Preliminary Programme

The deal of my presentation is to point out the typical catholic strategy of handling social and economic problems at the end of the 19th century. There has been several institutes, personal initiatives, but we can focuse on catholic "schools" like of Angers, of Liege, the Vogelsang-, the Le Play-, the La Tour du Pin- or the Jesuit and the Dominican schools. At the end, we can consider that catholic theologians and laymen had a very concrete vision of the mean problems of the contemporary social and economic injustice,and they developed - against the uncontrolled liberal views but also againsat the collectivism - a huge doctrine of a rational but just regime of economics. Nevertheless, these groups elaborated a lot of concrete propositions filling in the specific vision of the future society they imagined and these visions diverged: but the way of turning theological reasons into practical ones is characteristic. Anyhow, catholics were able to present an alternative of the exisisting economic order. From that bases a new economic and social theory emerged: Father Pesch's Solidarism. The paper to be present should try to clear up the results and the role of this forgotten line of economic thought. (Show less)

Hugh Donohoe was a Diocesan priest, labor union specialist, professor, editor, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Auxiliary Bishop of the San Francisco Archdioces, and Bishop of Stockton and Fresno, California. Donohoe personified Catholic labor activism from the 1930s through the Cold War years.

Donohue was a central figure in a network of militant Catholics in California who were inspired by the writings of Pope Pius XI and by the Catholic labor encyclicals to mobilize the church hierarchy and laymen and women on behalf of a program of labor reform leading to the expansion of union membership and labor union power in California and the nation more generally.

The paper is based on archival sources and it addresses several issues central to the theorizing of social movement and social reform organization mobilization and process.

Donohoe's work as a Catholic labor activist will be compared and contrasted with the work of other "labor priests" and Bishops in other major cities in the United States during the period who were sympathetic with and worked to extend the influence of labor unions. (Show less)

This paper deals with local society in a small Swedish town in the early seventeenth century, about 1600-1620, and how social problems and problems of poverty were dealt with. Rather than simply describing poor care, this study analyzes the strategies that local society developed to help individuals seek solutions to their problems. Using records from the local council, the church and the court records, insight is provided into the interaction between various levels of local society in the Early Modern period. (Show less)

When the new Bishop of Linz, Franz Josef Rudigier, took office in 1854, the Catholic church viewed the increasing number of urban poor as a problem of traditional poverty and morality. Those 'inflicted' with the burden of poverty should accept their place, and if they did so with a 'solid' moral character, they would be able to count on charity from the Church whenever possible. By the eve of the First World War, those views had changed dramatically: The poor and the working classes were viewed as victims of a godless system - capitalism - and thus hardly in control of their own destiny; the Church should not just to help the needy but to work toward altering the social and economic framework that determined their suffering. Indeed, by the late 1890s the Catholic church presided over a vast network of working-class associations, charitable institutions and political parties that helped pass significant social legislation.

Examining the evidence from Upper Austria, I will argue that a much broader range of theoretical and practical approaches to the 'Social Question' existed before the encyclical Rerum Novarum 'forced' the issue in 1891 than is usually assumed by historians. This is especially true for the Habsburg Monarchy, where historical perspectives on the "social question" have tended to focus on Karl von Vogesang and his circle. I begin by examining the legal and institutional structures that existed in the state and the Catholic church in the 1840s and 1850s. What laws determined who could move where? How did the Church view these laws and what role did it play in their implementation? Where there efforts 'outside' these structures in dealing with urban migrants? A second section will then turn to the development of Catholic thinking on the social question in the 1860s and 70s, focusing on how the issue played out in Austria and Upper Austria. How did discussion of the 'social question' begin among local Catholic thinkers? What were the major theoretical streams of thought and where did these originate? And, finally, did individual priests in Upper Austria act on any of these ideas and recommendations? In the final section, I will then turn to the encyclical Rerum Novarum, focusing on how the complex reception of the encyclical in Upper Austria. (Show less)