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The Limits of American Catholic Antifascism: The Case of John A. Ryan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Wilson D. Miscamble
Wilson D. Miscamble
Affiliation:
Rev. Miscamble is assistant professor of history in Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana.
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Extract

Writing in the midst of World War II, the Italian exiles Gaetano Salvemini and Giorgio La Piana charged that the Catholic church in America had bestowed its blessing upon Benito Mussolini and fascism.1 In discussing this charge the historian John Diggins admitted that “at first glance it does appear that the American clergy had indeed composed a political choir in behalf of Fascism.”2 Diggins portrayed a large number of Catholic clergy led by figures like Cardinal William O'Connell of Boston and Father Charles E. Coughlin who found occasion to praise Mussolini. He outlined the views of the major Catholic periodicals and discovered that only the Paulist-sponsored Catholic World took exception to fascism with any consistency.3 Nonetheless, Diggins partially dismissed the charge of Salvemini and La Piana. He argued that the Catholic church in the United States during the interwar years was not a pro-Fascist monolith and briefly touched on the anti-Fascist endeavors of such individuals as Monsignor Joseph Giarrochi, Father Francis Duffy, and Father James Gillis, C.S.P., the erstwhile editor of the Catholic World. Notably, Diggins accorded particular status among Catholic anti-Fascists to Monsignor John A. Ryan, whom he described as having waged “a relentless assault upon Mussolini's dictatorship and upon the Catholic defense of Fascism” and as being “the theological thorn in the flesh of complacent Catholic apologists for Fascism.”4

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 523 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1990

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References

1. Salvemini, Gaetano and Piana, Giorgio La, What To Do With Italy (New York, 1943), p.80.Google Scholar See also Salvemini, , Italian Fascist Activities in the United States, ed. Cannistraro, Philip V. (New York, 1977), pp. 145–149.Google Scholar The charge that the Catholic church in the United States was largely pro-Fascist was made not only by Italian anti-Fascist exiles, like Salvemini, but also by many American liberals. See, for example, Seldes, George, The Catholic Crisis (New York, 1939), pp. 7–129;Google Scholar and idem, “Catholics and Fascists,” New Republic 97 (9 Nov. 1938): 6–9.

2. Diggins, John P., Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton, 1972), p. 183.Google Scholar

3. Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, pp. 182–190.Google Scholar See also idem, “American Catholics and Italian Fascism,” Journal of Contemporary History 2 (1967): 51–68. The attitudes of the Catholic press–in particular, America, Commonweal, and Catholic World–toward fascism are examined most comprehensively in Rev. Smith, William Barry, “The Attitude of American Catholics towards Italian Fascism between the Two World Wars” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1969).Google ScholarAllen, Rodger Van, in The Commonweal and American Catholicism: The Magazine, the Movement, the Meaning (Philadelphia, 1974), p. 35,Google Scholar pointed out correctly that Commonweal, despite its somewhat pro-Fascist editorial stance, utilized a “forum style of journalism” and served as a vehicle to disseminate the views of such Catholic anti-Fascists as Don Luigi Sturzo and John A. Ryan. From its publication in 1933 The Catholic Worker maintained a consistent anti-Fascist editorial stance, although its contents in its early years focused on domestic issues.

4. Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, p.195.Google Scholar

5. Broderick, Francis L., Right Reverend New Dealer: John A. Ryan (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

6. In speaking of the Catholic church in America I refer primarily to its institutional elements: hierarchy, clergy, formal organizations, publications, and official spokesmen. One cannot ascribe one view to “the Church,” but on this issue the vast majority of “official” Catholics endorsed or acquiesced in a pro-Fascist line.

7. For further biographical detail on Ryan see Broderick, Right Reverend New Dealer, and Betten, Neil, “Ryan and the Social Action Department,” Thought 46 (1971): 227–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an analysis of the Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction, see McShane, Joseph M., “Sufficiently Radical”: Catholicism, Progressivism, and the Bishops' Program of 1919 (Washington, D.C., 1986).Google Scholar

8. See Diggins, , “American Catholics and Italian Fascism,” p. 66.Google Scholar For an account of the foundation of the International Committee for Political Prisoners, see Lamson, Peggy, Roger Baldwin, Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union: A Portrait (Boston, 1976), pp. 139–141.Google Scholar One should also note that Ryan served on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union–despite occasional reservations and disagreements with Union decisions–a telling indication of his commitment to personal liberties. See Broderick, , Right Reverend New Dealer, pp. 142–143.Google Scholar

9. On the favorable response to Mussolini, see Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, pp. 182–184,Google Scholar and Steel, Ronald, Walter Lippman and the American Century (Boston, 1980), p. 251.Google Scholar

10. On the position of the American government towards Fascist control of Italy, see Schmitz, David F., The United States and Fascist italy, 1922–1940 (Chapel Hill, 1988).Google Scholar Schmitz argues persuasively that “[the] desire for order and stability led American policymakers to welcome Benito Mussolini's coming to power and to support Fascism in Italy in direct contradiction with purported U.S. ideals” (p. 1). See also pp. 51–59.

