"Kind of a Secular Sacrament": Father Geno Baroni, Monsignor John J. Egan, and the Catholic War on Poverty

The author argues that social activist Catholic priests such as John J. Egan and Geno Baroni created a Catholic War on Poverty through Catholic civil rights organizations that included the National Catholic Conference of Interracial Justice and the development of community antipoverty organizations. Informed by the theology and social teachings of the Second Vatican Council, Egan, Baroni, and others saw the national War on Poverty as an extension of the civil rights movement. Their efforts led to the eventual formation of the Campaign for Human Development, the Catholic Church's official antipoverty organization that continues to fight poverty in the twenty-first century.Keywords: Baroni, Geno; Black Manifesto; Campaign for Human Development; Egan, Msgr. John J.; War on PovertyHistorical scholarship of the War on Poverty has flowered in recent years after decades of historians' collective neglect. Studies by several scholars have challenged the way that historians have thought and written about the War on Poverty, particularly in terms of race and gender. In addition, some of that scholarship has sought to expand scholars' thinking about the time frame of the War on Poverty. Most scholars who have written about the War on Poverty discuss its beginnings in the early 1960s and its end in the mid to late 1970s. Some scholars, however, have argued that the War on Poverty has endured to the present day. Borrowing from the term the long civil rights movement coined by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, a few of these scholars have used the term the long war on poverty to describe antipoverty efforts that continued beyond the 1970s.1One aspect of the War on Poverty that has been little explored to this point, despite this flowering of historical scholarship, is the central role of religion. Scholars such as James Findlay and David Chappell have deftly explored the fundamental role of religion in the civil rights movement.2 In addition, scholars like John McGreevy have examined the complex relationship between Catholicism and the black freedom movement.3 However, the equally vital role of religion in the War on Poverty has remained unexamined for the most part. Some exceptions to this scholarly void include Kenneth Heineman's 2003 article in The Historian on Catholic social activism and the War on Poverty in Pittsburgh, and Susan Ashmore's 2003 essay on Catholic antipoverty efforts in Mobile, Alabama.4 The author's intention is to build on the work of Heineman and Ashmore by exploring the development of a national Catholic War on Poverty, from its beginnings in the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice (NCCIJ) through its maturation in the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD). The essay will explore the Catholic War on Poverty in part through the careers of two priests: Geno Baroni and John J. Egan. Baroni and Egan were the two most significant of a group of activist clerics dubbed by one scholar as "community organization priests."5 In the process of exploring the activism of Baroni and Egan, issues can be addressed such as the connections between the civil rights/black power movements and the War on Poverty; the influence of an evolving Catholic theology on Baroni, Egan, and the organizations they created; the ways in which Catholic social activism and the War on Poverty intertwined; and the implications of a Catholic War on Poverty for the relationship between church and state in American society.America's War on Poverty began officially when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act on August 20, 1964. The act created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which provided federal funds to community action agencies that fought poverty at the local level. Community action was the key strategy of the legislation-communities were to include "maximum feasible participation of the poor" in their local antipoverty wars. The ideas of inclusion and empowerment of the poor were the most controversial aspects of the War on Poverty and key elements for the involvement of Catholic social activists in antipoverty efforts. …