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In the spring of 1887, Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, the second American to be named to the College of Cardinals, journeyed to Rome to try to dissuade Pope Leo XIII from condemning as anti-Christian the Knights of Labor, a Catholic organization created to defend the rights of workers in the United States In 1963, Archbishop Lawrence J. Sheham, also of Baltimore, urged Catholic legislators to support racial equality because "we have a special obligation to place ourselves in the forefront of movements to remove the injustices and discriminations which still remain."
Gibbons's initiative and Sheham's appeal three-quarters of a century later illustrate the long commitment of the Catholic Church in the U.S. to social justice. This commitment has acquired extraordinary force through the backing of Pope John Paul II since his election in 1978 and it remains a significant factor today in the bitter battle over social programs in this country.
Consequently, the church has become a deeply engaged participant in American politics, indignantly denouncing aspects of the Republican Party's Contract with America directed at social programs. It is especially concerned with Medicaid, Medicare, welfare and assistance to legal immigrants.
With more than 60 million Catholics in the U.S.-about 22 percent of the population-the church is the single largest religious organization in the country. It has a vast educational, social service and communications network. As noted in the Catholic Almanac, "Catholics have always formed a large percentage of union membership, and some have served unions in positions of leadership." The church has long had a reputation as a friend and ally of labor.
As the election campaign heated up this spring and as the Contract with America had largely vanished from the political radar screen, it appeared that most of the important social programs, some dating back to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, have survived the Republican challenge. Given the country's mood, as illustrated by the Republican primaries, Senator Robert Dole-the GOP's presumed presidential candidate-is unlikely to reopen these social issues in his battle against President Clinton. The mass corporate downsizing with the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, coinciding with the Republican primaries, is another reason why Dole will almost certainly leave well enough alone.
It is impossible to determine the extent to which Catholic activism has influenced the sea change in American politics since mid-1995. A multitude of other factors has intervened. American Catholics, moreover, are not a monolithic voting bloc and, as most Americans, are independent-minded. They often reject papal interpretation of Christian ethics in personal life but, out of deep ethical conviction and motives of compassion, they support the church on matters of social justice.
We do not know how individual Catholic voters communicate their views on social justice to their elected representatives. But it is worth noting that Pat Buchanan, a Catholic campaigning on vague populist themes, did poorly in the Republican primaries-and in heavily Catholic areas-and the conclusion may be drawn that Catholic voters rejected his brand of conservatism-cum-populism because it offended their sense of social justice.
As it happened in the 1880s, Cardinal Gibbons was able to convince Pope Leo XIII of the bona fides of the Knights of Labor and felt vindicated when, four years later, the pope published Rerum Novarum-the encyclical that is regarded as the foundation of modern social teaching of the church. Gibbons would have been even more delighted with John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus in 1991, on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, bringing its concepts up to date.
And he would have applauded wildly the pope's words in his arrival address in Newark, N.J. last October 4, that the American "spirit of creative generosity" must "help you to meet the needs of your poor and disadvantaged.... They too have a role to play in building a society truly worthy of the human person-a society in which none are so poor that they have nothing to give and none are so rich that they have nothing to receive." President Clinton grinned with pleasure as he listened at the airport ceremony.
The pope kept up his rhetorical broadsides during his entire U.S. visit. In Gibbons's Baltimore archdiocese, established as the first Catholic diocese in America in 1789, the pope joined the city's homeless for a meal at a downtown shelter-the most obvious possible public gesture, and a televised one, in making his point about social justice and compassion.
Before John Paul II arrived on his latest visit, the U.S. church had been on the warpath against Republican proposals to balance the federal budget, in part through the downsizing of programs protecting the poor. American bishops and much of the influential Catholic press fired their first salvos in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 midterm elections-and they have not let up since.
A pastoral message issued by the U.S. Catholic Conference in mid-November 1994 stated that "grinding poverty and powerlessness leave too many without a stake in society and a place in our community" and "lives sometimes are diminished and threatened not only in the streets of our cities, but also by decisions made in the halls of government, the boardrooms of corporations and the courts of our land."
The bishops' declaration came against the background of a Census Bureau report that 38.1 million Americans-14.5 percent of the population-lived below the poverty line. Poverty is officially defined as annual income under $15,141 for a family of four. The poverty rate had fallen from 15.1 percent the previous year, but other statistics showed that while the increase in family incomes between 1970 and 1990 had risen by 35.3 percent for the richest 5 percent of Americans, it had increased by only 2.9 percent for the poorest 20 percent.
In March 1995, the administrative board of the U.S. Catholic Conference in unusually strong language moved directly into the political debate that it described as the struggle "to find a balance between the needs of our poor and the demands of fiscal accountability for our future economic health." In their statement on "Moral Principles and Policy Priorities for Welfare Reform," the bishops launched the "Catholic Children and Families-First Campaign," marking the church's formal entry into the national political arena.
Composed of the 431 American bishops and archbishops, the conference affirmed that it supported "genuine welfare reform that strengthens families" and was not defending "the welfare status quo." However, it added, "we oppose abandonment of the federal government's necessary role in helping families overcome poverty and meet their children's basic needs."
The statement summed up the church stand on welfare reform by insisting that "we will support more effective and responsive federal-state-community partnerships, but we cannot support "reform' that will make it more difficult for poor children to grow into productive individuals." The bishops declared: "We cannot support reform that destroys the structures, ends entitlements and eliminates resources that have provided an essential safety net for vulnerable children or permits states to reduce their commitment in this area....We cannot support punitive approaches that target immigrants, even legal residents, and take away the minimal benefits they now receive."