11. Ryan, John A., “Liberty and the Roman Catholic Church: The Catholic Position,” The Nation 122 (16 06 1926): 660.Google Scholar On this matter, note also Broderick, Francis L., “Liberalism and the Mexican Crisis of 1927: A Debate Between Norman Thomas and John A. Ryan,” Catholic Historical Review 41 (1959): 209–226.Google Scholar

12. Ryan, John A., “The Doctrine of Fascism,” Commonweal 5 (17 11. 1926): 42–44,Google Scholar and idem, “Fascism and Practice,” Commonweal 5 (24 Nov. 1926): 73–76.

13. Rocco, Alfredo, The Political Doctrine of Fascism (New York, 1926).Google Scholar This was essentially an address which Rocco had delivered on 30 August 1925 at Perugia. The translation was made by Professor Bigongiari of Columbia University for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Intercourse and Education.

14. Ryan, John A. and Millar, Moorhouse F. X., The State and the Church (New York, 1922).Google Scholar

15. This point is made by Curran, Charles E. in his American Catholic Social Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches (Notre Dame, 1982), p. 35.Google Scholar

16. Curran, , American Catholic Social Ethics, p. 35Google Scholar (emphasis mine).

17. Ryan, , “The Doctrine of Fascism,” pp. 42–44.Google Scholar

18. Ryan, , “Fascism in Practice,” pp. 73–76.Google Scholar

19. See Schmitz, , United States and Fascist Italy, p. 4.Google Scholar

20. Ryan, , “Fascism in Practice,” pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

21. Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, p. 196.Google Scholar

22. On the Vatican's assistance to Mussolini and fascism, see the discussion in Pollard, John F., The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1922–1929 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 27–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. See the letters from Kerrish, William E. and Bandini, Rev. A. R. in Commonweal 5 (15 12. 1926): 158.Google Scholar

24. Ryan's, letter in Commonweal 5 (29 12. 1926): 214.Google Scholar Both Kerrish and Bandini wrote rejoinders: see Commonweal 5 (19 01. 1927): 300.Google Scholar

25. On neoscholasticism, see Halsey, William M., The Survival of American Innocence: Catholicism in an Era of Disillusionment, 1920–1940 (Notre Dame, Ind., 1980), pp. 138–168Google Scholar and Gleason, Philip, Keeping the Faith: American Catholicism Past and Present (Notre Dame, Ind., 1987), pp. 139–143; 166–177.Google Scholar

26. For an example, see Wickham, Harvey, “The Facts of Fascism,” Commonweal 5 (29 12. 1926): 204–206.Google Scholar

27. Ryan, John A., Declining Liberty and Other Papers (New York, 1927).Google Scholar Ryan took advantage of the reissuance of his essay to include this additional note: “In allocution to the Cardinals, in the month of December, 1926, Pope Pius XI made this reference to the Fascist political theory: ‘We again see a conception of the State making headway which is not a Catholic conception because it makes the State an end unto itself and citizens mere means to that end, absorbing and monopolizing everything.’” Ryan preferred to cloak his position with the authority of a papal statement.

28. On Gillis's efforts, see his “Editorial Comment,” in Catholic World 120 (12. 1924): 404–405;Google Scholar 121 (June 1925): 408–409; 122 (Feb. 1926): 838–839; 125 (May 1927): 257; 130 (Feb. 1930): 610–613; 133 (July 1931): 488–491; 133 (Aug. 1931): 611–614. Gillis occasionally relied on Ryan's work as in his editorial in the February 1930 issue. For a brief summary of Gillis's activities, see Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, pp. 187–189.Google Scholar

29. On the formation of the CAIP, see McNeal, Patricia F., The American Catholic Peace Movement, 1928–1972 (New York, 1978), pp. 17–20.Google Scholar

