The Catholic - Labor Network

Documents & Articles which concern Catholic and Labor Issues Papal Social Encyclicals Other Catholic Social Teachings Msgr. George Higgins Catholic Worker Connection General Articles of Interest  Home Page  The Catholic-Labor Network E-Mail List  The Catholic-Labor Network is dependent on interested persons sharing their activities struggles, victories and prayers with other like minded men and women of faith. We strongly invite all those who visit this page, and who share  a common interest in issues effecting the Catholic Church and the Labor Movement to subscribe.  Occasionally, notices will be sent when this page is updated.  When important events happen, we will pass on the information through the e-mail list, and most of all, the e-mail list is a means by which we can pray and support each other. Some Catholic and Labor Links The Holy See  The National Conference of Catholic Bishops  Human Rights for Workers  The Catholic Social Doctrine Page  The Houston Catholic Worker  Catholic Online  National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice  The Seamless Garment Network  The International Labour Organization  The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations  The International Transport Workers Federation Union Web

A Father's Legacy Msgr. George G. Higgins April 26, 1999 Reading the 90th anniversary edition of America, the national Jesuit weekly, brought back happy memories of my father and several of the magazine's deceased editors I knew and admired: Jesuit Fathers Wilfrid Parsons, John LaFarge, Benjamin Masse and Donald Campion.  Thanks to my father, I was introduced to America and its sister journal, Commonweal, when still in grammar school. Since he worked nights as a foreman in Chicago's main post office, he was always home when I came in for lunch from the parish school. A working man with an eighth-grade education, he was an avid reader, but used failing eyesight as a plausible excuse for requiring me to read to him for 10 or 15 minutes from the pages of America or Commonweal before I went back to school. "The investment I have made in your education,'' he often said, "will be worthwhile if you are upset when America and Commonweal are late in the mail'' -- his way of saying formal education was a waste unless it led to a taste, preferably thirst, for at least a modicum of serious reading.  Were he still alive, I'm sure it would upset him, as a lifetime postal worker, to find that his favorite Catholic magazines are late in the mail more frequently than his generation's postal service ever would have tolerated. Because of him I can modestly and gratefully claim to have read almost every issue of America for 70 of its 90 years and almost every issue of Commonweal, about to celebrate its 70th anniversary. I did not know Father Parsons as America's editor but took courses from him when he later joined The Catholic University of America faculty. He was a spirited, broad-gauged political philosophy professor with a knack for interpreting current political events in light of classical political theory and engaging students in serious dialogue.  When he retired, he lived in the Jesuit residence at nearby Georgetown University where I visited him as often as possible, always bringing him a bottle of his favorite bourbon. I remember him fondly as a great editor, superb teacher and valued friend. Of the editors mentioned, it was Father Masse with whom I most closely was associated. He covered economic and labor issues for 30 years, and because of mutual interest in so many problems he wrote about, we were in touch frequently. At his 1978 funeral I said no one else in the magazine's history wrote more frequently or clearly than he on social and economic issues, and that few if any of the editors wielded greater influence. After retiring from America, he spent a dozen or more happy years as an associate parish priest in Westchester County, N.Y.  The notable exception to my statement about Father Masse's influence was Father LaFarge. Founder of the Catholic Interracial Council and author of several important books on racial justice, he exerted enormous influence in preparing the ground for the U.S. civil rights movement.  In my father's declining years, he made his first and only trip to New York. Aside from seeing the leading Broadway plays, his trip's highlight was a luncheon Father LaFarge hosted at the old America residence on West 108th Street.  I knew Father Campion as the magazine's editor, but chiefly when he was its Rome correspondent during the Second Vatican Council where I saw him almost daily, benefiting greatly from his insights. A few days after Father Pedro Arrupe was elected Jesuit superior general, Father Campion took several of us Americans to meet him. For me the delightful interview began a friendship that lasted until Father Arrupe's death. He was one of the greatest men I ever met, and I am grateful beyond measure to Father Campion for enabling me to meet him. Father Campion died too young, of Parkinson's disease. He was one of the best priest friends I ever had.  Congratulations and many happy returns to America as it moves toward the new millennium with a new editor, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, also a friend of many years from his days at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington.   Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre