MANIFESTO ON RURAL LIFE

National Catholic Rural Life Conference

The Bruce Publishing Company
Milwaukee

Imprimatur: + ALOISIUS J. MUENCH, Bishop of Fargo

Feast of the Assumption
August 15, 1939
Fargo, North Dakota

(Third Printing--1950)
Copyright, 1939

National Catholic Rural Life Conference
printed in the U. S. A.


                                FOREWORD

One need but take a cursory glance through American history to see that 
this nation has always had some kind of agrarian problem. Agrarianism has 
had a long and troublesome history. When our nation began, Daniel Shays led 
the farmer into rebellion. The farmer of revolutionary days was burdened 
with heavy debts; contracts were ruthlessly enforced against him; prices 
were low; the savings of hard labor expended in clearing land of timber, 
stumps, and rocks were being lost. Shays organized the first pressure group 
among the farmers. His rebellion was crushed by armed force. From the hard 
times of 1785-86 down to the hard times of our day is a far cry. But in the 
intervening 150 years the farmer often found himself face to face with 
serious problems. To cope with them, all sorts of panaceas were rushed upon 
the scene. Some were radical and revolutionary in character; others were 
legislative and monetary; still others were economic and political.

The fact is, of course, that the farmer's problem is so complicated by many 
factors that it cannot be solved by a simple formula. It is not the purpose 
of this MANIFESTO to offer such a formula. The MANIFESTO is not in the 
nature of a blueprint with detailed specifications to show how the new 
agrarianism is to be built and how the farmer's problems are to be solved. 
There is no such complete solution available.

The purpose of the MANIFESTO is to state certain fundamental principles and 
policies without which it would be folly to essay a solution. These 
principles and policies are chiefly derived from Catholic social philosophy 
as expressed in the social encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI.

In propounding social philosophy, the Catholic Church does not leave out of 
view the spiritual nature of man and his ultimate spiritual destiny. She 
would not be true to her mission if she did so. Indeed, the salvation of 
souls must ever be her first concern. But so intimately are material things 
interwoven with man's daily conduct, its motives and its deeds, that the 
Church cannot be unconcerned about what goes on in the material order of 
things. In point of fact, a pure secularism which would divorce man's 
earthly life from spiritual concerns is not in accord with the realities of 
man's daily living. To ignore either the spiritual or the material in their 
manifold interrelations can only result in disaster.

The Church has ever shown a special solicitude for those whose living is 
derived from the land. "In the Twenty Centuries of Her Existence," writes 
Archbishop Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, "the 
Catholic Church has ever shown, emphasized even, her predilection for those 
who till the soil, on whose work and efforts depends so important a part of 
the well-being of all."[1] One need not search far or deeply for the reason 
of this solicitude for the tiller of the land. The occupation of 
agriculture offers the most favorable conditions, generally speaking, for 
the development of private property, the fostering of home life, the 
culture of initiative, prudence, thrift, courage and other priceless 
virtues, and for the promotion of simple but wholesome and rugged living.

Agrarianism has entered upon a new phase in the twentieth century, 
especially beginning with the period after the World War. Foreign markets 
have been greatly reduced, nations have embarked upon vast, even though 
costly, programs of economic self-sufficiency, domestic markets have shrunk 
owing to lessened purchasing power and a lower birth rate. Population 
shifts, because of the steady migration of farm youth from the populous 
areas of Rural America into the dying city centers of Urban America, have 
given origin to new and complex problems, and a dozen other factors, 
largely of an economic and social character, have given rise to great 
disparities between urban and rural living. The unbalance between the two 
has been aggravated by the Great Depression from both an economic and a 
social point of view. Archbishop Cicognani has summed up the whole problem 
in a few trenchant words: "In the present world-wide economic disorder, 
brought about by the abuses of capitalism, by technological changes, and by 
dislocated relationship between rural and urban life, dangerous 
inequalities and disproportions have developed to the detriment and, in 
some instances, to the degradation of the farm population. Those who live 
on the land form the larger portion of the human family and their labor is 
the most important and indispensable for the livelihood of all. The most 
elementary justice entitles them to standards of living no less abundant 
and complete than those enjoyed by the urban population. Briefly, justice 
should prevail between the farm and the city."[2]

It would be a mistake to think that the problems of agrarianism are 
entirely rural. What goes on back on the farm has its repercussions in the 
city, and what happens in the city has its reactions on the farm. Wheels of 
industry are quickly stopped if the farmer cannot buy industry's products 
because he does not obtain a just share of the nation's income. The 
immigration of farm youth to the cities often entails as consequences the 
reduction of wages, the lengthening of bread lines, and the swelling of 
city slums. A thousand different interrelations exist between city and 
farm. The sooner it is recognized that agriculture and industry form an 
economic whole with varied implications of a moral, social, and political 
character, the better it will be for the material well-being of the nation. 
To keep this thought to the fore has been among the prime objectives of the 
National Catholic Rural Life Conference from the day it was founded by the 
Most Rev. Edwin V. O'Hara, now Bishop of Kansas City. To give this thought 
more definite expression is one of the chief aims of this MANIFESTO. Hence, 
the economic, social, cultural, moral, and religious have all received 
consideration in this statement. It represents the thinking of the National 
Catholic Rural Life Conference over the years that have elapsed since it 
was founded. For a long time the great need of a concise statement on 
agricultural and rural problems has been felt by Catholic Agrarian leaders. 
The MANIFESTO is the joint product of thought of eminent leaders in the 
field of Catholic rural thought.

Lest the document be encumbered with factual, statistical, and illustrative 
material, and cluttered up with references of a varied sort, Annotations 
have been added in Part II. The reference to these is by paragraph number.

In a special Introduction to the Annotations we have given expression to 
our sentiments of appreciation and gratitude to those who, by advice, 
suggestion, and workmanship, were helpful in producing the document.

The MANIFESTO makes a venture on new ground, not that all fields have been 
covered and that nothing more remains to be said on rural life questions, 
but rather that for the first time, so far as we know, principles and 
policies have been stated in a succinct and orderly fashion with respect to 
Catholic Rural Life. We hope that the Rural Life Movement will march 
forward with new strength and courage under the stimulus that has been 
given it by this MANIFESTO.

ALOISIUS J. MUENCH
Bishop of Fargo


ENDNOTES

1. Cicognani, A. G., "Addresses and Sermons" (New York, 1937), p. 332.

2. Op. cit., p. 335.


                                CONTENTS

Foreword

                            Part I. MANIFESTO

CHAPTER
I. The Rural Catholic Family
II. Farm Ownership and Land Tenancy
III. Rural Settlement
IV. Catholic Rural Education
V. Rural Catholic Youth
VI. Catholic Culture in Rural Society
VII. Rural Community
VIII. The Rural Pastorate 
IX. Rural Church Expansion
X. Rural Health
XI. Rural Social Charity
XII. The Farm Laborer 
XIII. Farmer Cooperatives
XIV. Rural Credit 
XV. Agriculture in the Economic Organism
XVI. Rural Taxation

                           Part II ANNOTATIONS

Introduction
I. The Rural Catholic Family
II. Farm Ownership and Land Tenancy
III. Rural Settlement
IV. Catholic Rural Education
V. Rural Catholic Youth
VI. Catholic Culture in Rural Society
VII. Rural Community
VIII. The Rural Pastorate
IX. Rural Church Expansion
X. Rural Health
XI. Rural Social Charity
XII. The Farm Laborer
XIII. Farmer Cooperatives
XIV. Rural Credit
XV. Agriculture in the Economic Organism 
XVI. Rural Taxation
Importance of the Rural Questions
Selected References
Index


                   CHAPTER I THE RURAL CATHOLIC FAMILY

1. Among social institutions the family occupies the place of primacy. The 
family is both the source of population and the chief agency in the 
training and education of the child. The Christian family is the keystone 
of the arch which supports our Christian civilization. Its attributes are 
sanctity, unity, and permanence; and these in turn rest upon the sanctity, 
unity, and permanence of the marriage bond. The Church, through her 
vigilant protection of the family and of the marriage bond, has been and is 
"the best guardian and defender of the human race."[1]

2. The special adaptability of the farm home for nurturing strong and 
wholesome Christian family life is the primary reason why the Catholic 
Church is so deeply concerned with rural problems. Throughout her history, 
the Catholic Church has instinctively felt a special kinship with the 
cultivators of the soil, and her enemies find cause for reproach in the 
fact that her sociological and economic teaching, even when expressed by 
Leo XIII, breathes, as it were, a rural atmosphere. The explanation is to 
be found in the unique relationship which exists between the family and the 
occupation of agriculture. The farm is the native habitat of the family. 
Industrial society works against the family and in favor of divorce, 
desertion, temporary unions, companionate marriage; agricultural society is 
characterized by the strength, permanence, and unity of the marriage bond 
and the comparative rarity of its dissolution.

3. Both the occupational and the social activities of city life tend to 
develop an individualism which destroys the unity of family life and 
weakens the marriage bond. These conditions are further aggravated through 
the employment of married women in office and factory. The occupation of 
agriculture, on the other hand, by its very nature tends to promote the 
unity of family life and to strengthen the marriage bond. The wife is of 
necessity a business partner, the managing office of the farm is the farm 
home, and husband and wife share intimately the business management of the 
whole enterprise. All rural and urban divorce statistics reflect the 
favorable influence of agricultural life on the unity and permanence of the 
marriage bond.

4. The fundamental purpose of the family, namely, the propagation and 
training of children, is more readily set aside in the city. Statistics 
indicate an insufficiency of births in the city to maintain even a 
stationary population; whereas in rural sections they indicate a thirty 
percent surplus. Striving capitalistic mentality, new assumptions in 
respect to fundamental values, the acceptance of a false amoral secularism 
in the place of the Christian concept of marriage are basic factors in 
explaining the decline of city birth rates, which decline has been 
accelerated through economic conditions. The countryside, though not immune 
from these influences, is decidedly less susceptible to them. Then, too, 
children are frequently economic assets on the farm, whereas in the city 
they are economic liabilities from birth to maturity.

5. Rural environment offers distinctly favorable advantages for training 
children in the domestic virtues. The authority of rural parents is more 
pronounced, the influence of domestic traditions more respected; and farm 
children are likely to become more imbued with the religious and moral 
ideas of their parents than are the children of the city, surrounded as 
city children are by a multitude of unfavorable influences during their 
immature years. The farm home offers the only extended occupational 
apprenticeship left in America, an apprenticeship where the parents are the 
teachers, and every year of apprenticeship consolidates the domestic bond. 
Farm life favors the unity and solidarity of the family. Unity of 
occupation binds all the members together in common economic and 
intellectual interests. Joint planning and discussion bind more strongly 
the members of the family as the knowledge of scientific farming increases 
their mutual interests. Recreation and even religion are more of a family 
affair in the country than in the city. Common interests and association in 
work, play, and worship strengthen the ties of domesticity and the bond of 
mutual love.

6. Despite the special natural advantages offered for wholesome family life 
on the farm, there are, under present conditions, serious disadvantages 
which prevent the farm family from realizing a full and satisfying life. 
These disadvantages can and should be removed. 

7. The farm family not infrequently suffers from its condition of 
isolation, lack of social and cultural contacts, lack of educational and 
religious facilities for child, youth, and adult. The world of things and 
daily toil tend to crowd out the things that give meaning to life. Though 
it need not be so, the country is largely a place of cultural barrenness 
where, in making a livelihood, people have neglected the art of living. The 
tone of country life tends to the dull and commonplace. The farmer's mind 
is often closed to the advantages of scientific farming. He is content to 
follow traditional methods, which do not always make for progress. 
Isolation has developed in very many farmers an unhealthy individualism 
which blinds them to the need and value of cooperative effort and deprives 
farming communities of the special benefits which only social living and 
cooperative endeavor can procure.

8. In many rural areas there exists a widespread indifference to school 
education. Farmers as a group do not appreciate the need for suitable 
houses, esthetic landscaping, equipment which eliminates drudgery, and the 
things which make for culture and refinement. Even where income warrants 
these improvements, traditional habits often restrain the farmer from 
making them. In the days of bountiful incomes for most farmers, only a 
small percentage used their income to improve living conditions.

9. Taking the nation's farm population as a who]e, the farm family has 
gravitated to a low economic and cultural level. Many farmers, however, and 
many communities of farmers have not neglected the things which make for 
culture and for economic security. Their success demonstrates the 
possibility of economic security and wholesome living conditions on the 
countryside.

