardinal O'Connell, Archbishop of Boston...
...Cardinal O'Boyle shared the platform with Dr...
...e. harold smith In a recent column distributed by NC News Service to the Catholic press, Msgr...
...If I seem to be putting too much emphasis on New York and Boston, it should be remembered that at about the time of the ascension of John XXIII there were, for a short period, only four cardinals in all of the United States...
...two were in New York and Boston, a third, Cardinal Spellman's alter ego, a New Yorker transplanted in J-os Angeles...
...In none of these three examples cited in the article and discussed in this letter is there evidence of monolithic action on the part of the Catholic Church in the U.S...
...Father Smith implies that only James Emery and Cardinal O'Connell were responsible for the effective opposition to the Child Labor Amendment...
...Contrary to Mr...
...For the most part the complexities of the situation were ignored and the issues oversimplified in most of the American Catholic papers...
...I do have one regret about my article...
...I believe that the Church was slow in moving massively in the area of civil rights, but its statements and action from 1958 on cannot be faulted...
...Anna O'Hare McCormick, a fervent Catholic, and well-known contributor to the New York Times at that time, never lost an opportunity in her prestigious column to warn against the dangers of McCarthy-ism both at home and abroad...
...At the time he would have settled for a larger measure of "monolithity" than he, the senior American Cardinal Archbishop, could find even in his own See City...
...But in 1958, the bishops issued their great pastoral letter on religion and race...
...Two of the best informed Catholics in the United States on the merits of the amendment were John A. Ryan and William Kerby -priest-professors at the Catholic University, Washington, D.C., scholars of national and even international reputations...
...For more than a quarter of a century Emery had been appearing before Congressional Committees always in opposition, as Senator Robert Wagner (N.Y...
...George G. Higgins, secretary for research of the United States Catholic Conference, commented on an article in these pages by Leo Pfeffer...
...As a citizen I may regret that my political influence is not wider, as a Catholic I am glad of the independence of the citizenship of America...
...What can be said of "the unholy alliance of the National Association of Manufacturers and the Catholic Church" at the time when the Child Labor Amendment was first proposed...
...It is rather the prestigious Catholic university which rejected Maritain because he refused to be silent about Franco, the 95 percent diocesan press which supported Franco and probably the same percentage which supported McCarthy...
...Again, as in the Spanish War, the record of the diocesan Catholic press was sad and undistinguished...
...I find myself in agreement with most of what it says, although I usually would go further than it does...
...The full text of the column follows: Commonweal magazine is currently running a series of articles by non-Catholic writers on the general subject, "What I Think About The Roman Catholic Church...
...A decade later Murray was theologian in residence at Vatican II and lived to see his near heresies become the law of the land...
...In this-same connection, while I am not stupid enough to pretend that the Conference or the Church in general did anywhere near as much as it might and should have done to promote civil rights legislation in the sixties, neither am I prepared to admit that "there was a general consensus that the Catholic Church was dragging its feet...
...In June, 1962, the Massachusetts Senate passed a modest exemption to that state's Sunday law...
...Msgr...
...Mr...
...The work of the ecumenical task force is recorded in considerable detail in a book by James L. Adams entitled The Growing Church Lobby in Washington (Eerdmans, Grands Rapids, Mich., 1970...
...Consider the other side of the coin...
...The speaker declared, and his words were widely quoted, that Senator McCarthy's appoach to Communism and his tactics were wrong and therefore so were the approach and tactics of those who were supporting him...
...Still the diocesan weekly of the largest archdiocese in the country, Chicago, (headed by a powerful cardinal-archbishop) never espoused Franco and was outspokenly critical until the end...
...This time around however, both the Catholic weekly journals of opinion (America and Commonweal) were militantly anti-McCarthy as they should have been with courageous editors who never dipped their, colors...
...once reminded him, to every important measure of social justice introduced in Congress during these years...
...If my article were a sociological essay, as Msgr...
...Priests and bishops do not dictate the politics of Catholics...
...Pfeffer says that before Vatican II he did not like the Catholic Church "because it was monolithic and authoritarian and big and frighteningly powerful...
...If so, they were the two most powerful persons in the country, to be able to prevent adoption of an amendment passed by two-thirds of each house of Congress...
...To the Editors: Leo Pfeffer writes of "the silence of the Church on the great civil-rights revolution of the fifties and early sixties...
...While I disagreed, more often than not, with his stand on church-state issues and looked upon him as being rather doctrinaire, I always enjoyed his company and never at any time got the impression that I was dealing with an anti-Catholic bigot in the usual sense of the word...
...I could cite several other examples to illustrate Mr...
...Jerome Kerwin, dedicated Catholic layman, intimately identified with the University of Chicago for many years spoke out about the same time as Kennan and in the same vein...
...This was the extent of the alliance...
...The Catholic Church was active in the March on Washington...
...He added, however, "if Dr...
...They were both publicly supporting the amendment on the lecture platform and in print...
...Time marches on...
...He says that, "for weal or woe," church lobbyists have never been the same since 1964...
...Committee on Fair Employment Practices, remarked to this writer that if the members of that organization could sit in at one session of the annual meeting of the American bishops, they would disband and save themselves money and effort...
