As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, we saw how socialists and modernists got
right to work shifting the interpretation of social charity and social justice
away from a natural law understanding, and to a less person-centered
focus. Among the foremost leaders of the
reinterpretation movement, none was more effective than Monsignor John A. Ryan
(1869-1945) of the Catholic University of America.
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| Msgr. John A. Ryan |
Ryan read Henry George’s
Progress and Poverty while a teenager. (Rt. Rev. Msgr. John A. Ryan, D.D., L.L.D.,
Litt.D., Social Doctrine in Action: A
Personal History. New York: Harper
& Brothers, Publishers, 1941, 9.) He is best known, however, for his efforts in
linking Catholic social teaching to the socialist concept of the “living wage”
as the primary or even sole legitimate source of income for most people. He asserted that natural rights are
alienable, being vested not in the human person, but in the collective. As he put it,
Natural rights are necessary
means of right and reasonable living.
They are essential to the welfare of a human being, a person. They exist and are sacred and inviolable
because the welfare of the person exists — as a fact of the ideal order — and
is a sacred and inviolable thing. (John A. Ryan, A Living Wage. New York:
Grosset and Dunlap, Publishers, 1906, 48.)
Ryan’s
fundamental error is therefore his claim that “[n]atural rights. . . . exist
and are sacred and inviolable because the welfare of the person exists.” There is another serious problem with the
fact that Ryan posited private property “as a fact of the ideal order,” the implications of which we will not look into at
this time.
Ryan was
wrong. Natural rights exist and are
sacred and inviolable because the human person
exists, not because the welfare of
the human person exists. Human existence is objective fact. Human welfare
is subjective opinion. Shifting from
fact to opinion as the basis of your ethical system is just a way of justifying
moral relativism.
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| Bishop Thomas Shahan |
Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan (1857-1932), rector of the Catholic University of
America, may have brought Fulton Sheen in to correct these and similar errors
being spread by Ryan. Shahan had been
one of the examiners in the McGlynn case (The others were Rev. Dr. Thomas Bouquillon (1840-1902), Rev. Dr. Thomas
O’Gorman (1843-1921), and Rev. Dr. Charles P. Grannan (1846-1924)), and recognized the dangers inherent in
Ryan’s thought.
Unfortunately, Shahan retired soon after Sheen
joined the faculty. Using techniques
similar to those employed later by Father Charles E. Curran following the
Second Vatican Council, Ryan was easily able to neutralize Sheen by the simple
expedient of manufacturing incidents, (Minutes of the Meetings of the Faculty of Theology, May 30, 1930,
quoted in Kathleen L. Riley, Fulton J.
Sheen: An American Catholic Response to the Twentieth Century. New York:
Society of St. Paul, 2004, 15.)
forcing confrontations, (Fulton
J. Sheen, Treasure in Clay: The
Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979, 45.) and spreading false rumors. (Thomas C. Reeves, America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen. San
Francisco, California: Encounter Books, 2001, 71.) Sheen later described this period as “a great trial.” (Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ. New York:
Image Books, 1977, 9.)
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| Pope Pius XI |
Pius XI presented
his social doctrine in Quadragesimo Anno
(1831) which addressed religious and democratic socialism, and Divini Redemptoris (1937), which dealt
with atheistic socialism. Defined by
what Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. (1905-1985) called “the laws and
characteristics of social justice,” (Rev.
William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Introduction
to Social Justice. New York: Paulist
Press, 1948, 34-55.( Pius XI’s social doctrine laid out the means by
which the common good can be directly accessed by members of an organized group
acting on behalf of the group. By taking
advantage of the power that naturally and necessarily follows widespread
capital ownership, ordinary people could organize for the common good and work
to restructure institutions to remove barriers to full participation in the
common good.
The problem,
however, remained. Without a financially
feasible and ethical means for ordinary people to acquire private property in
capital without redistribution, socialists, modernists, and New Agers as well
as capitalists, traditionalists, and reactionaries were easily able to twist
Pius XI’s social doctrine into another form of socialism or dismiss it as
prudential matter.
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