10. Ignorance born of isolation is, in a large measure, responsible for the 
plight of the farm family. Education is needed to make the farm family 
master of its economic destiny and to open to its members new cultural and 
intellectual vistas. Education is needed to change the mental attitude of 
the farmer and the farm family. The farmer should learn to look upon his 
farm as a home. He should learn to appreciate the things necessary for 
wholesome rural family life--a modern sanitary house, properly furnished, 
equipped with laborsaving devices and installations, and supplied with 
reading material and other things of cultural value. The extension of rural 
electrification should make possible at moderate cost the elimination of 
much of the drudgery characteristic of the average rural home. Rural 
electrification should also stimulate the development of home arts and 
crafts--a cultural and an economic blessing as well as another tie to bind 
the family together. The farmyard could be made attractive with little 
expense apart from the labor of the family. Landscaping, including the use 
of trees and flowers, would give to the farm home its proper setting and 
make it a pleasant and satisfying place of residence.

11. Schools, farm and parish organizations, cooperative agricultural 
extension service, government bulletins, libraries, and the radio offer 
means for educating the farmer to appreciate the need and value of better 
living conditions and the means whereby they can be attained. They will 
also help to broaden his outlook on life.

12. If the farm is to retain the more ambitious on the land, the work of 
elevating the status of the farm family must be pushed forward with 
rapidity. The results otherwise will be nothing less than tragic for the 
nation, since the countryside with its surplus of births is the source of 
the nation's population. The Church is vitally interested, as she is 
vitally interested in the family and in the general welfare of society.


ENDNOTES

1. Leo XIII, "Christian Marriage," p. 66.

NOTE The Encyclicals of Pius XI are quoted from the N.C.W.C. editions of 
these works. References to Leo XIII's "The Condition of Labor" are to "Four 
Great Encyclicals" (Paulist Press). References to the other Encyclicals of 
Leo XIII are to be found in "Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII," edited 
by Rev. John J. Wynne S.J. (Benziger Bros.).


               CHAPTER II FARM OWNERSHIP AND LAND TENANCY

13. Since God created the earth for mankind in general, the earth is the 
heritage of all mankind. Although the title to the earth of mankind as a 
whole sets certain natural limits, to private ownership, this title is not 
in conflict with the institution of private property. Division of goods and 
of ownership is founded on the natural law, since natural reason dictates 
that such division is necessary in order that the goods of the earth might 
be apportioned among all mankind in an orderly, efficient, and peaceful 
manner. The limits of ownership and the division of property are determined 
"by man's own industry and the institutions of individual peoples."[1]

14. It is obvious that man has a natural right to the fruits of his labor. 
To use the words of Leo XIII, "that which is required for the preservation 
of life and for life's well-being, is produced in great abundance by the 
earth, but not until man has brought it into cultivation and lavished upon 
it his care and skill. Now, when man thus spends the industry of his mind 
and the strength of his body in procuring the fruits of nature, by that act 
he makes his own that portion of nature's field which he cultivates--that 
portion on which he leaves, as it were, the impress of his own personality; 
and it cannot but be just that he should possess that portion as his own, 
and should have a right to keep it without molestation."[2]

15. Man's natural right to own property is also based upon man's need for 
ownership. St. Thomas Aquinas states that private property is "necessary 
for human life."[3] Man under present conditions of human society needs 
property to provide the necessities of life for himself and for his family, 
to live as a free man and to achieve for himself and for his family the 
destiny, temporal and eternal, the Creator has intended for him. Without 
the right and opportunity to own property, generally speaking, man is not 
free; he cannot provide the necessities of life for himself and his family; 
he cannot properly develop his personality nor procure for his offspring 
the opportunity to develop the potentialities with which they are endowed. 
To provide adequately for the children he has begotten, he must have the 
right to transmit property by inheritance.

16. While ownership of property is sacred and inviolable, it is not 
unlimited in the sense that a man may do with his property what he pleases 
without regard for the common good. The requirements of social life impose 
limits on the use of property and even on the right of ownership itself. 
Some of these limits are determined by the natural and by the divine law; 
while it is the function of the State to determine others. Although the 
State has not the right to abolish private ownership since it is a natural 
right, it is, however, the function and duty of the State to "control its 
use and bring it into harmony with the interests of the public good."[4]

17. In using his property, man is only exercising a stewardship given him 
by his Creator; and even in the absence of State regulations he must 
administer it in the interests of the common good. In the absence of State 
regulations, the use which a man may make of his property is limited by the 
fundamental principles of social justice and social charity.

18. This concept of ownership, set forth in the social encyclicals of Leo 
XIII and Pius XI, by stressing the social purpose, the social limits, and 
the social obligations of property, avoids the extreme of individualism 
with its doctrine of absolute ownership and unlimited use. On the other 
hand, by emphasizing the inviolability of individual ownership, it avoids 
the extreme of collectivism which denies entirely the right of private 
ownership. The encyclicals reflect the traditional teachings of the Church.

19. Since man needs property to attain to the status of a free man, to 
develop his personality, and to provide for his family, it follows that an 
economic system to be equitable must provide opportunity for the masses to 
become owners. Unless this opportunity is offered to the masses, the 
argument on which the right of private property rests is destroyed. The 
stability of society requires widespread ownership. "The law, therefore," 
writes Leo XIII, "should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce 
as many people as possible to become owners."[5]

20. Although the land in the United States should offer the best 
opportunity for the masses of men to acquire ownership and independence, 
the trend toward tenancy is increasing at an alarming rate. Vanishing 
ownership is a major problem in American agriculture today, which carries 
with it disastrous moral, social, and economic consequences. Tenants do not 
improve the land nor conserve the soil. They take what is possible from the 
land and then move on to other acres. Even absentee owners not infrequently 
exploit the soil and overlook the need of proper housing and building 
maintenance in order to secure immediate cash returns. Tenancy usually is 
profitable for neither tenant, nor owner, nor society. Soil mining, land 
erosion, and human erosion are among the evils of tenancy. As a result of 
our tenancy system, millions of once fruitful acres have lost their 
fertility, and degrading standards of living have been forced on a 
multitude of farm families.

21. The material value of ownership is stressed by Pope Leo XIII as 
follows: "Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that 
which is their own; nay, they learn to love the very soil which yields in 
response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an 
abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. It 
is evident how such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of 
the earth and to the wealth of the community."[6] The individual who has a 
stake in the land has excellent anchorage, a sense of security and 
stability that cannot but redound to the welfare of his family and of the 
community. The premises that are owned gradually become a shrine of 
memories serving to bind the family members together with powerful 
psychological ties. Holding land permanently, living upon it and 
cultivating it, identifies a man with the rural community, gives him an 
interest in it and its essential social institutions, tethers him to law 
and order, and protects him against the inroads of pernicious social 
doctrines.

22. Government intervention is not only warranted but even necessary to 
check the trend toward tenancy and make it possible for farmers to become 
owners again. Government measures are needed to correct evils inherent in 
our present tenancy system.

23. Worthy of commendation is a new farm tenure policy providing for 
federal acquisition and improvement of land, and resale of it under long-
term, low-interest contracts to tenants and to others who desire to operate 
their own farms. In this resale the fee-simple absolute title should be 
modified so that the government would be left in a position to assert its 
right to discourage the subdivision and breaking up of economic units, 
wastage of natural resources, reckless speculation, absentee landlordism, 
and tenancy.

Government intervention is needed in emergencies to prevent owners from 
losing their farms, to rehabilitate certain disadvantaged groups, to 
prevent land speculation and limit ownership by non-farmers, and to work 
out a program for farms now submarginal for cultivation.

Tenant contracts and the relationship between landlords and tenants should 
be changed to increase the security of tenants and to overcome the present 
abuses incident to farm tenancy. Each State, through proper legislative 
measures, should stimulate an increase in the number of family-size, owner-
operated farms through homestead exemptions or by means of differential 
taxation favorable to such types of farms.

24. It is not within the power of the State nor is it the function of the 
State to do all the things necessary to check the trend toward tenancy and 
necessary to secure independence and decent living conditions for the 
farmer. The farmer, too, must do something to help himself. Many owners 
have been reduced to the status of tenants because of wrong methods in 
farming, the lack of thrift, speculation in land, and speculation in cash 
crops. The farmer must learn to regard his farm as a home and an 
opportunity to rear his family in decency, rather than as a business on 
which to grow rich at enormous risks. Christian cooperatives, of the 
consumer, producer, and credit type, are means within the grasp of farming 
groups for securing ownership, independence, and decent living conditions.

25. Immediate, sustained, and vigorous action is required to stem the tide 
of increasing farm tenancy which will otherwise result in rural decadence.


ENDNOTES

1. Leo XIII, "The Condition of Labor," p. 

2. Ibid.

3. "Summa Theol.," 2a, 2ae, q. LVII, art. 2.

4. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 17.

5. Leo XIII, "The Condition of Labor," p. 26.

6. Leo XIII, "The Condition of Labor," pp. 26, 27.


                      CHAPTER III RURAL SETTLEMENT

26. Despite surpluses in farm products, the time is opportune for an 
extensive program to re-establish families on the land. Commercialized 
farming, the dwindling of city birth rates, and the shrinkage of purchasing 
power among impoverished families are factors which in a large measure 
explain overproduction in the field of agriculture. These conditions would 
be offset gradually by the re-establishment of families on family-size 
farms and even on smaller units from which they could obtain the things 
required to supplement the income derived from industrial employment.

27. Land settlement can be used today to great advantage in the solution of 
social, economic, and even relief problems which affect rural areas as well 
as urban centers. Appropriations wisely expended in establishing on the 
land people with farm experience, instead of grants for direct relief, 
would help to restore to the nation the sorely needed economic balance. 
Through well-planned re-establishment projects, security and opportunity 
for normal living could be brought to large groups, with far-reaching 
beneficial effects on the economic, social, and religious life of the 
nation.

28. In many farm communities are young men and women of marriageable age 
well prepared for successful management of farm homes. Marriage has been 
delayed for lack of funds through which they could establish themselves on 
farms. In the interest of society, these young people should be accorded 
the opportunity for settlement on the land. This group constitutes the most 
promising material for successful land settlement.

29. Among the multitudes living in the city on insufficient incomes, and 
even among those on relief rolls, there are large numbers with farm 
experience who are anxious today for an opportunity to go back to the 
country. In this grouping, there are many who would make good use of an 
opportunity to return to the land. It is in their interest and in the 
interest of society that such opportunity be given them. A program to re-
establish this group would reduce the relief rolls of the city, help solve 
the problem of unemployment and insufficient wages, and afford the members 
of the group an opportunity to attain a decent standard of living that 
would redound to the general welfare of society.

30. In our land settlement program there is a place for both the family-
size farm and homesteads with small acreages for families of industrial 
workers. For families who derive their entire living directly from the 
soil, re-establishment plans should be worked out on the better soils with 
sufficient acreage to support a family in decency and comfort. Rural 
homesteads for industrial workers should be grouped near industrial centers 
so as to give workers an opportunity to increase their income, to achieve 
independence by acquiring ownership at least on a moderate scale, and to 
provide for their children the wholesome atmosphere of country life. Part-
time employment on his own farmstead with fewer hours in the plant or 
factory is a desirable condition for the industrial worker and also for 
society. Fewer hours for the industrial worker in the plant or factory 
should permit the employment of a larger number of workers in industry. 
Homesteads with land sufficient to supply deficiencies in incomes would be 
a special blessing for certain low income groups.

31. Modern progress is not incompatible with plain, inexpensive living in 
homes of simple construction, which the inhabitants can build for 
themselves or at least can afford to pay for within a reasonable time. 
Plans for buildings should be drawn so that single units could be built at 
the outset and additional units constructed as the need and income of the 
family warrant them. Elaborate theories that rural colony projects for 
underprivileged people must provide all modern comforts from the very start 
are absurd and in the long run tend to defeat their purpose. These theories 
are responsible for more than one expensive failure in the field of 
rehabilitation. Improved standards of living that go beyond improvement in 
health, sanitation, and education should follow improved incomes. In the 
case of some underprivileged groups a change in mental attitude, including 
the development of a sense of appreciation, is necessary if they are to 
make proper use of improved standards. A strong program of education must 
be provided to produce this result.

