“True Economic Liberalism” and the Development of American Catholic Social Thought, 1920-1940

Abstract

This paper considers maturation of American Catholic tradition of social and economic thought in seminal period between 1920 and 1940, particularly as encapsulated in work of John A. Ryan. While different social ethical models emerged in American Church during this time, dominant school of thought was liberal tradition associated with Ryan. This tradition, which Ryan described as economic liberalism, forged American political liberalism and papal critiques of secular modernity into a new social ethical theory which became capstone of prewar Catholic progressivism. True economic liberalism first manifested itself in critiques of Supreme Court's description of freedom in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923). It took positive form during 1920s in widespread Catholic embrace of industrial democracy as a moral alternative to laissez-faire capitalism It was during 1930s, however, when Church confronted economic crisis of Great Depression, that true economic liberalism became a more totalizing system of social thought. It was also during 1930s that this theory revealed difficulties Catholic liberals have had in defining their relationship to a market economy and state. On one hand, true economic liberalism provoked creative maturation of Catholic thought and established Church as a leading progressive critic of At same time, true economic liberalism circumscribed possible depths of Catholic moral critique. American Catholics liberals were so committed to constructing a social ethic that upheld the priceless goods of liberty, opportunity, and that they accepted a reformed capitalism, guarded and chastened by religion, as most desirable outcome for a modern economy. As John P. Carroll revealingly wrote, remedy, then, for social evils. . . does not lie in destruction of present social system. The way to clean a house is not to dynamite it. By accommodating Church's social ethic to ideals of American democracy, liberal Catholics rejected radical reforms in favor of moderate legislative schemes which one writer described in Commonweal as sniping at capitalism. It was for this reason that so many Catholics fawningly embraced New Deal and, indeed, found in Franklin Roosevelt supreme advocate for principles set forth in Pius XI’s 1931 Quadragesimo Anno.