Charles Plater S.J. and the Origins of the Catholic Social Guild

Extract

In an article published in The Month in 1908 Charles Plater claimed that there were three pressing needs which had to be met if English Catholic social action were to develop fruitfully. He admitted that there was no shortage of charitable institutions, and a long English Catholic tradition of charitable work, but claimed that in the main Catholics were apathetic when it came to social work. The three needs were, firstly, a need for experts, both clerical and lay, who could produce a sound social literature. These experts would form a Catholic equivalent of the British Institute of Social Service, to command the best advice and to foster local initiatives; with its help, Catholics could join in such bodies as anti-sweating leagues, housing schemes, temperance campaigns, and so on, and be sure of their ground. Secondly, there was a need for organised social study in all Catholic educational establishments, and for more or less informal study circles, so that interested and informed laypeople would be produced. Thirdly, there was a need to organise working-men’s study clubs to enable working-class Catholics to hold their own against socialist colleagues and so to form labour leaders. As Plater was to stress time and time again, working-men could only be reached by working-men. They would, he claimed, welcome the sense of power gained by this training and the self-improvement effected by it.