32. It is most desirable, if not necessary, for the success of a project 
that the members form a homogeneous group. An integrated philosophy of life 
is essential for an integrated society, and common religious loyalties make 
for its stability. The members of a group should be of the same religious 
faith and in some instances perhaps of the same racial origin. The success 
of a re-establishment project requires careful selection of families. A 
thorough scrutiny should be made of the background and capabilities of 
applicants, especially in the first experiments with settlement projects, 
so that failure of a project may not discourage further attempts. Only 
those who agree to cooperate in an educational program should be accepted.

33. The educational program should include appreciation of rural living, 
the use of the soil, production for home use, cooperation, home arts and 
crafts, and such other arts and skills as the particular needs of the rural 
group require. United planning and cooperation, less dependence on 
government, cooperative action in buying and selling and in the management 
of local credit facilities, and improved standards of living should be both 
the objective and the result of a properly conducted adult education 
program. Such a program is essential to the success of a re-establishment 
project.

34. The government should encourage and protect rural re-establishment 
projects. It should not formulate all plans or dictate all terms. 
Provisions should be made for a large degree of local autonomy. The 
government could render assistance through long-term loans with low 
interest rates to cooperative groups organized to establish their members 
on the land. Such loans would be warranted when the personnel of a 
cooperative group and the details of the project give reasonable assurance 
that the loans would be paid. The government could render further 
assistance through loans to corporations organized by responsible citizens 
of a community to promote the establishment of small homesteads, whenever 
such projects are found feasible and sound. It would be wisdom on the part 
of the government to extend financial aid, in the form either of loans or 
of outright grants, to re-establish on the land those underprivileged 
citizens now on relief, whose background, character, and capabilities give 
assurance that they would make use of the opportunities given them, it 
being understood that such projects are promoted and supervised by 
responsible groups.

35. Projects to re-establish in the country the underprivileged families of 
a city should attract voluntary contributions or loans on the part of 
taxpayers as well as the donations of philanthropic and charitable 
citizens; for such projects would not only reduce the relief rolls of the 
city but would also save large numbers from gravitating to the level of 
degrading pauperism and becoming the permanent liability of future 
generations.

36. Where feasible, the owners of large industrial plants should promote 
rural homestead projects for their employees, and especially for those 
whose yearly incomes, taking in account seasons of unemployment, are 
insufficient for the proper support of their families. Employees should be 
given opportunity for ownership. It is a social responsibility of the 
owners and the controllers of great wealth to promote the welfare of their 
employees and to aid even those whose employment is seasonable and 
uncertain in securing at least a moderate degree of ownership and the 
opportunity to support their families in decent comfort. Rural homestead 
projects, however, should not be advocated to relieve employers of their 
obligations to pay proper wages. Ownership of a home with a small 
productive acreage would, in fact, make a worker less dependent upon his 
employer and should place him in a position of advantage in negotiating for 
proper wages. Rural homestead projects of the type recommended would 
redound also to the interest of employers, inasmuch as they would give 
employers an assurance of contented, reliable, and faithful employees, 
anchored to the soil and not susceptible to pernicious, radical influences.


                   CHAPTER IV CATHOLIC RURAL EDUCATION

37. The objective of education is the preparation of man as an individual 
and a member of society for both his temporal and his eternal destiny. The 
purpose and character of true education is succinctly delineated by Pope 
Pius XI in the following words: "Since education consists essentially in 
preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in 
order to attain the sublime end for which he was created, it is clear that 
there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man's last 
end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed 
Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is 'the 
way, the truth and the life,' there can be no ideally perfect education 
which is not Christian education."[1]

38. Education is the concern of three societies; namely, the family, the 
State, and the Church--"three necessary societies, distinct from one 
another, and yet harmoniously combined by God, into which man is born."[2] 
Pope Pius XI states the position of the family in the field of education in 
the following words: "The family, therefore, holds directly from the 
Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right 
inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right 
anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and 
therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth."[3]

39. The family is not a perfect society having within itself the means 
necessary for its own complete development. Man needs the State to secure 
his temporal well-being and to attain the full development of his 
personality and the enjoyment of the temporal blessings that the Creator 
has bestowed on the human race. He is born a member of the State, a society 
complete within itself, whose objective is the general welfare of its 
members. The right and duty of the State in the field of education is based 
upon the right and duty of the State to promote the temporal welfare of its 
members. It is precisely because the function of the State is to promote 
the temporal well-being of its citizens that education falls within the 
sphere of the State's duties.

40. The right and duty of the State in respect to education does not imply 
that it is necessary, expedient, or right that the State should arrogate to 
itself the whole field of education. The State should foster, promote, and 
aid education and insist upon certain standards requisite for the welfare 
of society. More satisfactory results would follow if the State were to 
leave a larger portion of educational activity to private endeavor and even 
assist private religious institutions by paying them, in part at least, for 
services rendered in the education of future citizens. Such a plan would 
insure the teaching of religion, which is essential to the welfare and even 
to the existence of the State.

41. The right of the Church in the field of education arises out of her 
divine commission to "teach all nations"[4] and her "supernatural motherhood 
in virtue of which the Church, spotless spouse of Christ, generates, 
nurtures, and educates souls in the divine life of grace, with her 
Sacraments and her doctrine."[5] The pre-eminence of the Church in the field 
of education is predicated on her divine commission and on man's 
supernatural destiny.

42. There is no conflict between the functions of the family, the State, 
and the Church in the field of education, provided the respective fields of 
each are kept in mind. The education provided by the Christian family and 
the Church is a foundation for good citizenship and, in fact, essential to 
the stability and permanence of the State.

43. The paramount place of religion in education is self-evident to all who 
believe in God. To use the words of Leo XIII as quoted by Pius XI, "it is 
necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at 
certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught he permeated 
with Christian piety."[6] Religion should form the atmosphere of the 
classroom. This is the reason for the Catholic school.

44. Wherever possible, both primary and secondary Catholic schools should 
be provided for rural children and for rural youth. But such schools are 
not possible in many rural areas, especially where the Catholic population 
is a scattered few. The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, with its 
vacation schools and its religious-instruction classes conducted throughout 
the year, provides a program of religious education where the Catholic 
school is not possible. To meet needs of Isolated families living great 
distances from priest and church, and to bring to the children of those 
families a knowledge and love of the Catholic Faith, correspondence courses 
in religion should be arranged. Discussion clubs for adults are another 
valuable instrument for bringing a knowledge and an appreciation of 
religion to the countryside.

45. The Catholic Rural Life Movement was prompted in its beginning by a 
desire to bring to neglected rural sections a knowledge of religion. 
Interest of Catholic leaders in the religious needs of rural dwellers led 
to a further discovery that a lack of education in respect to material 
things is a major cause for the low social, cultural, and economic level of 
many farming groups and the reason for the migration of so many farm youths 
to the city.

46. Education in our rural schools is largely urbanized. The subject matter 
taught is a preparation for life in the city rather than on the farm. Many 
textbooks in use tend to glorify city life and to lure youth away from the 
farm. Urban-minded teachers, consciously or unconsciously, tend to promote 
the trek to the city. Generally speaking, the education provided in rural 
schools fails to imbue those who remain on the farm with an appreciation of 
life on the land and neglects to equip them with the knowledge necessary 
for successful farm operation.

47. Fundamental changes are needed in our rural educational program. 
Education suited to the needs of the rural child and rural youth should 
instill in them a love of farm life and lead them to evaluate the special 
opportunities offered in the occupation of agriculture and in the rural 
economy. In both the primary and the secondary school, in the home, and in 
extracurricular activities, there is need for specific training in home 
arts and crafts, in vocational agriculture, and in other matters which 
pertain to wholesome and successful farm life. An education in scientific 
farming and in the arts and crafts will create an interest in rural 
activities among farm youth that will counteract the lure of the city. The 
farmstead should be made the laboratory for rural education.

48. A closer connection between farm groups and the federal extension 
service of state agricultural colleges is needed to bring to larger rural 
groups the benefits of experimentation. Short-term courses in state 
agricultural colleges would make a knowledge of scientific farming 
available to many rural youths unable to take extended courses. It would 
seem advisable to have units of the state agricultural college scattered 
about the state for the benefit of both youths and adults.

49. The false notion that successful farm operation requires only the 
minimum of education needs to be dispelled. Nor should rural youth be 
denied the advantages of cultural education. Education in Rural America 
should include cultural subjects in due proportion.

50. Needed changes in the scope and in the objectives of rural education 
postulate not only changes in the textbooks and content of courses, but 
especially changes in the selection and the training of rural teachers. 
Rural teachers, too, must recognize the advantages of farm life and possess 
the knowledge and the training necessary to prepare rural youth for its 
place in the rural community. There is a need for further adjustments in 
the curriculum of our teachers' colleges to prepare rural teachers for 
their work.

51. Vocational guidance should have a place in rural education. It is 
neither likely nor desirable that all who are born in the country remain on 
the land. An integral rural society needs priests, doctors, lawyers, 
teachers, nurses, farm leaders, and leaders in other professions. The 
countryside should continue to contribute its quota to the professional 
groups who serve both in the city and in the country. Rural youth needs 
direction in choosing careers. No youth should leave the farm without a 
reasonable understanding of what he is leaving and to what he is going.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Christian Education of Youth" pp. 4, 5.

2. Ibid., p. 6.

3. Ibid., p. 12.

4. Matt. 28:19.

5. Pius XI, "Christian Education of Youth," p. 7.

6. Pius XI, "Christian Education of Youth," p. 31.


                     CHAPTER V RURAL CATHOLIC YOUTH

52. Youth is the material out of which the future is built. St. Gregory of 
Nazianzen calls the training of youth "the art of arts and the science of 
sciences."[1] Among human activities the training and direction of youth 
occupies the place of primacy.

53. Our age is youth conscious. Schools, youth organizations, luxurious 
recreational centers, elaborate vacation camps-all these evidence the 
widespread interest in youth. Large sums of money spent by private groups 
and by governments on youth programs indicate that the age recognizes the 
importance of developing the potentialities of youth. Autocratic rulers, 
hostile to religion, recognizing that those who control youth control the 
future, seek exclusive control so that they can indoctrinate youth with 
their own political, social, and philosophic teachings.

54. The Church is interested in youth more than in any other class in 
society. She recognizes that in the plastic years of youth lasting 
impressions are made, habits and tastes are acquired, and character is 
formed. She strives, during these impressionable years, to implant a 
knowledge, love, and practice of the Faith and to protect youth from the 
false philosophies and immoral influences of the age. "It is no less 
necessary," writes Pope Pius XI, "to direct and watch the education of the 
adolescent, 'soft as wax to be molded into vice,' . . . removing occasions 
of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social 
intercourse; for 'evil communications corrupt good manners.' More than ever 
nowadays, an extended and careful vigilance is necessary, inasmuch as the 
dangers of moral and religious shipwreck are greater for inexperienced 
youth. Especially is this true of impious and immoral books, often 
diabolically circulated at low prices; of the cinema, which multiplies 
every kind of exhibition; and now also of the radio, which facilitates 
every kind of communication."[2]

55. The spiritual in this world cannot be dissociated from the material, 
and the Church's interest in youth, in consequence, is not confined to 
things spiritual. She is interested in developing all the latent talent in 
the individual so that he may achieve greater happiness and make valuable 
contributions to society. She is not unmindful even of the value and worth 
of recreational activities which add to the joy and happiness of youth and 
absorb time which might otherwise be employed in acquiring what is evil.

56. The right to organize and direct youth, denied to the Church by rulers 
in many places, is guaranteed under our form of government. While the 
opportunity is given, it behooves Catholic leaders to make the fullest use 
of it.

57. On the home and school rests the chief responsibility for the training 
and education of youth. But there is also need for special youth programs 
to use to advantage leisure time which might otherwise be used in the 
acquiring of habits and tastes harmful to the individual and to society.

58. Leisure-time programs, motivated by the philosophy of naturalism, do 
not meet the needs of youth. There is need for a nation-wide Catholic youth 
program, impregnated with Christian principles. This program should embrace 
the whole field of youth interest and activity, including recreation, 
culture, education, and religion. It should be integrated with the life and 
the activities of the home and the school and be guided by the Church. 
These considerations are fundamental in every Catholic youth program.

59. A rural youth program, in its approach, technique, and content, will be 
distinct from the urban and vary with the needs of each farm group. A rural 
youth program can utilize existing organizations. Mention has been made of 
the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and its adaptability, through 
vacation schools and discussion clubs, to religious training in rural 
areas. The Junior Holy Name Society, sodalities, and kindred religious 
organizations can be used for the religious training of youth as well as 
for vehicles of Catholic Action.