30. Ryan allowed his NCWC colleague Raymond McGowan to assume “primary responsibility for the CAIP's organization and vision” (McNeal, , American Catholic Peace Movement, p. 19).Google Scholar Ryan served as chairman of the Ethics Committee and authored the CAIP's first pamphlet on International Ethics, in which he included a section on “The Moral Law in Relation to the States.” This section contained the raw material for a strong critique of fascism, but Ryan made no explicit criticisms, being content to state general principles. See Ryan, John A. and Committee, Ethics, International Ethics (Washington, D.C., 1928), especially pp. 7–10.Google Scholar

31. For a discussion of the activities of the CAIP, see its publication A Catholic Program for World Peace (Washington, D.C., 1937),Google Scholar which gives details of its history, aims, committee structure, activities, and publications through to 1937. See also McNeal, , American Catholic Peace Movement, pp. 20–28.Google Scholar

32. For example, McGowan, Raymond A., in his CAIP pamphlet Europe arid the United States: Elements in their Relationship (Washington, D.C., 1931),Google Scholar addressed geopolitical questions and such issues as armaments, debts, and tariffs but avoided the internal dynamics of the Italian state. Ward, Patrick J., in his CAIP pamphlet Relations Between France and Italy (Washington, 1934),Google Scholar concentrated mainly on political and diplomatic issues between the two countries. He didn't discuss Italy's Fascist system directly but did comment on its excessive nationalism. The most explicit Criticism of fascism (and German nazism) to emerge from the CAIP prior to the outbreak of World War II came in Hayes, Carlton J. H., Patriotism, Nationalism, and the Brotherhood of Man, CAIP pamphlet no. 25 (Washington, D.C., 1937).Google Scholar

33. Pollard, , The Vatican and Italian Fascism, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

34. Ibid. For the Concordat–one constitutive element of the Lateran Pacts of 1929–see appendix 2, pp. 197–215. The Lateran Pacts had three parts: first, an international treaty which secured the international sovereignty of the Holy See over the Vatican City; second, the Concordat regulating relations between the church and the Italian state; and third, a financial settlement providing some compensation for church property seized in 1870. For details of the Concordat, see the overly favorable treatment by Bernardini, Philip, “The Lateran Concordat with Italy,” Catholic Historical Review 16 (1930): 19–27,Google Scholar and Webster, Richard A., The Cross and the Fasces: Christian Democracy and Fascism in Italy (Stanford, 1960), pp. 109–111.Google Scholar

35. Broderick, Francis L., “The Encyclicals and Social Action: Is John A. Ryan Typical?” Catholic Historical Review 55 (1969): 1.Google Scholar

36. See The Vatican-Italian Accord discussed by Count Carlo Sforza, Charles Clinton Marshall, and John A. Ryan, Foreign Policy Association pamphlet no. 56 in the Papers of John A. Ryan, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Ryan Papers), “Vatican-Italy” folder.

37. John A. Ryan to Charles C. Marshall, 4 April 1929, Ryan Papers, “Correspondence, 1929–1923.” Also note Marshall to Ryan, 30 March 1929. Ryan restated his opposition to fascism briefly in “Assaults upon Democracy,” The Catholic World 128 (03. 1929): 647.Google Scholar

38. For Ryan's speech, see The Vatican-Italian Accord, pp. 14–19. For the subsequent discussion, see ibid., p. 26.

39. See Broderick's discussion of Ryan's defense of the Concordat in Right Reverend New Dealer, pp. 147–148. Ryan held a very orthodox view of the relation of church and state which had been the cause of some controversy in the 1928 presidential election. He held that the Catholic religion should be officially recognized and supported by the state in its religious functions if and when Catholics constituted the vast majority of the population (see Broderick, , Right Reverend New Dealer, pp. 170–185).Google Scholar Such a view predisposed Ryan to support the official recognition given to the church by the Concordat. The dogged work of Ryan's friend John Courtney Murray, S.J. would be required to move the official church to a more restricted notion of the religious responsibilities of the state and an acceptance in theory of religious pluralism. This change is discussed well in a paper by Hehir, J. Brian, “Vatican H and the Signs of the Times: Catholic Teaching on Church, State, and Society,” Notre Dame, Indiana, 02, 1986.Google Scholar

40. It appears that Mussolini thought, as John Pollard argues, that by the Concordat the “Church had been subordinated to or even subjected to the State.” This proved not to be the case and as a consequence, as Pollard makes clear, “in the three years that ran from the signing of the Lateran Pacts until Mussolini's visit to the Pope in February 1932, there was to be more conflict between the Vatican and Fascism than in the preceding seven-year period that had begun with the March on Rome or in the one which followed between 1932 and 1939” (see Pollard, , Vatican and Italian Fascism, pp. 2–3).Google Scholar

