The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-11
'OR. ). A.. RYAN OPENS SERIES
 OF LECTURES UNDER AUSPICES
 OF CATHOLIC CHARITY BUREAU
Noted Economist Outlines Policy of Church Toward the Social Question Before Several Hundred Persons at St. Augustine's ChapelWorkman Should Be Part Owner of His Tools He Says.

The Jesuit theologians Suarez, replied to James, asserting that mo monarch holds authority Immediately from God, but only through the medium of the human word.'' And the church has always taught tha Satural rights and the sacredness of the individual as against the arbitrary action of the king of the state.
 "Toda.r the tendency among O tical writers is to maintain that the state, which means a majority of the pop fulation, can do anything it pleases with the individual, and that alll the individuals rights are derived from the state. This is not the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. and it is not the doctrine of the Cath olic Church. The doctrine of the latter protects the weak against the tyranny of majorities
 Two revolutionary events have prevented the Church from continu-
 ing her benef1cent influence upon social and political life. The first was the Protestant Reformation
 which for several centuries compell- ed the Church to devote most of her energies to the task of defending the faith, and which deprived her of her former power to mold industrial in- stitutions and the theories and prac- tice of business. The second was the French Revolution which tried to impose an impossible constitution upon the clergy, conf1scated Church property, persecuted priests and at tempted utterly to drive religion out of individual and social life. As consequence, the tradition grew up over most of the Continent of Europe that democracy and the Church are mutually opposed, and this tradition has been fostered by many on both sides The same alignment took place in the revolutionary movements of 1S48.
 'oThere always have been individual reactionaries among Catholics, and these have helped to create the im- pression that the Church was oppos- ed to liberty and social progress. Such men made things difficult for Ketteler in Germany. Descurtins in Switzerland, Manning in England, and Leo XIII. in France. Today in our own country the reactionaries in in- dustry and in politics are not uncom- mon.
 Pope Leo XIII. in his Hhcyclical on the Condition of Labor enunciated several positive doctrines: right of private property for all; right of la- borers to g. living wage, and to hu- mane conditions of employment; de- nunciation of child labor, and of un- reasonable woman labor; demand of sufficient property to provide the 1a- borer and his family against inca pacity and old age; organization of workingmen; and state intervention when other remedies are ineffective. His program is very like the Plat form of Minimums' formulated by the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1912.
 "The traditional attitude of the church is not toward capitalism. but toward diffused ownership. The church is in no wise responsible for capitalism, and capitalism would not have come into existence but for the Reformation. Catholic attitude is more in accordance with the move- ment toward cooperative enterprise.
 "The church is opposed to certain radical social movements because they are destructive of human welfare; she refuses to become merely social re- from rganizatoin because that is not her function, as her business is to save souls; and she has positive attitude toward social questions and social movements because they all involve questions of morality, of right conZ duct.
 'she is in a position to take more active part in the solution of social questions now than at any time since the Reformation. She teaches the cor rect principles of Focial reform in so far as moral issues are involved: but the apicationp of these principles is not simple nor easy; for example. the gains of monopoly, and the. rights of the laborer versus the rights of the consumer, as involved in the recent railway controversy. Nevertheless. the principles are sufficient, so far as the duty of the church is concerned Dr. Ryan asserted that he knows positively because of the fact that he was consulted, that the social justice blanks in the Progressive platform of 1912 were taken from the proceedings of the National Conference of Chari- ties and Correction, disproving the | charge that Roosevelt "stole" them from the Socialist platform.