60. These time-honored religious societies of the Church can be used to 
meet the spiritual needs of youth. A complete Catholic rural youth program 
should also meet the recreational, social, and cultural wants of youth, and 
provide for education in things of a practical nature. Certain national 
rural youth associations have social, cultural, and wholesome recreational 
features, as well as programs suited to the practical education of rural 
youth. Included in the programs of these associations is a practical 
training in the arts and crafts, in the use of the soil, in marketing, and 
in other practical techniques necessary for successful farming. These farm-
youth organizations have received the endorsement and the encouragement of 
many bishops. As long as their activities are not in conflict with Catholic 
ideals, they can be utilized to advantage in a Catholic rural youth 
program. The rural pastor should take an interest in these youth groups. 
The understanding pastor can direct the programs among his people along the 
line of Christian principles and integrate them with the activities of his 
parish.

61. The Catholic rural youth program can be co-ordinated and integrated 
into the nation-wide Catholic youth program through the Catholic Youth 
Organization. A well-conducted and integrated rural youth program, 
supplementing the home and school, will give to rural youth a love of farm 
life and help prepare farm boys and girls for successful careers--two 
factors essential in overcoming the lure of the city.


ENDNOTES

1. "Oratio II," P. G., T. 35, 426.

2. Pius XI, "Christian Education of Youth," p. 34.


              CHAPTER VI CATHOLIC CULTURE lN RURAL SOCIETY

62. Culture is more than refinement in manners, habits, and tastes. It 
implies the development of the mental and the moral as well as the esthetic 
faculties. It is a product of true education, whether received in or out of 
the classroom. Practical as well as academic education contributes directly 
and indirectly to the development of culture. Culture is not something 
superficial; it is rooted deeply in the soul. Catholic culture is the 
flowering of Catholic faith and Christian virtue. It is the product of 
Catholic education and training.

63. By and large, the countryside is a place of cultural barrenness. The 
low economic status that prevails in many rural families and among many 
rural groups in part explains this condition. Culture presupposes leisure 
time in which the individual may develop his personality. Under present-day 
conditions, it usually presupposes the opportunity to use and to enjoy the 
conveniences made possible by modern discovery and modern invention. It 
presupposes the existence of economic conditions that will allow people to 
live decent lives as become rational beings and children of God. The hovel 
and the slum do not provide the soil suited to the growth of either virtue 
or culture. Pope Pius XI recognized the interrelationship between culture 
and virtue and a sound social organism when he wrote: "For then only will 
the economic and social organism be soundly established and attain its end, 
when it secures for all and each those goods which the wealth and resources 
of nature, technical achievement, and the social organization of economic 
affairs can give. These goods should be sufficient to supply all needs and 
an honest livelihood, and to uplift men to that higher level of prosperity 
and culture which, provided it be used with prudence, is not only no 
hindrance, but is of singular help to virtue."[1]

64. Sufficiency of income, however, is not enough to produce culture on the 
countryside. A taste for the finer things which make for culture and for 
its material expression is often lacking. In the days of plentiful incomes, 
many farmers, as already indicated, neglected to use the opportunity to 
develop themselves and give material expression to culture in better and 
more beautiful homes. An appreciation of the things that make for culture 
is needed on the countryside. This appreciation is a product of education.

65. The isolation of the farmstead has deprived the farmer of cultural and 
educational contacts. The radio and improved roads have destroyed in a 
large measure this isolation, although they have not always brought the 
farm family into contact with the things of cultural value. These 
instruments of modern progress, in fact, have often brought the rural 
dwellers into contact with the trivialities and even with the degrading 
influences emanating from the city. It has become necessary to counteract 
the debasing city influences, the by-products of urban culture, which are 
penetrating the countryside.

66. Farm and parish organizations, discussion clubs, parish and traveling 
libraries, books, papers, and magazines are useful mediums for elevating 
the cultural levels of country groups. Discussion groups, not only for the 
study of religion, but also for the study of social and economic problems, 
should have a foremost place in any well-ordered cultural program of a 
rural parish. From such discussion groups of youths and adults, there would 
develop a Catholic leadership in the fields of social justice and social 
charity, such as Pope Pius XI had in mind when he wrote the following 
words: "Many young men, destined soon by reason of their talents or their 
wealth to hold distinguished places in the foremost ranks of society, are 
studying social problems with growing earnestness. These youths encourage 
the fairest hopes that they will devote themselves wholly to social 
reforms."[2] In speaking to the bishops of the world on the problems of 
industrial society, Pope Pius XI said: "It is your chief duty, Venerable 
Brethren, and that of your clergy, to seek diligently, to select prudently, 
and to train fittingly these lay apostles among working men and among 
employers."[3] It seems right to conclude that the Holy Father would have 
these same words adapted to farm owners and farm laborers.

67. The rural parish school or parish hall should be the center of the 
social and cultural life of the community. In the parish school or parish 
hall, there can be developed the Little Country Theater, choral groups, 
glee clubs, parish orchestras, and similar activities of distinct cultural 
value. The parish school or parish hall can be used to advantage in 
carrying out an adult education program which should include not only 
religion but also other subjects, especially those which have a direct 
bearing upon rural conditions.

68. A rural parish with a social and educational program, in which cultural 
and economic activities are integrated with religion and centered in the 
parish hall or school, will be effective in developing among its members a 
spirit of neighborliness and a helpful sense of solidarity. The social 
relationships ensuing from such a program would help raise both the 
cultural and the economic levels of the group and serve also as a strong 
antidote against baneful urban influences. If we are to retain the better 
type of youth on the land, the cultural standards of the countryside must 
be raised.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 25.

2. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 46. 

3. Ibid.


                       CHAPTER VII RURAL COMMUNITY

69. The trend of farm life has been to find a focal point for its varied 
activities in some rural community. Even where farmers lived in isolation 
and where face-to-face relations were established with only a few 
neighboring farm families, there soon developed the necessity of finding a 
common place to buy and sell; to locate a smithy, sawmill, or gristmill; to 
establish church and school; and to provide for legal, medical, and other 
professional services. County seats and trade centers, with railroad 
stations, grain elevators, stock pens, warehouses, and stores, became the 
focal point of farm life for miles around.

70. The dependence of the farmer upon markets, better means of 
transportation, improved highways, and more rapid means of communication 
have brought about great changes in rural America. The drift, not only of 
population but also of all political, social, economic, educational, and 
religious activity, has been townward. Rural hamlets, if they have not 
disappeared, have stopped growing; rural villages have become smaller 
rather than larger; whereas rural towns, especially those in which the 
county seat is located, have grown from year to year in population and 
activity. These rural towns comprise the most important rural communities 
in the nation. They are distributing centers for merchandise of every kind; 
they have banks, stores, and schools; they offer the services of lawyer, 
physician, and other professional men; they often provide for clinical or 
hospital care; and in general they make possible economic, social, and 
recreational contacts of a varied kind. The Church offers the most 
important weekly contact from a religious, and not infrequently from a 
social, point of view in these rural towns.

71. Village settlements, in which farm families live grouped together and 
go to their tasks in the fields the same as factory workers would to 
theirs, did not develop in rural America, apart from certain planned rural 
communities, established recently as resettlement projects, either by 
private initiative or with government help. The land survey and homestead 
laws of other days, which parceled out whole sections of land to 
homesteaders and required that they live on them, tended to scatter farm 
families over the countryside. True, there are disadvantages arising out of 
the grouping of farm families in villages and towns, especially from an 
economic point of view; the homestead would in many instances be separated 
by a considerable distance from the work fields, entailing a loss of time 
and increased transportation costs. There would, however, be many 
advantages, especially from a social and cultural point of view. Neighbors 
would be nearer; living conditions would be better and cheaper than in the 
open country, with regard to water, sewage disposal, and electric current; 
religious activity would be intensified; schools would be improved; 
professional service would be more prompt, dependable, and efficient; 
organizations would be stronger and more active; the spirit of solidarity 
and cooperation would grow among the villagers and townspeople.

72. In any case, however, no matter what the form of rural community, much 
will depend on the leadership given its people. Since a closer proximity of 
city to country has brought about the expansion of urban influences, right 
leadership will seek to sort out the best of these influences, while 
conserving the best interests of agriculture and rural living. Rural 
leadership will develop an interest in the rural community, show forth its 
advantages, and stimulate pride in and loyalty toward local institutions. 
In looking after the interests of the rural community, rural leaders will 
not underestimate the racial and cultural history of the people of the 
community, but will rather seek to preserve what is best in their 
traditions, so as to inspire love of family, loyalty to country, and 
devotion to Christ's Church. The importance of the rural community should 
induce Catholic colleges to include in their aims the development of rural 
leadership.

73. The rural community merchant plays an important role in the life of the 
community. Usually a product of the community and sometimes of the business 
itself, often the owner of the establishment, he can be of special 
assistance to the people of whom he forms a part. He knows their needs and 
desires; with them he shares days of prosperity and days of adversity. His 
relationship with the community must not be founded entirely on the selfish 
profit motive which would lead him to seek more than reasonable returns for 
the services rendered. Unfortunately his influence is being undermined by 
chain stores, and even manufacturers, processors, and distributors, who 
dictate terms and policies not always to his advantage or to that of his 
patrons. Loyal to the institutions of the rural community, the honest 
merchant is deserving of the support of the people of his community. If the 
question of establishing a consumers' cooperative be raised, his interests 
should be properly consulted and safeguarded. The cooperative may in fact 
offer a solution to the difficulties of the merchant who is menaced by the 
competition of corporation merchandising; in such a case his experience 
would prove to be a valuable asset to the cooperative.

74. Closely associated with the economic life of the community is the 
banker. Where he retains his independent status and has not become the 
hireling of large urban banking institutions, he can be of great service to 
the citizens of the community, with whose many financial and economic 
difficulties he becomes intimately acquainted. In times of stress 
especially, his services as a friend and counselor of the people of the 
rural community will be invaluable. In adverse days he, better than anyone 
else, can join social charity to social justice.

75. There is a fruitful and undeveloped field of service for the local 
community editor. He is often an obscure personage with scanty income, 
especially in the smaller towns. There is an opportunity for the energetic 
rural-community editor to enhance his prestige and income and to render 
valuable services to his community. He can make his paper a vehicle of 
culture and education, an instrument for developing community solidarity, 
and a potent force in furthering the common interests of both town and 
country. As a further service, he can help make the dwellers in the town 
and in the country conscious of their interdependence.

76. The attorney in a rural community enjoys an exceptional opportunity to 
promote respect for law and order, to encourage harmony and peace, and to 
foster relations of good will among the people of his community. The 
attorney's contact with public life, together with his legal training, 
makes him an invaluable adviser and guide in things that concern the 
general well-being of the community. Because of his advantageous position, 
it is essentially important that he be guided in his advice and judgments 
by the principles of the moral code.

77. Aside from his contribution to the general health of the people, the 
physician should promote respect for God's laws in matters of health that 
touch on the moral code. In these days of false theories respecting sex 
life and marital relations, the physician carries a high responsibility to 
guide others along lines of sound moral principles.

78. The teacher likewise has many opportunities, not only during school 
hours but also as a citizen of the community, to influence the cultural 
life of the people. Rural culture has been very much handicapped because of 
a lack of the proper kind of leadership. The teacher can bring many 
cultural influences to bear on the lives of the people. This has become so 
much the more important since degrading urban influences are infecting the 
rural social group.

79. The rural pastor, too, should be encouraged to assume the 
responsibilities of leadership, not only in things religious but also in 
things social and economic. Attention to the principles of rural economics 
and agrarianism will build up confidence in his leadership among the 
people. The rural pastor has opportunities to shape the lives of the people 
of his community, such as are given to few others.

80. Catholic rural youth, which have received the benefits of a good 
Catholic education, should consider it a privilege and a duty to pass on to 
others the good things acquired during the years of Catholic training. If 
the graduates of our Catholic colleges would become more articulate in the 
life of their community, especially within the comparatively narrow 
confines of a rural community, they could wield a tremendous influence in 
enlarging the sphere of Catholic culture. Their leadership would be of 
priceless value to God and country.

81. The place of women in the social life of the rural community needs to 
be stressed. In any plan to elevate the status of the farm group and 
improve living conditions on the countryside, leadership should be sought 
among the women as well as among the men. Catholic women should take their 
places not only in parish organizations but also in organizations which are 
strictly agricultural.