41. Ryan, John A., Social Doctrine in Action: A Personal History (New York, 1941), p. 242.Google Scholar For a discussion of Quadragesimo Anno and its impact on American Catholics, see Flynn, George Q., American Catholics and the Roosevelt Presidency, 1932–1936 (Lexington, 1968), pp. 23–25,Google Scholar and O'Brien, David J., American Catholics and Social Reform: The New Deal Years (New York, 1968), pp. 41–43.Google Scholar

42. Ryan, John A., “The New Things in the New Encyclical,” The Ecclesiastical Review 85 (07 1931): 1–14,Google Scholar and Ryan, John A., “Pope Pius XI and a New Social Order,” Catholic Action 16 (06 1934): 14–15, 18.Google Scholar

43. For the cautious critique, see XI, Pius, Encyclical Letter–Quadragesimo Anno, 15 05 1931,Google Scholar English translation by National Catholic Welfare Conference (Washington, D.C., 1931), pp. 29–31, pars. 91–96. One should note that Father Raymond McGowan, Ryan's longtime associate in the Social Action Department of the NCWC, did respond to this charge and made important distinctions between the two systems. Undoubtedly, Ryan was aware of and substantially agreed with his colleague's analysis. See McGowan, R. A., Toward Social Justice: A Discussion and Application of Pius Xl's “Reconstruction of the Social Order” (New York, 1933), P. 65.Google Scholar Ryan later pointed out that Pius XI “presented in this encyclical a brief description of the Fascist ‘corporative organization’ noting its substitution of the state ‘in place of private initiative’ and its ‘excessively bureaucratic and political character’” (Social Doctrine in Action, p. 244).Google Scholar

44. See, for example, the invitation of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to contribute to their journal conveyed in G. M. Bugniazet to John A. Ryan, 30 August 1933, Ryan Papers. Ryan declined in Ryan to Bugniazet, 31 August 1933, ibid.

45. Hughes, Serge, The Fall and Rise of Modern Italy (New York, 1967), pp. 154–155.Google ScholarXI, Pius, Encyclical Letter–Non abbiamo bisogno, 29 06 1931, English translation by National Catholic Welfare Conference (Washington, D.C., 1931).Google Scholar

46. Some early examples of criticism of fascism in The Catholic Worker (hereafter cited as CW) include O'Hagan, Walter, “Whether the NRA? The Menace of Industrial Fascism,” CW (02. 1934): 7,Google Scholar and Powell, Donald, “Capitalism, Fascism and Communism,” CW (05 1935): 3.Google Scholar On the Catholic Worker Movement's antifascism see also Miller, William D., A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (New York, 1973), pp. 138–153,Google Scholar and Piehl, Mel, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origin of Catholic Radicalism in America (Philadelphia, 1982), PP. 192–193.Google Scholar

47. See “Italy Invades Ethiopia; Christian Nation Succumbs to Pagan Ethics of War,” CW (10. 1935): 1.Google Scholar

48. See “Nazi Kulturkampf Invades States of Central Europe,” CW (07 1936): 2;Google Scholar“Fascism Revealed in German Persecution,” CW (11. 1936): 1–2;Google Scholar and “Spanish Catholic Flays Both Sides,” CW (12. 1936): 1, 8.Google Scholar

49. See, for example, “C[atholic] W[orker] is Fortunate in Having Don Sturzo's articles,” CW (03. 1938): 2.Google Scholar

50. Ryan, John A., “Roosevelt Safeguards America,” in Seven Troubled Years, 1930–1936: A Collection of Papers on the Depression and on the Problems of Recovery and Reform (Ann Arbor, 1937), p. 298.Google Scholar

51. Coughlin quoted in Bennett, David H., Demagogues in the Depression: American Radicals and the Union Party, 1932–1936 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), pp. 230–231.Google Scholar

52. Broderick, , Right Reverend New Dealer, pp. 233–234.Google Scholar

53. Guttmann, Allen, The Wound in the Heart: America and the Spanish Civil War (New York, 1962), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar Ryan felt deeply concerning the suffering of Spanish Catholics. In a letter to Philip Stevenson on the subject of antisemitism in the United States he wrote: “The great majority of Catholics are not Jew-haters or Jew-baiters, but many of them are irritated when they find, in large cities, particularly greater New York, Jews exhibiting indifferences to the enormous outrages, assassinations, etc., perpetrated by the Loyalist Government upon Spanish Catholics. Probably the best way of counteracting Catholic indifference to the persecution of the Jews–insofar as it exists–would be a deliberate and sustained effort by the leaders of Jewry to prove that they are not indifferent to the sufferings of Catholics at the hands of Spanish loyalists” (Ryan to Stevenson, 30 December 1938, Ryan Papers).

