The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1920-03-19

Roman Catholic Church Takes
Advanced Stand on Economic
Issues of Present Day.

MAGAZINE an article WHICH oluuiS'' aiAss
records the reconstruction activities OF |
the National Catholic War council, |
narticularly as expressed in the now
historic utterances of the four bishops
Of the administrative committee
Bishops Muldoon, Schrembs, Russell
and Hayes-in the pamphlet issued by
the special activities committee, en-
titled SOCIAL Reconstruction: A Gen
eral Review of the Problems and Sur
vey Of Remedies" Mr.. Hard is a
Protestant, of liberal sociological and
political views, and as q writer for ma
tional magazines Of wide influence he
Is widely knonn. BY permission OF
the editor of The Metropolitan Maya
zlne the following extracts have been
taken from this article, the most I'M
portant and thorough study OF the re
construction program of the n. Z. W.
c. that up to this time has appeared
in the secular. press.
Says Mr.. Hard: ''Hear what ST.
Augustine in the. first age of the church
said: The snperfluities Of the rich are
the necessaries of the poor. They who
possess superf1uities possess the goods
Of Others Hear. what Leo the Thir-
teenth in our own age said: A small
number Of very rich men have been
able to lay. upon, the teeming masses
Of the laboring, poor yoke little bet
ter than that Of Slavery ITSELF
always the Roman Catholic church
has thrown about private property the
hedge of an, absolute teaching of the
commandment. Thou shalt not steal
But always, it has declared that the
earth and its fruits are the Lords,
and that private property is bound
in an obligation of charity and-more
in an obligation of justice. In ex-
IRENE circumstances those obligations
may be extreme. If man did not
cultivate his land and cause it to pro-
duce it's fruits, Pope Clement the
Fourth allowed strangers to enter
upon it and to occupy third of it to
bring it to the use of man; and st.
Thomas Aquinas, greatest Of theo-
logians, said in argument: a man
may supply his urgent necessities from
the goods of another, either openly or
secretly, and this will not be, properly
speaking, theft; because what is taken
belongs to the needy one, since he
must sustain life.' Always the ques-
ton is: What do the obligations say,
speaking with the voice Of the cir
cumStances?
Bishop Muldoon of Rockford, Bisfl-
op Schrembs of Toledo, Bishop Hayes
Of Tagaste (now Archbishop Hayes of
New York; and. Bishop Russell of
| Charleston, acting as the administra-
tive committee of the National Catho-
lie War council, have declared those
obligations and those circumstances in
the America of today in their already
historic statement, entitled Social Re-
construction; and not again will
friend or foe securely call the Roman
Catholic church in America the moral
policeman Of capitalism
1.-The four bishops hold fast indeed
to the institution Of private property,
and they castigate Socialism without
compromise: but they, nevertheless,
advance an economic program which
they themselves properly describe as
Involving to great extent the aboli-
ton of the wage system The Ameri-
can Federation of Labor does not pro-
pose to abolish the wage system at all.
It is content that wage-earners should
remain wage-earners. The Roman
| Catholic church in America, for rea-
sons which flow from the foot of the
cross to this. instant hour of the sins
! Of the world, proposes to abolish the
| wage system to a great extent and
| proposes to make wage-earners more
than wage-earners. HIt proposes not
merely to make capitalism good, but to
| make it less.
with this statement in existence
and in wide circulation, the bishops
and the archbishops of the Roman
| Catholic church in America met in full
assembly at Washington. The work of
the National Catholic War council at
| Washington was within their view and
within their acton. The National
Catholic War council was developed
into permanent institution. It was
developed into the National Catholic
| Welfare council for work in peace:
and it was give department of social
| service for work in the field not only
Of charity but of labor; and Bishop
Muldoon, chairman Of the administra-
tive committee which issued the state
ment on Social Reconstruction was
made chairman of the new department
Of social service, and at once proceed
ed to carry the principles of that state
ment into further active promotion
among the clergy and the laity.
'aThe Roman Catholic church has
some 2O,000,o0O members in America.
The statement of the four bishops, in
voking Catholic doctrine has brought
Catholic response. The Brooklyn
Tablet could say: IT is the voice in
social work of the Cathbaic Church in
America
I, Protestant, try to report the
accents Of that voice: because the
moving moral power of the Roman
Catholic church and the voting polit-
fcal ideals and Wishes IF the Roman