82. The relations between Catholics and non-Catholics should be actuated by 
the spirit of Christian charity. No compromise, however, should be made 
with respect to the truths of religion; yet a kindly and neighborly 
attitude, one toward another, is one of the prime dictates of Christian 
charity. To do the truth in charity, as St. Paul exhorts, needs to be 
heeded under all circumstances. Mixed marriages usually become a problem in 
rural communities where Catholics mingle freely with non-Catholics in 
social and business affairs. Under such circumstances, parents and priest 
have a special duty, to prevent as far as possible such marriages; and when 
a mixed marriage cannot be prevented, it becomes the duty of parents and 
priest to lessen the dangers to the Faith that may arise out of it.

83. The rural community, affected by the change following in the course of 
modern invention and progress, is being subjected to influences, good and 
bad, from various sources. To bring into play the good influences with 
increasing force is one of the great tasks of all who are interested in 
rural life. Rural leadership is challenged as never before because of the 
awakening of rural people in late years to the possibilities of a healthy 
and wholesome life in rural communities.


                    CHAPTER VIII THE RURAL PASTORATE

84. Catholicism in the United States is urban. According to conservative 
estimates, five sixths of the Catholic population live in the cities. This 
fact gives the rural pastor a unique position in rural America. Here and 
there one finds rural areas solidly Catholic; and in such territories the 
Church is usually in a flourishing condition.

85. For the most part the rural pastor is in pioneering fields. He is a 
first-line messenger of God, exercising a ministry as simple and apostolic 
as that of the early Church. There are many unsung heroes doing God's work 
in isolated rural sections of our land. Their work is among a scattered 
flock on the prairies of the West, or in the hills of the South, or in the 
forests of the North, or in the lowlands of the East. They live far from 
fellow priests and have few of the comforting contacts of cultured men.

86. There are, however, many human compensations in their work. They are 
recognized "leaders of the faithful, the support of the stumbling, the 
teachers of the doubtful, the consolers of those who mourn, the unselfish 
helpers, and counselors of all."[1] Their education is far above that of 
others in the community. Aware of this, Catholics and non-Catholics alike 
come to the priest with their varied problems, not only religious but also 
domestic, civic, educational, material, and moral. He is as one who speaks 
with authority. If properly exercised, the influence of his ministry may be 
very great.

87. His first concern is, of course, spiritual. All else is subordinated to 
that. Addressing the Mexican bishops and priests, Pope Pius XI wrote: 
"Then, too, by encouraging the spiritual formation and the interior life of 
those who are to collaborate with you, you put them on guard against 
dangers and mistakes that are always possible. Having in mind always the 
purpose of Catholic Action, which is the sanctification of souls, according 
to the gospel precept: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God' (Luke 12:31), you 
will not run the risk of sacrificing principles for ends that may be 
immediate or secondary, nor will you forget that to that ultimate end are 
to be subordinated every social and economic work and charitable 
undertaking."[2]

88. But this priestly ministry should not be confined to the sanctuary. To 
attain his spiritual objectives, the priest must needs take an active 
interest in the material welfare of his people. "Let no member of the 
clergy," writes Benedict XV, "imagine that such action is incompatible with 
his priestly duties, because it is carried out on economic grounds, for it 
is precisely in this field that the salvation of souls is endangered."[3] The 
rural pastor should give his attention to the grave social questions with 
which his people are grappling--"the agrarian problem, land distribution, 
the improvement of the living conditions of the workingmen and their 
families."[4] The Holy Father's exhortation, "Go to the workingman, 
especially where he is poor, and in general go to the poor,"[5] may be 
applied also with respect to the farmer, particularly the hired farmhand 
and those who have left their homelands; these latter, torn away from their 
country and traditions, more easily become the prey to the insidious 
propaganda of the emissaries seeking to induce them to apostatize from 
their faith.

89. Because of his influence and contacts as a religious leader, the rural 
pastor can be of great assistance to his people in helping them to obtain 
the facilities of state agricultural colleges, experiment stations, and 
government credit organizations. He should take an active interest in 
cooperative movements, in rural youth organizations, and in other 
activities planned to serve the social and economic interests of the 
community. Our Holy Father, no doubt, had activities of this type in mind 
when he wrote: "We are happy to voice Our paternal approval of the zealous 
pastoral activity manifested by so many bishops and priests who have, with 
due prudence and caution, been planning and applying new methods of 
apostolate more adapted to modern needs."[6] Addressing the Mexican 
Hierarchy, the late Holy Father stated that "works, commonly called social 
service (do not lie), outside the scope of Catholic Action. Because these 
works aim at the practical application of the principles of justice and 
charity and are a means of winning the multitudes, since souls often are to 
be reached only by the relief of corporal suffering and economic need, We 
ourselves and Our Predecessor, Leo XIII of blessed memory, have recommended 
them frequently."[7] It should be emphasized, however, that "Catholic Action 
should never take the responsibility in matters that are purely technical, 
financial, or economic because such matters lie outside the scope and 
purpose of Catholic Action."[8] The rural pastor, becomes all to all men in 
order to win all for Christ.

90. Seminarians should be imbued with a love for the apostolic ministry on 
the countryside. But especially must "all candidates for the sacred 
priesthood be adequately prepared to meet their task by intense study of 
social matters."[9] A great mission field lies before them in home mission 
work.

91. No efforts should be spared to make living conditions, even though 
modest and simple, as good as possible for the rural pastor. By means of a 
traveling or mail library, good books should come into his hands. The 
ambassador of Christ must not be denied the cultural contacts that would 
make his priesthood an effective influence even among simple rural folk.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "On the Church in Germany," n. 43.

2. Pius XI, "On the Religious Situation in Mexico," p. 9. 

3. Benedict XV, "To the Bishop of Bergamo," 1920. 

4. Pius XI, "On the Religious Situation in Mexico," p. 11. 

5. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 61.

6. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 62.

7. Pius XI, "On the Religious Situation in Mexico," p. 10.

8. Ibid.

9. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 46.


                    CHAPTER IX RURAL CHURCH EXPANSION

92. Although the Catholic philosophy of life is rooted in rural traditions, 
the membership of the Catholic Church in the United States is, as 
previously stated, largely urban. Most of the pioneer Catholics settled in 
the cities; and ecclesiastical authority, solicitous for their spiritual 
welfare, encouraged them to remain in the city, where they could avail 
themselves of the service of the Church. Many of the Catholic pioneers who 
moved westward to settle in rural communities were lost to the faith for 
lack of priest and church. The Church concentrated her efforts on the 
cities, where Catholics were in such large numbers; while the Catholics in 
rural sections were, to a great degree, neglected.

93. The growth and progress of the Catholic Church in the United States is 
dependent, in a special way, on the growth and progress of the rural 
church. The countryside, where only one sixth of her membership is found, 
is the chief source of the nation's population. City families are not 
reproducing themselves. Immigration from other countries has practically 
ceased. Without accessions from the countryside, the urban population tends 
to extinction. Unless the Church be strengthened and expanded in the rural 
sections, we are faced with the prospect of a dwindling Catholic 
population.

94. The countryside in the United States offers the most fertile field for 
missionary endeavor, both among Catholics and among the millions of 
unchurched people. A rural church expansion program should have as its 
first objective the development of a vigorous Catholicity among rural 
Catholics. Many rural Catholics have been denied the opportunity of 
drinking in Catholic culture and of acquiring Catholic learning. They would 
respond more readily to Catholic influences than does the average city 
Catholic, surrounded as he is with a multitude of unfavorable influences.

95. The millions of unchurched dwellers on the countryside also offer a 
promising field for missionary endeavor. In many areas of the South, the 
forebears of these were Catholic, three and four generations ago. Many are 
now ready to accept the Faith; they await the efforts of the zealous 
missionary.

96. Behold, therefore, the fields ripe for the harvest. Christ has given 
the command, "Teach all nations"[1] and "Preach the Gospel to every 
creature."[2] Christ has left the example after which our home mission 
activities should be patterned. He preached the Gospel on the mountainside, 
on the shores of the lake, in the cornfield, and in every hamlet and 
village of Palestine.

97. The Church from early times and through the centuries has evidenced a 
special interest in rural folk. Distinct parishes were first organized for 
rural groups, and the office of rural dean was created to serve the rural 
districts. The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and the Confraternity of 
the Blessed Sacrament were founded to teach religion and to foster devotion 
among rural people.

98. A number of religious orders have shown a special concern for rural 
groups. "The bringing of religion into the lives of people wherever found," 
was the rule laid down for the Benedictine Order by its founder; and in 
carrying out this rule, the sons of St. Benedict have distinguished 
themselves by their devotion to agriculture and by their spiritual 
ministrations among rural people. Several religious communities were 
founded for the express purpose of serving in rural districts. With the 
concentration of the Catholic population in industrial centers and with the 
growth of the Catholic educational system in the city, the people on the 
land were soon forgotten; and the very religious communities which were 
established for rural missionary work found other activities for which the 
need seemed greater and abandoned for the time the cause of souls in rural 
areas. The countryside still remains the great home mission field.

99. The founding of the Catholic Church Extension Society of America at the 
beginning of the century marks the beginning of a new and definite interest 
in the underprivileged rural sections. Through the Catholic Church 
Extension Society, the Catholics of the nation were made conscious of the 
needs of neglected rural areas. Through the efforts of this foundation, 
subsidies have been given to the struggling Church at its weakest points. 
The Catholic Church Extension Society originated the chapel car, the 
forerunner of the motor mission and motor trailer chapel. The American 
Board of Catholic Missions is another agency which has helped to mother the 
struggling Church in the religiously neglected rural sections of the 
nation.

100. Conscious of the need for extending the arm of Holy Mother Church, 
members of both the diocesan and the regular clergy, with the approbation 
of bishops, have organized themselves into bands in several dioceses for 
the purpose of conducting missions for Catholics and non-Catholics, in 
churches, in halls, in public parks, and even on street corners. Through 
motor missions results have been achieved that warrant their further 
extension.

101. Religious communities of women, dedicated to the teaching of religion 
to the poor and neglected, are doing excellent work in certain rural areas. 
Seminarians and members of Catholic Evidence Guilds have explained and 
defended Catholic teaching on the public platform, with results that 
indicate a valuable field of training for seminarians and the possibilities 
latent in the lay apostolate.

102. There is an urgent need in the United States for a religious community 
of priests and lay brothers which will devote itself entirely to the rural 
mission field. There is also a need for a community of Sisters, dedicated 
to the same cause, whose work will be integrated with the religious 
community of men. The members of these religious communities should receive 
specific training for the rural mission field. Through the integrated 
efforts of these two communities and the grace of God, a solidarity would 
be given to missionary efforts in the home mission field.

103. The expansion of the rural church in the United States would receive a 
great impetus through programs of charity and through the successful 
efforts of the Church in furthering the economic and social welfare of 
rural groups. Both Catholics and those without the fold would come to 
recognize the truth contained in the following words of Leo XIII: "The 
Catholic Church, that imperishable handiwork of our all-merciful God, has 
for her immediate and natural purpose the saving of souls and securing our 
happiness in Heaven. Yet in regard to things temporal she is the source of 
benefits as manifold and great as if the chief end of her existence were to 
insure the prospering of our earthly life."[3]


ENDNOTES

1. Matt. 28:19. 

2. Mark 16:15.

3. Leo XIII, "The Christian Constitution of States," p. 107.


                         CHAPTER X RURAL HEALTH

104. Only with the aid of a rural health program can a Catholic rural 
welfare program, under present social conditions, achieve its immediate 
objectives and conserve its ultimate purposes.

105. The countryside, with its abundance of fresh air, sunshine, and broad 
open spaces, offers special natural advantages for healthful living. On the 
other hand, there are serious disadvantages. The countryside is 
characterized by a lack of proper sanitation and intelligent protection of 
food and water supply, lack of proper control of communicable diseases, and 
lack of adequate hospital and medical facilities. There is a widespread 
ignorance of food values, proper diet, and health habits, and a lack of 
information relative to preventive and corrective measures in respect to 
ailments and physical defects.