54. On Spain's role as the litmus test for antifascism, see Hughes, , The Fall and Rise of Modern Italy, p. 186.Google Scholar

55. Ryan's paper was published in pamphlet form by the NCWC; see Ryan, , The Relation of Catholicism to Fascism, Communism and Democracy (Washington, D.C., 1938), p. 1.Google Scholar

56. Ryan, , Relation of Catholicism, pp. 4–8.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., pp. 4–8. Most scholars support Ryan's contention on the diversity between Fascist and Catholic corporative thought. Alan Cassels, discussing the intellectual roots of Fascist corporativism, concludes that “few Fascists arrived at corporativism by the Christian route”; rather, “Fascist corporativism derived in the main from syndicalist socialism” (Cassels, Alan, Fascism [New York, 1975], pp. 57–58).Google Scholar

58. Ryan, , Relation of Catholicism, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

59. Ryan's linkage of fascism with nazism and communism was rather widespread in the United States at the time; see Maddux, Thomas R., “Red Fascism, Brown Bolshevism: The American Image of Totalitarianism in the 1930s,” The Historian 40 (11. 1977): 85–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60. Ryan, John A., “Political Causes of International Disorder,” Commonweal 28 (21 10. 1938): 667–668.Google Scholar

61. Schmitz, , United States and Fascist Italy, p. 7.Google Scholar

62. Ryan delivered radio addresses under the auspices of the American Committee to Combat Fascism and Communism; see his Social Doctrine in Action, p. 276.Google Scholar

63. See Flynn, George Q., Roosevelt and Romanism: Catholics and American Diplomacy, 1937–1945 (Westport, Conn., 1976), p. 85.Google Scholar For a sympathetic account of White's committee and its activities, see Johnson, Walter, The Battle Against Isolationism (Chicago, 1944).Google Scholar Ryan's essay was titled “The Right and Wrong of War,” in White, William Allen, ed., Defense for America (New York, 1940).Google Scholar The essay had appeared earlier as “Confusions About the War,” in Commonweal 31 (22 03. 1940): 464–467.Google Scholar

64. For an example of Ryan's “fuming,” see O'Brien, , American Catholics and Social Reform, p. 94.Google Scholar On Ryan's support for Roosevelt's foreign policy, see Flynn, , Roosevelt and Romanism, p. 83.Google Scholar See also Ryan to Joseph A. Conry, 23 April 1939, and Ryan to Mary Kelly, 23 September 1939, Ryan Papers.

65. On the American Catholic apology, see Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, pp. 191–195.Google Scholar

66. For this as the determining factor on issues such as policy toward Mexico, Italy, and Spain, see Miscamble, Wilson D., “Catholics and American Foreign Policy from McKinley to McCarthy: A Historiographical Survey,” Diplomatic History 4 (1980): 223–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67. Diggins, , Mussolini and Fascism, p. 196.Google Scholar Diggins insightfully comments that “the Catholics' response to Fascism reveals precious little evidence that a sense of the supernatural offers the best resistance to the cunning appeals of totalitarianism. Indeed the supreme irony is that in judging Fascism not on the basis of its philosophical foundations but on its actual practice, Catholic thinkers were behaving more pragmatically than liberal pragmatists” (ibid., p. 197).

68. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951).Google ScholarCassels, , Fascism, pp. 17–20,Google Scholar contains a discussion of social science explanations of fascism.

69. Webster, , Cross and the Fasces, p. 111,Google Scholar and Cassels, , Fascism, p. 64.Google Scholar This assessment applies to the Vatican but not to the Italian church. Serge Hughes has observed that “under Fascism the overwhelming number of Catholics had effortlessly reconciled their religion with their allegiance to the regime–not only those Catholics for whom Catholicism was merely a national patrimony, a badge of italianita, but a good number of those who professed to meditate at some length on the problems of state, church, Christ, and Fascist ideas on the meaning of life and love of country” (Fall and Rise of Fascism, p. 234).