RYAN, JOHN AUGUSTINE

Pioneer American Catholic social philosopher; b. Dakota County, MN, May 25, 1869; d. Washington, DC, Sept. 16, 1945. Ryan grew up on a family farm in Vermillion, MN, the eldest son of 11 children of William and Mary Luby Ryan, Irish immigrants. He attended a local public school and the Christian Brothers' school in nearby St. Paul. In 1887 he entered St. Thomas Seminary (later St. Paul Seminary) and was ordained by Abp. John Ireland on June 4, 1898. Ryan then went to The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, winning his licentiate in moral theology in 1900. He returned to St. Paul Seminary in the fall of 1902 as professor of moral theology and remained there for 13 years. In 1906, when The Catholic University awarded him his doctorate in sacred theology, his dissertation, A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, won worldwide notice.

Ryan next became active with reforming groups such as the National Consumers League. He lectured frequently to labor unions, to Catholic fraternal groups, and at Catholic summer schools. He wrote many articles on moral and economic topics; his discussion of the moral aspects of labor unions in the Catholic Encyclopedia was standard and authoritative. In 1913 Ryan joined those who were working for minimum wage laws for women, especially in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Later that same

year his debate with Morris Hillquit, a Socialist, became a minor classic, Socialism: Promise or Menace? (1914). Ryan joined the faculty at The Catholic University, where he first taught political science, then moral theology. In 1919 he was elected to his first of several terms as dean of the School of Sacred Theology. He also taught economics and later science at Trinity College, Washington, DC.

Distributive Justice, an analysis of the ethical obligation of all parties to modern industrial society, Ryan's most substantial work, appeared in 1916. He founded the Catholic Charities Review in 1917 and edited it for four years. In 1919 he wrote the advanced draft of the "Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction," a progressive document embodying proposals for minimum wage legislation, unemployment, health and old-age insurance, etc., that have since become law but were then considered radical. The next year he became director of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Council (later Conference), a post he held until his death. In 1921 he became lecturer in social ethics at the National Catholic School of Social Service. From his office at the NCWC, Ryan continued to lecture widely and to write frequently for magazines, principally, though not exclusively, for Catholic magazines. He helped to organize the Catholic Association for International Peace in 1927. He cooperated with his counterparts in the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and in the Central Conference of American Rabbis to promote social justice. Joining numerous secular groups, he frequently served as a member of their governing boards; the most controversial of these was the American Civil Liberties Union.

In the election campaign of 1928, Ryan figured as a combatant and also as an authority. A statement in his The State and the Church (1923) encouraged critics to think that once in power Catholics would deny religious freedom to non-Catholics. Ryan rejected this idea. Because Ryan owed his economic analysis mainly to John A. Hobson's underconsumption theory, he was immensely critical of Herbert Hoover's caution and comparably enthusiastic about the New Deal. Early in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first administration, Pope Pius XI appointed Ryan a domestic prelate; the formal investiture was on Dec. 8, 1933. A year later Ryan became a member of the Industrial Appeals Board of the National Recovery Administration. An enthusiastic New Dealer, he viewed the National Labor Relations Act as "probably the most just, beneficial, and far-reaching piece of labor legislation ever enacted in the United States"; the Fair Labor Standards Act he considered the culmination of his life's work. Ryan supported Roosevelt in all four campaigns and gave the benediction at two inaugurations.

On social and economic questions, Ryan more than any other single person brought Catholics abreast of American progressive thought. His Living Wage laid the groundwork in theology and economics; his role as lobbyist, teacher, lecturer, and writer trained a generation of priests and laymen. He also helped to create a favorable image of the Catholic Church among non-Catholic reformers prone to see it as monolithic and conservative.

Bibliography: f. l. broderick, Right Reverend New Dealer: John A. Ryan (New York 1963).

[f. l. broderick]