...Pfeffer's feel for the nuances of Catholic thought and Catholic practice-and his knowledge of what was actually happening in the Church-were less than adequate...
...Father Smith himself refers to Archbishop Curley, whose diocese was Baltimore...
...In the early fifties I read a series of articles in the American Ecclesiastical Review constituting a debate between Murray and some members of the theology faculty at Catholic University on the subjects of religious liberty in a Catholic state and salvation outside the Church...
...This, fallible as it is, tells me that Cardinal O'Connell and Boston were far from the only person and place in publicly opposing the Amendment...
...It is true that probably 95 percent of the diocesan press in this country was supporting Franco's cause...
...In the early sixties, the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice proposed a national conference on religion and race...
...Johnson continued, he moved to Chicago and quickly learned Irish Catholic politicians were so adept at cutting one another's throats that there were no close seconds...
...Pfeffer's lack of information about things Catholic, but one will have to suffice...
...Pfeffer's faulty rec-ollation, there was a general consensus in 1964 that Father Cronin and his associates in the ecumenical task force played a major role in persuading the Congress to adopt the 1964 Civil Rights Act...
...In fact, Adams is of the opinion that the churches were so effective in this regard that their lobbying experience might have gone to their heads...
...Ryan disagrees with me he is free to do so...
...The text of the article is refreshingly frank and, on the whole, rather irenic...
...This was widely acclaimed in hundreds of newspapers around the country...
...On the other hand, I did get the impression more than once that Mr...
...Pfeffer-and, for present purposes, I am not-a newspaper column would hardly be the proper forum in which to do so...
...Not so Commonweal, twice cited by Father Smith as evidence of non-monolithity of the, Church...
...One of these (Commonweal), unlike most of the diocesan weeklies, attempted to present the war and the issues objectively...
...Archbishop Curley opposed it in the afternoon...
...Father Smith to the contrary notwithstanding, things in the Catholic Church are not what they were...
...If the entire religious establishment, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, were to increase by ten-fold its contribution to the blacks' struggle to free themselves from three centuries of Christian-imposed slavery, it would still be silence and foot dragging...
...Having said this, I hasten to add that I enjoyed reading .Mr...
...JOHN F. CRONIN, S.S...
...The Cardinal, on the other hand, was not entirely without social vision...
...In one of the articles, one of Murray's adversaries implied not too subtly that Murray was on the verge of heresy, if he had not actually gone beyond it...
...Pfeffer has mentioned NCWC in this connection, let's stick with that organization for the moment...
...if they strove to do so their influence would be promptly repulsed...
...Adams is fearful that this might lead them to go too far in their dealings with the Congress...
...I was well past half-way through it when I remembered that I was limited to 2500 words...
...Someday, and sorrowfully it still seems far away, when the history of the ultimately successful struggle of the blacks for selfliberation is written, the role of white religion will merit little more than a footnote...
...He no longer uses that kind of pre-Vatican II language...
...I think Adams' fears in this regard are exaggerated, but, in any event, he demonstrates conclusively that the churches, including the Catholic Church, did not drag their feet on the matter of civil rights legislation, as alleged by Mr...
...I still have that impression (though to a lesser extent than before) after reading his Commonweal article...
...In June of 1963, this writer was one of thirty labor, civil-rights, and religious leaders who met in the White House with President Kennedy to plan what was to become the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
...There were the two Catholic weekly journals of opinion...
...I am fairly certain that Cardinal Hayes of New York also publicly opposed it, and I believe that there were other bishops who did the same...
...The Boston Pilot ran an editorial calling it "a shocking assault on the day of rest statute" and a response "to pressures that will destroy the Sunday observance in favor of those-principally Jews and Adventists-who worship on Saturday...
...To speak of myself privately and publicly as a citizen I give my allegiance to a particular party...
...Catholic Conference) were devoted exclusively to the subject of equality for blacks...
...Having drunk of the heady wine of politics and power, they began eagerly flexing their moral muscles in anticipation of even bigger and more successful struggles...
...If I have understood him correctly, what he means is that the Church, in his opinion, is gradually-in practice, if not in theory-redefining itself to meet his own notion of what the Church ought to be: a locally controlled congrega-tionalist church based on popular sovereignty in Pfeffer's own individualistic understanding of that very fluid term...
...I had several occasions to dialogue with him at what used to pass for ecumenical meetings in the good or bad old days preceding Vatican II...
...The' speech was for ratification...
...The Archbishop continued that this freedom extended to other similar questions as well...
...Indeed they are not, in truth they never were...
...Pfeffer himself would probably agree if he looked them up before writing his Commonweal article...
...does anyone doubt that the Church favors it...
...20 years ago I could hardly find anything in it with which I agreed...
...The second article in the series [8/1/75] was written by Leo Pfeffer, a well known constitutional lawyer who, as the chief legal spokesman for the American Jewish Congress during the controversial fifties and sixties, gained the reputation in some circles of being a professional anti-Catholic...
...Apparently for reasons that persuaded others, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, he had determined to oppose the amendment and was willing to use his influence in Massachusetts where it was considerable and among his fellow bishops where it was severely limited, if it existed at all...
Vol. 102 • September 1975 • No. 13