106. In the city health is a social achievement attained through the 
application of scientific knowledge and community effort. By and large, the 
use of science to improve health conditions has been neglected in the 
country. As a result, despite the natural advantages of the country, the 
city is gradually becoming a more healthful place of residence than the 
country. In many rural districts of the nation, deplorable health 
conditions exist, which grow worse from year to year. Because of the 
isolation of farmsteads, it is not possible to provide rural dwellers with 
the system of sanitation and food inspection, and with the hospital and 
medical service enjoyed by city dwellers. It is possible, nevertheless, 
because of the special natural advantages of country life, to achieve, 
through the application of scientific information and social organization, 
more healthful conditions in the country than are possible in the city.

107. The greatest health need of rural areas is health education. The rural 
dwellers must first be converted to the need and value of scientific means 
for improving and conserving individual and community health. A program of 
rural health education should include food values and proper diet; habits 
which promote both mental and bodily health; sanitation, including 
protection of food and water supply destruction of noxious weeds, and 
drainage to destroy harmful insects; proper housing; preventative and 
corrective measures in respect to ailments and physical defects.

108. Health education can be achieved through schools, farm organizations 
including adult and youth clubs, county nurses, county agents, and 
government bulletins. The promotion of public health is a proper function 
of government Without the intervention of the State, ordinarily no adequate 
health program can be realized. State intervention is needed for the 
prevention and the control of communicable diseases, for the elimination of 
noxious weeds and insects, for drainage and sanitation, and for health 
education. State aid is needed to help protect and conserve the health of 
the underprivileged.

109. Although the intervention of the State is necessary for an adequate 
health program, it is neither desirable nor necessary that the State 
arrogate to itself the whole field of community health. It is well to leave 
to private and cooperative endeavor as much of the work as such 
nonpolitical groups can and will carry on in an effective manner.

110. There is a need, and also a place, for a Catholic rural health 
program. A close relationship exists between health and religion. For this 
reason the health program should not be entirely secular. The care of the 
sick and especially the sick poor is charity.

111. A diocesan rural health program will vary with the resources of the 
diocese, the Catholic facilities available, the density of Catholic 
population, and the assistance it may receive from public sources for the 
care of the sick and especially for the care of the needy sick. Existing 
community health resources should be used. In some places it will be found 
advantageous to appoint a diocesan rural health director. This official 
might also serve as the diocesan hospital director. Needless to say, this 
official should be capable and thoroughly acquainted with the work. Special 
training is desirable, if not absolutely necessary. The staff will vary 
with the needs and resources of each diocese and be largely the result of 
development. A Catholic health program should be carried on in rural 
Catholic schools and in parish and farm organizations.

112. The Catholic Church, through its hospitals, clinics, laboratories, 
nursing schools, and schools of medicine, has made a distinguished 
contribution to the health program in the United States. Unfortunately the 
program is almost entirely urban. The time has come when the facilities of 
a Catholic hospital or health center should be extended to the smaller 
cities and towns to serve the needs of rural areas.

113. Catholic hospitals would be making a valuable contribution not only to 
the development of the Catholic rural health program but also to charity 
and religion, were they to adopt the policy of sending motor health clinics 
to neglected rural sections. This service would be a valuable adjunct to 
the motor mission service and would make for its greater success. 
Solicitude for the poor and sick, a mark of Christ's own, would draw, as 
nothing else would draw, the multitudes to accept the Church. The health 
consciousness which would result from such a service would pave the way for 
the Catholic hospital to serve the countryside.

114. Maternity Guilds should be organized in rural parishes and 
communities. A health and hospital insurance program
is another health activity which may be developed under
Catholic auspices. The development of such a program
would help insure adequate hospital and medical services in rural 
communities.

115. There is a broad and yet untilled field for a Catholic health program 
on the countryside. This field offers special opportunities for promoting 
human welfare, the exercise of charity, and the spread of the Faith. Parish 
life, in this age especially, should be renewed in the spirit of works of 
mercy, spiritual and corporal, which in former ages brought rich harvests 
to the Faith.


                     CHAPTER XI RURAL SOCIAL CHARITY

116. Pius XI, in his encyclical on "Atheistic Communism," specifies charity 
as the chief remedy for the ills which afflict society, and the compelling 
argument against "the false persuasion that Christianity has lost its 
efficacy." "We have in mind, writes the saintly Pontiff, that Christian 
charity, 'patient and kind,' which avoids all semblance of demeaning 
paternalism, and all ostentation, that charity which from the very 
beginning of Christianity won to Christ the poorest of the poor, the 
slaves.... Its faithful observance will pour into the heart an inner peace 
which the world knows not, and will finally cure the ills which oppress 
humanity."[1]

117. Christ made charity the previous mark of identification by which His 
own would be known. In all human relationship charity should be present. 
Pope Pius XI says, "Charity 'which is the bond of perfection' must play a 
leading part" in the reform of the social and economic order[2] and again, 
"social charity should be as it were the soul of this order."[3] Charity 
cannot take the place of justice; but even after justice is done, there 
still remains a wide field for the exercise of charity.

118. Christ designated the poor and the unfortunate the special objects of 
our charity. The work of charity can be carried on among these 
underprivileged groups more effectively and fruitfully through group 
action, known today as organized charity. Organized charity is an 
expression of social charity toward the underprivileged.

119. Although the objective of Christian charity is primarily the welfare 
of the individual and only indirectly the welfare of society, the welfare 
of society is best promoted in this indirect way. Christian charity assumes 
no condescending attitude toward the recipient of charity. It sees in the 
one to whom it ministers a soul fashioned to God's image, a child of God, 
an heir of Heaven, a member of Christ's mystical body. In fact, Christ 
taught us to see Himself in those to whom we minister when He said, "As 
long as you did it to one of these, My least brethren, you did it to Me."[4] 
This approach of Christian charity is not inconsistent with the best 
technique developed in modern schools of social service.

120. Secularized social service and government relief cannot take the place 
of Christian charity. Material relief without charity lacks the element 
necessary to elevate the recipient. Material relief without charity is 
often degrading.

121. An economic crisis, which has deprived millions of the opportunity to 
earn their daily bread and support their families, has been the occasion 
for the development in the United States of a nation-wide system of 
secularized social service, promoted by the government and financed out of 
government funds. The advocates of secularism would appropriate to the 
State the whole field of social welfare service, leaving no place for the 
Church or for private agencies of charity.

122. It is not only a proper function, but even a duty of the State to 
assist its needy and underprivileged citizens and provide for the care of 
the dependent and neglected child; but it is neither necessary nor 
expedient that the State arrogate to itself the whole field of social 
science. The area of service which a government welfare agency can render 
is a restricted one. A bureaucratic secular agency cannot supply the 
spiritual influences required to reform the erring and, often even 
necessary, to rehabilitate the underprivileged. Only an agency dominated by 
the spirit of religion and charity can effect rehabilitation in such 
instances. The State should encourage and aid private agencies of charity 
as far as possible, paying at least in part for services rendered in the 
rehabilitation of the underprivileged and the delinquent and especially for 
the care of the dependent, neglected, and delinquent child. It is wisdom on 
the part of the State to use private agencies in accomplishing ends which a 
government agency cannot effect.

There is need for an understanding and active Catholic interest, both 
clerical and lay, to help mold the public welfare program and impregnate it 
with the principles of Christian charity.

123. Although it is a proper function of government to extend aid to the 
underprivileged members of society, especially in emergencies, it is, 
however, desirable that funds for this purpose be derived, as far as 
possible, through voluntary donations to private charities. It would indeed 
be unfortunate if government relief programs were to interfere with 
donations to our private charitable institutions and agencies, especially 
at a time when the need for them is greatest. Government aid is no 
substitute for charity.

124. There is need for organized charity in the rural areas as well as in 
the urban centers. On the countryside are underprivileged families, broken 
homes, needy aged, erring and wayward youths, hovels and slums where 
children are reared to crime and poverty. The countryside offers a fertile 
and yet untilled field for the activities of the Society of St. Vincent de 
Paul, the Ladies of Charity, and the Legion of Mary.

125. The parish is the natural unit of organized charity, especially in 
rural areas. The unfortunates in need of spiritual and material aid are the 
members of a parish who offer to the rest of the parish special 
opportunities for the exercise of charity. A small organized group of 
volunteer charity workers, carefully selected, is a need in every parish.

126. There is need in the rural diocese for a central diocesan agency or 
bureau with at least some trained personnel to co-ordinate and unify the 
work, to train and direct the volunteer parish workers, to provide 
professional service where professional service is required.

127. A study club in each parish, composed of parish social charity workers 
and others interested, would be very useful in training the workers in the 
principles of social charity and in the technique of social work. The 
course of study should be outlined and directed by the central diocesan 
agency.

128. It would be advisable to unite parish groups into county units with a 
priest living in or near the county seat as director. Where parishes are 
too few for county organizations, it might be more feasible to organize on 
deanery lines.

129. Current government policies, exemplified particularly through the 
grants-in-aid to states under social security legislation, tend to shift 
the solution of most cases of social distress back to the local community. 
Most of the dependent children, who heretofore would have been sent to the 
urban orphanage or urban charity bureau, will now be cared for in the local 
community. Case work, involving delinquent juveniles, delinquent 
adolescents, and needy aged, has also become a local responsibility. These 
new trends in social work make it imperative that there be Catholic groups 
of social charity workers in every community.

130. Parish social charity workers could safeguard the spiritual and 
material welfare of dependent Catholic children, securing placement in 
suitable Catholic homes when it is necessary to remove children from their 
own homes; render assistance to delinquent and pre-delinquent juveniles and 
adolescents; protect the needy aged against exploitation, secure them 
adequate assistance and bring them the solace of religion; minister to 
families in special need of spiritual and material aid.

131. The new trends in the welfare program of the government rather 
definitely indicate that the permanent population of child-caring 
institutions will be composed largely of mentally retarded, physically 
handicapped, and problem children. The program of care and training in our 
institutions should be adjusted to meet the needs of children falling into 
these classifications.

132. County units could be very effective in influencing public  policy and 
procedure along the lines of Christian social charity. The diocesan 
organization, with ramifications running into every community and parish, 
would constitute a potent influence in molding along the lines of Christian 
principles public policies and legislation in respect to social welfare.

133. The closet cooperation should exist between public and private 
agencies in everything affecting their common work and common problems. 
Parish groups of social charity would develop in a parish the spirit of 
charity and a program of charity in which the parish as a whole would 
participate.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," nn. 46, 48.

2. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 44. 

3. Ibid., p. 29.

4. Matt. 25:42.


                      CHAPTER XII THE FARM LABORER

134. Because of his great pastoral solicitude for the toiling masses, Pope 
Leo XIII has been called the Pope of the Workingman. In his celebrated 
pronouncement, commemorating the fortieth anniversary of his distinguished 
predecessor's encyclical on the "Condition of Labor," Pope Pius XI wrote of 
him: "In this document the Supreme Shepherd, grieving for 'the misery and 
wretchedness pressing unjustly' or such a large proportion of mankind, with 
lofty courage took upon himself to defend the cause of workingmen, 
'surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers 
and the greed of unchecked competition."'[1]

135. In his social encyclical on the "Reconstruction of the Social Order," 
Pope Pius XI showed himself no less solicitous for that "immense multitude 
of workingmen," who, "oppressed by dire poverty, struggle in vain to 
escape"[2] from the difficulties which encompass them. His sympathy goes out 
to "the immense army of hired rural laborers, whose condition is depressed 
in the extreme and who have no hope of ever obtaining a share in the land. 
These, too, unless efficacious remedies be applied, will remain perpetually 
sunk in their proletarian condition."[3] Many of these farm laborers live in 
wretched hovels rather than homes; they work long hours, receive little 
pay, and eke out their existence under conditions of abject poverty. 
Because of their squalid living quarters as well as insufficient and 
unbalanced diets, they are an easy prey to all sorts of illnesses. Such 
inhuman living conditions are a disgrace to a nation which has been endowed 
by the Creator with the unlimited bounties of nature. Refusing to bear this 
heavy yoke any longer, farm laborers have become restive and rebellious, 
especially since they have been goaded on by communistic agitators who, 
pretending to desire only their betterment, lure them on by all sorts of 
promises. Attempts, however, have been made by some earnest leaders and 
with some measure of success to organize this unfortunate group and improve 
their lot. Their efforts, however, have been confined to limited areas and 
the progress has been slow.