The church has also presented its views directly to Congress. Specifically, it opposes proposals that would deny public aid to children of unwed mothers under 18 and the "family cap" that would cut off aid to mothers who have additional children while on welfare. The Domestic Policy Committee of the Catholic Conference wrote the Senate in September 1995 that "children should not be denied benefits because of their mother's age or dependence on welfare."
When the conference held its annual meeting in Washington last November, it blasted with both barrels the entire Republican welfare, health care and tax-reduction platform. It is uncommon for the bishops to speak out so bluntly on political issues, but Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, its outgoing president, wasted no time in affirming that "we fear [that] these measures now before Congress and the administration undermine the national safety net, embrace dangerous policies which will encourage abortion, target legal immigrants unfairly and retreat from the nation's commitment to protect poor children." Bishops attending the meeting and representing all 188 dioceses in the U.S. rose in overwhelming support of the cardinal's declaration.
The meeting's original agenda had not provided for action on such controversial political matters, but Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, one of the most powerful American cardinals, requested the conference to alter its procedures because, as he put it, "the moment is urgent."
Though the U.S. church is split over a wide array of theological questions-including whether women may be ordained as priests-and most American bishops are essentially conservative, it is virtually unanimous on the national debates on social justice.
The point was made quite clearly in a major article last year in America, the Jesuit weekly, by the Rev. John Langan, professor of ethics at Georgetown University, when he wrote that "while there are certain individuals...who combine an admiration for Pope John Paul II with an enthusiasm for the objectives of the new Republican majority, even neoconservative interpreters of Catholic social teaching have to acknowledge the differences in tone, time- frame, style and purpose that divide the Contract with America from Catholic social teaching as this has commonly been presented."
John Paul II is, of course, as conservative theologically as he is wholly devoted to the most advanced positions of social justice. In the aftermath of the collapse of communism, he has argued in encyclicals and speeches that "savage capitalism" is not much of an improvement on "savage Marxism." It is unlikely that whoever replaces the 76-year-old pontiff would alter the Holy See's present positions on social justice. Nor is the church in the U.S. likely to change in this regard whenever a new pope takes over. If anything, it will expand and strengthen its actions and voice.
But as militant and outspoken as the U.S. hierarchy has been, the question is how much clout it really has-and how much it can influence Congress? To be sure, there is no scientific measure of this influence, especially among American Catholics who tend to be exceedingly independent concerning many church teachings on issues like abortion, artificial contraception and the ordination of women. Conceivably, a majority disregards much of these teachings. A 1995 poll revealed that 58 percent of U.S. Catholics believe the church is "out of touch" with their views.
On the other hand, there are indications that these Catholics may follow John Paul II's and the American hierarchy's teachings on social justice, thereby influencing the political debate. The same poll showed that 83 percent of American Catholics had a "generally favorable opinion" of the pope, presumably because of his personality and, quite likely, because of his social message.
Then, there is extraordinary in-depth, time-tested organization of the church in the U.S. through which the faithful are reached. Catholicism in America has a long history and deep roots, dating back to the first masses said in 1521 by Ponce de Leon's priests in Florida. Over the centuries the church here has been enriched by waves of immigrants from Europe and Hispanic immigration. Today, over 80 percent of the 23 million Hispanics in the U.S. are Catholic. They are, to a large extent, recipients of government and church social assistance and are potential voters in key districts in many states. Senators and representatives from these districts pay attention to them at election time. The same may apply in districts across the country with heavy Catholic populations reached by the hierarchy's social message.
The mainstream press has, by and large, ignored the church's political mission in the "90s. It has, however, an impressive media network of its own for communication with the faithful-a network unmatched by any other organization in the U.S. The Catholic Press Association reported at the end of 1994 that there were 437 Catholic publications in the U.S. with a total circulation of 21 million. There also were 136 diocesan newsletters with a total circulation of four million as well as 28 foreign- language periodicals with nearly 800,000 circulation. Most of the newspapers are published by the dioceses and much of their material is supplied by the Catholic News Service.
The Eternal Word Television Network, based in Birmingham, Alabama, is America's largest religious cable network. The "Christopher" television series is aired weekly on 400 U.S. commercial and cable stations and the American Forces Network worldwide. Some 1,500 radio stations carry weekly Catholic programs. Naturally, the hierarchy's social message is disseminated through these media channels to the 19,787 U.S. parishes. This ability to communicate unquestionably makes a difference, perhaps a fundamental one, in the role the church now plays in the American political process.
Moreover, Catholic institutions have vast experience in education and social-assistance programs, enhancing the authority of the hierarchy's social message. There are 277 Catholic colleges and universities with 645,000 students; 1,248 high schools with 605,000 students; and 7,136 elementary schools with nearly two million students. Some 165,000 teachers serve in these institutions.
In health and direct social aid, the 606 Catholic hospitals in the U.S. treated more than 53 million patients in 1994 and their 309 health care centers attended 2.1 million patients. Specialized homes, orphanages, day-care and extended-day-care centers and special centers for social services look after nearly 21 million persons annually.
Does the church's increasing engagement in the American political debate violate the constitutional separation of church and state? Most legal scholars believe not. The religious clauses of the First Amendment-declaring that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"-and its free-speech clauses appear to protect the hierarchy's right to speak out on matters of concern to American citizens. And, of course, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, monks, nuns and secular Catholics are free to express and advocate their views as American citizens. In April, a group of U.S. Cardinals angrily accused President Clinton of permitting procedures "more akin to infanticide than abortion to continue" when he vetoed a bill that would have barred a certain late-term abortion intervention.
The likelihood is that the phenomenon of the Roman Catholic Church's active involvement in America's social destiny will be a permanent feature of our national political debate. As the U.S. Catholic Conference put it in its 1995 declaration, "The goal of (welfare) reform ought to be to promote decent work and reduce dependency, not simply cut budgets and programs. The target of reform ought to be poverty, not poor families."
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