The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1922-12-23
THE SCHOOL OF
SOCIAL SCIENCE
The Church and Social Action, A New
Apologize.
BY Rev. j. c. Harrington.

A certain professor of sociology in
Catholic college noticed that when
he treated of the morality of some
industrial and social questions, the
| students often seemed surprised at
the solutions. The mental attitude of
fthe class reflected fairly accurately
that of any like group of average Cath
| olics. Of course, the average Catholic,
like a good, loyal and conservative
citizen, takes his ethics largely from
the editorial columns of a press which,
to put it mildly, seems to be not lit
tie bit biased, or would one rather
isay prejIdiced, in favor of certain
classes in the industrial community.
Therefore is it considered akin to
heresy. at least offensive to pious ears,
for even a Catholic priest to express
views that might be inclined to
shock 4 well defined class of SNUG con-
sentative responsibility. The profess
sor in question one day dictated three
extracts on the same point, taken from
the writings of three wellknown au-
thorities on Industrial and social
questions, viz, Leo XIII, Samuel Com
pers and Lenin, and asked the class to
| write after the respective extracts the
name of the one whom he considered
| its author. He was not little sur
prised to find that majority of the
students made Lenin the author of
the "Rerum Novarum," of Leo XIII,
while Gompers was considered also
less radical than the Pope. The rea-
sons given by a good number of the
students for canonizing the Russian
Bolshevist was that the extract from
the famous encyclical on the condi-
Americani Perhaps the humorist
translated literally by Latinizing 100
per cent American as Boobus Ameri-
canus
| Have patience with us therefore for
quoting at such length SO many and
such venerable authorities in favor of
the movement now so well known in
Europe as Catholic Social Action,
which is nothing else than a re-
awakening in Catholic circles to the
needs of the day, and whose slogan is
the cry with which Ozanam startled
the generation in which he lived,
| Back to the Masses"
The Call of Recent Popes.
If then there be those among our.
lreaders who think that perhaps after
/ all it would be better for the Church
to keep exclusively to her primary mis-
sion in the world, viz, the Glory Of
God and the salvation of souls, to con-
fine her message to the American peo
Iple to a strictly cold and stereotyped
dogmatic defense of religion, our re-
| ply is, that evidently the Sovereign
Pontiffs are not of that mind, and at
no time in the long history of the Pa
pacy are they SO outspoken on this
very question of Catholic social action
as they have been in our own day and
lage from the sanity Plus TX to his
namesake and successor, Plus XII, now
gloriously reigning from the Throne
lof the Fisherman my children said
| Plus TX in 1855, to the Vincentians
gathered about him at Rome, Il con-
lsecrate you Knights of Jesus Christ.
THE world does not believe in preach
ling or in priesthood, but it still be-
llieves in charity. Let us advance to
the conquest Of thesworld by the love
of the poor"
4 Benedict XIV, in letter address
| ed to the French Episcopate in the
summer of 1919, has this pointed pas
Isage: Coming to q parti chlar
point, who does not see that hence