136. Social justice must not be denied to farm laborers. Their rights and 
liberties are not different from those of workers in industrial centers. 
The following observation of Pope Pius XI applies to farm laborers: "Social 
justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long as workingmen are 
denied a wage that will enable them to secure proper sustenance for 
themselves and for their families; as long as they are denied the 
opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the plague of 
universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable provision through 
public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness and 
unemployment."[4]

137. Social charity also has its obligations toward these unfortunate 
laborers. Employers of hired farm labor should treat their workers as 
brethren in Christ. They should not do to them what they would not want to 
have done to themselves. Pope Pius XI bids them to be mindful of their 
responsibility. Their surplus income is not left entirely to their 
discretion. They have grave obligations of almsgiving, beneficence, and 
liberality, as well as a duty to use their property in a manner that will 
insure human living to their workers.

138. But farm laborers must also strive to help themselves. Wherever 
possible, they should organize for the protection of their rights and 
legitimate interests as well as for the provision of mutual help and for 
the pursuit of moral and religious duties. Their efforts will be brought to 
disaster, however, if they listen to men of evil principles who work upon 
the people with artful promises and excite foolish hopes, which usually end 
in futile regrets.

139. One of the objectives of organization should be to help farm laborers 
acquire farms which they can call their own. Not every farm laborer is 
qualified to own and manage a farm, but there are those who would improve 
their earthly lot if they were given an opportunity to till their own soil. 
By thrift, cooperative credit, and financial assistance from the 
government, they would be able to lift themselves out of their proletarian 
status. With regard to them the State has a special duty. If a family finds 
itself in great difficulty, utterly friendless, and without prospect of 
help, it is right that its extreme necessity be met by public aid; for each 
family is a part of the commonwealth.

140. While our objective is social justice and social charity for all, it 
should be recognized that the righting of a wrong economic system is not a 
speedy process. If the wrongs of farm laborers cannot be corrected 
immediately, the laborers should be patient and remember that there is 
blessing in poverty accepted in the spirit of Christ. Without giving up 
hope of improving their lot and without ceasing to use every lawful means 
to achieve for themselves social justice, "let them remember that the world 
will never be able to rid itself of misery, sorrow, and tribulation, which 
are the portion even of those who seem most prosperous.... 'Blessed are the 
poor!' These words are no vain consolation, a promise as empty as those of 
the communists. They are the words of life, pregnant with a sovereign 
reality."[5]


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 5. 

2. Ibid. p. 4. 

3. Ibid. p. 21.

4. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 52.

5. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 45.


                    CHAPTER XIII FARMER COOPERATIVES

141. Men are groping about to restore to society its organic form which the 
extreme individualism of the past century destroyed. Some seek the 
restoration through a planned economy enforced by the State, others through 
the establishment of a socialistic or communistic government.

142. Group action, however, cannot be superimposed on free citizens by the 
State. Theodore Roosevelt remarked trenchantly: "The government is 
powerless to conscript cooperation." Cooperation must grow out of the 
consciousness of men that their social nature requires forms through which 
it may best express itself.

143. Farmers are untrue to their social nature if they do not organize 
their agricultural activities, as workmen, technicians, doctors, employers, 
students, and others of like character organize their respective 
activities. "These groups and organizations," writes Pope Pius XI, "are 
destined to introduce into society that order which We have envisaged in 
Our Encyclical "Quadragesimo Anno," and thus to spread in the vast and 
various fields of culture and labor the recognition of the Kingdom of 
Christ."[1]

144. The order envisaged by Pope Pius XI is that of an organic society, in 
which the various associations of men, organically linked together in 
vocational groups for the common good, promote the material, cultural, and 
religious interests of their members, men and women who live in the same 
cultural atmosphere and share the same way of life. The farmer, too, should 
unite with fellow farmers in vocational groups. Although cooperatives may 
not realize completely the ideal of vocational grouping the Holy Father has 
in mind, they contain in their fundamental principles the possibilities for 
vocational organization.

145. Farm cooperatives are voluntary associations of farmers organized with 
the prime purpose of giving greater stability and better security to their 
farming enterprise. There are consumer, production, purchasing, marketing, 
and credit cooperatives. Among American farmers, marketing cooperatives 
have advanced the farthest. A farm cooperative organized on sound 
principles of cooperation is controlled by the farmer. One vote only should 
be allowed to each member, no matter how large his investment in the 
cooperative. The profit motive should be subordinated to the general 
welfare of the members and to the common good.

146. Farm cooperatives are necessary. Were it not for cooperative 
enterprise, the family-type farmer would be at the mercy of the 
economically powerful in society. Unorganized, he would find himself pitted 
as an individual against the organized forces of concentrated wealth. The 
farmer cannot allow himself to become a slave either of a domineering State 
or of the economic dictatorship of the mighty of this earth. The farmer 
will be free only insofar as he is organized.

147. Relying on his native resourcefulness, the farmer should beware of 
professional promoters of cooperatives who come into the community, hold 
forth unfulfillable promises, and seek to mulct him through the 
organization of cooperatives that are such in name only. Especially should 
he be distrustful of political schemers who seek to use the cooperative 
movement for their own purposes.

148. Before organizing a cooperative, farmers should give the principles 
and technique of sound cooperation careful study, and only after 
considerable educational work has been done, should they attempt to 
organize. Without a membership educated in the principles of cooperation 
and without sustained interest, a cooperative is doomed to failure. The 
spirit of cooperation is always essential to the success of a cooperative.

149. Members of cooperatives should not allow themselves to be lured on by 
materialistic or utilitarian considerations. In the long run, as experience 
shows, materialistic objectives will be disastrous to them and will usher 
in the abuses of the amoral capitalism, which they seek to displace, by 
opening the door to graft and racketeering, to fraudulent administration, 
to misrepresentation of consumer's goods, and to other vicious and sinful 
abuses. Remote and absentee control is one of the hazards of a cooperative. 
Co-ordination of local units should be secured without sacrificing local 
autonomy through centralized control.

150. Social justice must form the groundwork of cooperatives. "It is of the 
very essence of social justice to demand from each individual all that is 
necessary for the common good."[2] In the cooperative, the members must 
realize that only if they contribute their proportionate share to the 
common good, will the cooperative be of value to them.

151. Social charity must be the soul of every cooperative enterprise. 
Referring to the whole economic regime, Pius XI says that "social charity 
should, as it were, be the soul of this order."[3] In the absence of social 
charity the wisest regulations come to nothing. "Then only will it be 
possible to unite all in harmonious striving for the common good, when all 
sections of society have the intimate conviction that they are members of a 
single family and children of the same Heavenly Father, and further, that 
they are 'one body in Christ and every one members one of another' so that 
'if one member suffer anything, all members suffer with it.'"[4]

152. The foundations, therefore, of genuine cooperatives are Christian. It 
should be emphasized that in a genuine cooperative the members stand in a 
definite ethical and religious relation one to another; hence they have not 
only rights but also duties. Without the ethical principles and the 
religious ideals of the Christian religion, cooperatives will become close-
knit oligarchies, actuated by selfish and monopolistic policies. The 
pursuit of selfish interests cannot but lead to economic warfare among the 
different cooperatives.

153. The State should foster and protect cooperatives through proper 
legislation and through loans at reasonable interest rates. The State, 
however, should refrain from exerting an arbitrary control over them.

154. While cooperatives are not proposed as a panacea for all conceivable 
economic and social ills, nevertheless soundly established cooperatives 
will be potent agencies for the protection of the farming group. Properly 
organized and properly managed, cooperatives should achieve the following 
results: fair prices to the farmer for his products and fair prices to the 
consumer, the maintenance of high standards in the marketing of quality 
goods, the prevention of proletarianism by bringing about a wider 
distribution of property, and cultural advantages for the farm family and 
for the community. By reason of the organic union, which they effect among 
their members and through mutual cooperation, "the attainment of earthly 
happiness is placed within the reach of all."[5]

155. Conducted in a truly Christian spirit, cooperatives will be valuable 
schools for training in social virtues, such as resourcefulness, 
responsibility, mutual helpfulness, justice, and charity. From cooperative 
enterprise will come other important social by-products, such as folk 
drama, folk song, folk music, and folk literature. Folk schools have 
achieved remarkable success in countries where cooperatives flourish among 
the rural people. Catholic rural life will be strengthened under a system 
of cooperatives conducted in accordance with well-tried democratic 
principles and inspired by ideals of social justice and charity.


                        CHAPTER XIV RURAL CREDIT

156. Credit is the lifeblood of the economic body, necessary for the 
manufacturer and the merchant and necessary also for the farmer. The farmer 
needs long-term credit, furnished at reasonable interest and repayment 
terms, to buy his land and to build his home, barns, sheds, and other farm 
buildings. To make improvements on the land by clearing, draining, and 
fencing it, as well as to purchase the necessary machinery, horses, cattle, 
poultry, and other farm animals, he may need intermediate credit. Short-
term credit may be needed to help the farmer obtain seed in the spring and 
carry the crop until he can get it to the markets in the fall. If it is 
necessary to hold his crop in crib, elevator, granary, or other storage 
place until the market is favorable, he may require additional short-term 
credit.

157. In the past the farmer obtained his credit in various ways Individual 
lenders, local people with money to invest including retired farmers, 
granted him the advances he may have needed to acquire his farmstead. 
Bankers in rural towns loaned him money for short-time needs. Implement 
companies arranged with him for the purchase on the installment plan of 
machinery needed to run the farm. Insurance, trust, and mortgage companies 
made him loans for various purposes.

158. But only too often the terms of the loans were onerous, interest rates 
were high, and the plan of payments on the loans was not flexible enough. 
As a result, if in a series of years crops failed because of drought, hail, 
insect pests, or some other calamity, or if prices of farm commodities were 
abnormally low, foreclosures of farms were not infrequent. Farmers lost 
their equities in the farms; years of savings vanished. They then either 
drifted into the city to look for work or continued to farm as tenants. The 
large increase in tenancy today is due, to no small extent, to the usurious 
methods used in the past in financing the farmer.

159. Whenever possible, the farmer should seek to lay aside some of his 
earnings for years when crops are poor or prices low. The virtue of thrift 
is very important for the farmer. He should avoid miserliness, on the one 
hand, and extravagance, on the other. Many farmers have been brought to 
ruin because they were greedy for land; they acquired more land than they 
could operate with the members of the family; they began to farm to make 
money rather than to make a living. Speculating in land, mortgaging all 
they had, they lost all and made themselves poor. Balanced thrift and 
joyous contentment are virtues indispensable to success in farming.

160. Since the individual farmer does not command much credit, he should 
strengthen whatever credit he may have, by joining it with the credit of 
other good farmers of the community. Pooling resources in cooperative 
credit associations is of great advantage to the member farmers. Interest 
rates can be kept low, repayments can be made on reasonable terms, 
character can be used as collateral, and in every way credit terms can be 
made more favorable. Wherever developed, such credit associations have been 
instrumental in reducing foreclosures on farms. Moreover, they have enjoyed 
the confidence of governmental loaning agencies.

161. The purpose of such credit associations should be to help not only the 
farmer already on the farm but also the young farmer who wishes to have a 
farm of his own. Properly organized, such credit associations can be the 
depositary of the liquid assets of a farmer for bad times and can serve as 
an agency for the elimination of commissions, high fees, and extra charges, 
usually incident to loans. These are all important items because they 
increase the costs of farming by a very appreciable amount. The State 
should assist such cooperative credit associations in their beginnings 
through favorable legislation and adequate money advances. In doing so, the 
State promotes public well-being because farm Ownership is rendered more 
secure, wealth is more equitably distributed, and a large portion of the 
nation's population is taught the important lesson of self-help. Healthy 
agrarianism is undoubtedly one of the chief assets, if not the chief asset, 
of a State.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 68.

2. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 51.

3. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 29.

4. Ibid., p. 44.

5. Pius XI, "Atheistic Communism," n. 29.


             CHAPTER XV AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMIC ORGANISM

162. In his encyclical on the "Reconstruction of the Social Order," Pope 
Pius XI deplores the fact that "social life lost entirely its organic 
form."[1] This resulted from the amoral individualism of the past century, 
which atomized societary life into different economic units, each 
independent of the other and each working for its own selfish purposes 
regardless of the well-being of others in society.

163. In the social order there are parts and parts, members, as it were, of 
one and the same social body; each member is different from the other and 
each has its special function; but each is necessary also for the well-
being of the whole. If one part of the social body suffers, the whole 
suffers. A society that is founded on classes with divergent claims, each 
opposed to the other, cannot be healthy; social ills of a varied kind will 
afflict the social body in such a state of things. To be sound and well, 
all the members of the social body must work together in harmonious 
cooperation. This is an important principle in organic life.

