Catholics

Throughout the era of the Great Depression and World War II, the United States government restricted immigration in accordance with legislation of the 1920s. But previous Roman Catholic immigration, especially to larger cities, laid the foundation for such Catholic groups as Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and Polish Americans to become religious, social, and political forces in American life. Although the Roman Catholic Al Smith’s failed presidential run in 1928 exposed persistent strands of anti-Catholic nativism in America, ethnic Catholics would became key components in the political success of the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and beyond. By far the largest religious group in the United States, Catholics generally became more “respectable” and accepted from 1929 to 1945, particularly in urban areas. They did so in part through devout juxtaposi-tioning of traditional social concerns, which played directly into New Deal objectives, and staunchly antitotalitarianism sentiments (especially anticommunist), which were completely synchronized with existing American conservatism.

Roman Catholic lay people played an increasingly large role in American life in the era. James A. Farley and Edward J. Flynn served as chairmen of the Democratic Party National Committee and as important political advisers to President Roosevelt, and other Catholics held important offices in federal, state, and local government. Joseph P. Kennedy served as the first head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and as ambassador to Great Britain. Partly because of the unprecedented number of Catholics appointed to government positions by Roosevelt, though especially because of New Deal programs that helped the heavily working-class Catholic population, Catholic voters were a key part of the new Democratic majority forged in the elections of the 1930s. To many practicing church members, it appeared the president was answering the call set out in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesi'mo Anno (1937), which called for social justice around the world and for all Catholics to work to that desired end. In 1940 Roosevelt further cemented his allegiance to Catholics by appointing Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York as his unofficial envoy to the Vatican in Rome, despite vocal protests mounted by several Protestant denominations. Thus the Catholic hierarchy was generally supportive of the New Deal and its goals, while church members engaged in levels of social and political activism that were unthinkable a generation earlier. Catholics also figured prominently in such diverse areas as labor, literature, and sports.

Roman Catholics began to effectively utilize mass media, especially the radio. For instance, the popular bishop Fulton J. Sheen possessed keen intellectual abilities, but became known as a great preacher and orator who could connect personally and spiritually with the general American public. Later a television personality, Sheen is often credited with being a key founder of the so-called electronic church in America. A far more controversial Roman Catholic broadcaster was Father Charles E. Coughlin, who became as much known for his political and social commentary as for his purely doctrinal messages. His fierce anticommunist stances quickly became mixed with overtly anti-Semitic diatribes and global conspiracy theories. Coughlin opposed Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, and American involvement in World War II, as well as displaying pro-Nazi sympathies—and the church brought about an end to his public pronouncements.

Another notable Catholic figure of the era was Archbishop (later, Cardinal) Francis Joseph Spellman, who was simultaneously an ardent anticommunist, archbishop of New York, and diplomatic representative of Pope Pius XII during World War II. Serving as U. S. military vicar and unofficial envoy for Franklin Roosevelt during wartime, Spellman was also involved in promoting conservative social positions on such issues as birth control, movie censorship, and the relationship between government funding and private education.

Whereas the Catholic clergy was more or less uniformly conservative in its approach to communism and many social issues, the laity proved somewhat more diverse, often embracing liberalism and containing some radical elements. Such women as Dorothy Day, who was a founding figure in the Catholic Worker movement, became active in the public arena. A pacifist, Day surprisingly had converted to Roman Catholicism from a secular, socialist past, and she pursued radical social and political change through the church. Another influential Roman Catholic figure of the period was Father John A. Ryan. Trained in political and economic theory, Ryan served as director of the Social Action Department of the influential National

Catholic Welfare Council. He was a fierce critic of the economic policies of President Herbert C. Hoover and one of Franklin Roosevelt’s staunchest New Deal supporters. Ryan became a key figure in forging a progressive social and political image for the 20th-century Catholic Church in America.

The period also witnessed a developing focus upon issues involving Aerican Americans, as demonstrated by the urban missionary priest William McCann in Harlem, and the Jesuit priest William Markoe in St. Louis, who functioned as a type of proto-ciViL rights spokesman there. While Roman Catholicism did not generally appeal to African Americans, emerging groups like the Federation of Colored Catholics demonstrated that African American Catholics were attempting to shape the religious, political, and social debates of a stormy era. The Jesuit priest John LaFarge helped establish the Catholic Interracial Council in 1934, and by the 1940s, local chapters were located in cities throughout the North and South, thus providing key lay and clerical support for the future Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and beyond.

Where Roosevelt failed to gather strong Catholic support in the 1930s was in the realm of international relations. His recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933, for example, angered Catholics, who were averse to rising totalitarianism in Europe and the persecution of the church in Mexico and Spain. This position, however, radically changed with the outbreak of war in 1941. World War II saw Catholics patriotically supporting the war effort, further reinforcing their sociocultural legitimacy, though they were still perceived as “ethnics” by the broader Anglo-American culture. While continuing to hold important government positions, Catholics also served in large numbers in the U. S. military and constituted a significant part of the labor force in the defense industry. By the end of the war, Mexican-American Catholic immigrants were moving in substantial numbers into already Hispanic areas of the American Southwest, especially around Los Angeles. These Hispanic Catholics imported a unique style of Catholicism, which often led to hostilities with already established Catholic communities.

From the depression to the end of World War II, Catholics continued to influence the evolving face of urban environments in America. At the grassroots level, Catholic laypeople displayed increased interest in Marian devotion and neighborhood festivals. Dynamic priests at the parish level often functioned as much as social and economic spokesmen and activists as they did as purely spiritual leaders. The period also marked Catholicism’s rapid transition into the national mainstream, both politically and culturally, a remarkable occurrence considering the traditional Protestant domination of both spheres and their traditional antipathy toward Catholics and their church.

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See also POLITICS IN THE RoOSEVELT ERA; RELIGION.

Further reading: Jay R Dolan, The American Catholic E:xperience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); James J. Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); David B. Wool-ner and Richard G. Kurial, eds., FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in America, 1933-1945 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

—J. Henry Allen, Jr.