164. This principle has been very much disregarded in the relations between 
agriculture and industry. Industry has gone its own way without much 
thought of the needs of agriculture, and vice versa. Yet the two are 
vitally dependent upon each other. If the thirty-five to forty million farm 
people of the nation receive an unfair price for agricultural products, 
their purchasing power is reduced. They can no longer buy what industry 
produces and places on the market for sale. When markets become glutted, 
merchants no longer place orders, manufacturers stop their machinery and 
send their workers home, and millions of factory workers and their families 
are in distress. If, on the contrary, workers in industry are underpaid, 
they cannot consume in sufficient quantities the products that come from 
the farms.

165. In all conferences called by the government to improve the economic 
order, not only should capital and labor be brought together, but the 
farmer, too, should have representation.

166. Organizations of bankers, businessmen, employers, and employees should 
not disregard agriculture, in drawing up their respective economic 
programs. Any improvement in the farmer's condition spells improvement for 
the banker. the manufacturer, the merchant, and the factory worker. In 
planning legislation, the entire organic life of the nation should receive 
consideration. Laws should be integral; piecemeal legislation is always 
harmful. Tariff legislation has often favored industry at the expense of 
the farmer. To protect by a high tariff the industrial products which the 
farmer must buy is equal to putting a tax on the farmer's income. His 
purchasing power is thereby reduced, and as a result other sectors of 
industry suffer.

167. Of great importance is the maintenance of a parity of prices between 
agriculture and industry. This is not an easy task; it bristles with 
difficulties. It may involve regimentation of the farmer by the government. 
It were better if the farming group were thoroughly organized; then, 
through the economic and the political power of organization, the farmer 
would achieve, in a notable degree, a balance between the prices he 
receives for his products and the prices he pays for the things needed on 
the farmstead.

168. Of concern to the farmer is the decline of the birth rate in 
industrial centers. Such a decline of birth rate is equivalent to a 
shrinking of markets. As markets shrink, the surpluses in wheat, corn, 
cotton, and other agricultural commodities will become more and more a 
serious problem. Technological progress allows the farmer to produce more 
per farm unit than in former years. Less man power also is needed on the 
farm. The advocacy of an economy of abundance in agricultural products 
stands in patent contradiction to the advocacy of an economy of scarcity in 
population. Upon a normal increase of people in the nation will depend a 
proper balance of markets. Legislative remedies will be of small avail in 
seeking balanced markets if the forces of birth control go about unhindered 
in undermining the supports of the market by advocating measures that make 
for a shrinking population.


ENDNOTES

1. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of thc Social Order," p. 26.


                       CHAPTER XVI RURAL TAXATION

169. The primary purpose of taxation is to provide the several political 
units, such as townships, school districts, cities, counties, states, and 
the Federal Government, with the necessary funds to carry on their 
respective political functions in the interest of the public well-being.

170. In recent times, however, taxation has also been used for economic and 
social purposes; namely, to destroy business harmful to health or life, to 
make impossible bad financial practices, to prevent harmful concentration 
of economic power, to effect a better distribution of wealth, and to 
eliminate abuses in trade and commerce. Taxation may be legitimately used 
for such purposes. It may not be carried, however, to the point where 
private property can no longer exist. "The State is, therefore, unjust and 
cruel," writes Pope Leo XIII, "if in the name of taxation, it deprives the 
private owner of more than is just."[1] Pope Pius XI amplifies this statement 
of his illustrious predecessor as follows: "Hence, the prudent Pontiff had 
already declared it unlawful for the State to exhaust the means of 
individuals by crushing taxes and tributes. 'The right to possess private 
property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has by no 
means the right to abolish it, but only to control its use and bring it 
into harmony with the interests of the public good.'"[2]

171. If rural society is to be well served, an adequate amount of taxes 
must be collected. Indeed, rural society profits from a wise and prudent 
expenditure of tax money for roads, electrification, sanitation, flood 
control, conservation of natural resources, eradication of harmful weeds 
and insects, schools, libraries, and other social utilities provided by the 
State to promote public welfare. It would be false economy to neglect the 
greatest of all natural resources--human health, life, and culture--by 
failing to provide for the public services necessary to maintain them.

172. There has been a trend, however, to expand government functions beyond 
reasonable limits. Larger funds are required by governments than a 
generation ago. Governments, like individuals, may live beyond their means 
and heavily mortgage the future in order to maintain the new vested 
interests of public servants and officials. Government costs have been 
increased also through a waste of public funds by expending them on unwise 
and unprofitable projects; by duplicating governments, municipal, township, 
county, state, and federal; by erecting expensive school buildings and 
furnishing unnecessary equipment because of a false philosophy of 
education; and by the entrance of the State into fields of activity which 
should be reserved for private and cooperative endeavor. Public funds for 
social welfare and relief could be conserved through a fuller use of the 
facilities offered by private agencies, especially since these agencies, 
dominated as they are by the spirit of charity and religion, can 
rehabilitate where government efforts fail.

173. Since most of the taxes levied are property taxes, it is inevitable 
that taxes come to rest most heavily on the land. The farmer pays, in 
consequence, a disproportionately larger share of taxes than does the urban 
dweller. This is the conclusion of all economists who have gathered and 
studied the facts bearing on this question. It is, therefore, the better 
part of wisdom, if the farmer scrutinizes with keen vigilance new proposals 
for extending State activities that involve heavy expenditures of money.

174. Because of high taxes tenants become discouraged and do not strive for 
ownership; farm owners find themselves unable to pay taxes, with the result 
that farmsteads are lost through foreclosure or revert to the State as idle 
lands. The State is faced with the problem either of allowing the land to 
produce inferior species of trees, or of reforesting it at heavy public 
costs, or of letting other farmers occupy land that has failed to produce 
even its taxes. It is a known fact that high taxes tend to increase 
interest rates. And high interest rates make it difficult for tenants to 
become eventual owners. High taxes become a serious practical problem not 
only for the farmer but also for Church, school, and other social 
institutions.

175. Many correctives need to be applied to the tax structure in Rural 
America. The property tax puts a heavy burden on the farmer, especially in 
years of crop failure. This tax was once an equitable tax, when the nation 
was more than go per cent agricultural. But today property is held in other 
forms--stocks, bonds, savings accounts? and other less tangible and less 
visible forms. Those newer forms of property possession open avenues for 
tax escape. The farmer, on the other hand, cannot conceal his land and 
barns and sheds. They are seen by the assessor. Assessments are also often 
inequitable; great variations occur not infrequently within the same 
township. Assessments on small properties frequently represent a higher 
proportion of real value than assessments on large properties.

176. How can these inequalities be corrected? Various measures have been 
suggested. The exemption from taxation of farm homesteads up to a certain 
value is receiving wider and wider consideration. Some are urging a farm-
products tax in order to relieve the farm owner from tax burdens when his 
crop is poor or when prices are low. Others advocate a progressive land 
tax. A progressive land tax would tend to promote the family-size type of 
farm, discourage large holdings for speculative purposes, and reduce to a 
necessary minimum commercialized farming, with its system of manager, 
foremen, and hired laborers. To achieve a more equitable apportionment of 
taxes, as between farm and city dweller, it has been proposed also to 
increase tax rates on intangible wealth, represented by stocks, bonds, and 
other instruments of ownership, as well as on income derived from 
inheritance. In considering all these proposals, the one aim to be kept in 
view constantly is the achieving of a better measure of social justice for 
the farmer by relieving him of inequitable tax burdens.

177. In order to prevent speculation in land, serious consideration should 
be given to fair and practical proposals to tax the unearned increment of 
land values. This would assure property rights to those who by their labor 
turned "the sands of the desert into gold" and who by unremitting toil 
applied brain and brawn to the resources of God's nature. Not by 
speculation do nations grow rich, but only by the toil of its workingmen.

178. The farmer should beware of rash promises held out by tariff 
legislation. Such legislation is usually nothing less than a tax which he 
as consumer pays for the things he needs for farm and home. While the 
farmer needs a tariff for protection against unfair practices of dumping 
agricultural products into his home market, nevertheless he should not 
allow himself to be deluded into believing that tariffs necessarily 
guarantee stable prices either in home or in foreign markets. Despite high 
tariff-walls, prices for his products not infrequently are very low. The 
tariff is often a double-edged sword used against the farmer. On the one 
hand, it raises the prices of the industrial goods which he buys; on the 
other, it leads to retaliatory measures of foreign nations against the 
agricultural surpluses which he cannot sell in his home market.

179. Schemes to lower the value of money often contain hidden forces, which 
in effect are those of taxation. Devaluation of money standards is 
equivalent to a tax on foreign importations; home manufacturers and 
merchants are protected in proportion to the amount of devaluation and 
consequently may raise prices behind this new wall of protection. The 
farmer as a consumer pays for this protection every time he buys an article 
on the industrial market. Theoretically, he too should benefit from higher 
prices because of the cheapening of money; but practically it does not work 
out that way, particularly in years when bumper crops automatically shut 
out foreign importations.

180. Taxation is a very important subject for consideration in any plan to 
improve the economic status of the farmer. Consideration should be given to 
the uses which are to be made of tax money as well as to the equitable 
distribution of the burden and to the types of taxation which exert a 
beneficial effect on the rural economy. Information is available for 
remedying many of the iniquities in our tax system. Further studies are 
necessary to provide a comprehensive reform.


ENDNOTES

1. Leo XIII, "The Condition of Labor," p. 27.

2. Pius XI, "Reconstruction of the Social Order," p. 17.



                           PART II ANNOTATIONS


                              INTRODUCTION

A number of persons, of the clergy and of the laity, aided directly and 
indirectly in the publication of the MANIFESTO. A group of them met in St. 
Louis, April 13-14, 1937, to discuss the scope and contents of such a 
MANIFESTO. They were: The Most Rev. Bishops Edwin V. O'Hara, Karl Alter, A. 
J. Muench, C. H. Winkelmann; Rt. Rev. Msgr. J. M. Wolfe; Revs. W. Howard 
Bishop, James A. Byrnes, J. M. Campbell, G. Estergaard, L. G. Ligutti, John 
LaFarge, S.J., Virgil Michel, O.S.B., K. J. Miller, C.SS.R., William T. 
Mulloy, J. H. Ostdiek, Felix N. Pitt, Vincent J. Ryan, Edgar Schmiedeler, 
O.S.B., Rudolph B. Schuler, Joseph Steinhauser, Louis N. Zirbes; Miss 
Dorothy J. Willmann, the Messrs. Frank Bruce, F. P. Kenkel, and Joseph 
Matt.

Out of this group committees were appointed to draw up statements on 
various phases of rural life. These statements furnished materials for a 
tentative draft of a MANIFESTO, which was submitted to the participants of 
the St. Louis group for criticism and suggestions. The tentative draft was 
revised and amended in accordance with suggestions and recommendations 
offered, and was submitted to the Executive Board of the National Catholic 
Rural Life Conference for further action. The Board suggested a Committee 
composed of the Most Rev. Aloisius J. Muench, Bishop of Fargo, the Very 
Rev. Dr. Vincent J. Ryan, and the Very Rev. William T. Mulloy, both of the 
city of Fargo, to prepare a revision of the tentative draft so as to secure 
greater uniformity of structure and style.

This Committee held a series of meetings throughout the winter of 1937-38 
and prepared a final redaction of the MANIFESTO for further consideration 
by the Executive Board of the Conference. In preparing this redaction other 
authorities in the field of industrial or rural economics and sociology 
were consulted. Valuable comments and constructive criticism were obtained 
from Rt. Rev. Msgrs. John O'Grady, Francis J. Haas, and John A. Ryan; the 
Revs. Urban Baer, Dr. George Johnson, Marcellus Leisen, O.S.B., A. McGowan, 
J. C. Rawe, S.J., A. M. Schwitalla, S.J.; Mr. Francis M. Crowley, Mr. J. M. 
Sevenich, and Dr. O. E. Baker.

At the National Convention of the Conference in Vincennes, September, 1938, 
after careful consideration and thorough discussion, the MANIFESTO was 
approved and ordered to be published by the Board. It remained to compile 
the materials for the Annotations. This required painstaking research and 
many hours of labor. Special acknowledgment should be expressed to the Very 
Rev. Dr. Vincent J. Ryan for his editorial services in preparing the 
manuscript of the MANIFESTO