Ryan, Father John A.

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RYAN, FATHER JOHN A.

John Augustine Ryan (May 25,1869–September 16, 1945) was a Roman Catholic priest and a writer, educator, and social reformer. Reared in Minnesota, Ryan entered Saint Thomas Seminary in 1887 to study for the priesthood for the diocese of Saint Paul. Ordained in 1898, he was awarded his Ph.D. in sacred theology from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1906. In his dissertation, A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects, Ryan argued that an employer was obligated to pay "a living wage," one sufficient to support a worker and his family in decent and comfortable surroundings. This concept, based on Catholic social teachings, was central to his socioeconomic worldview.

Ryan taught at Saint Thomas Seminary before returning to Catholic University, where, in 1916, he published Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth, which elaborated on the obligations of workers and employers in an industrial society. Ryan's ideas concerning economic and social policy in post-World War I America became the basis for the Bishops' Program of Social Reconstruction in 1919. This program called for a legal minimum wage; labor laws to protect women and children; social insurance against old age, sickness, and unemployment; and labor's right to unionize. From 1920 until 1944, Ryan served as director of the social action department of the United States Bishops' National Catholic Welfare Council, a position that allowed him to present Catholic social teachings to a national audience. Catholic periodical publications such as Commonweal, Catholic World, Catholic Charities Review, and Ecclesiastical Review also provided Ryan with a forum for promoting social justice.

During the Great Depression, Ryan advocated government intervention to relieve economic hardship. Highly critical of Herbert Hoover's cautious policies, Ryan found in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal—in particular the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938—a near embodiment of Catholic social teachings. As a Roosevelt supporter, Ryan earned the nickname "Right Reverend New Dealer" from the Reverend Charles Coughlin, a critic of Roosevelt. During the Roosevelt years, Ryan served as chairman of the advisory council of the United States Employment Service, as a member of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy, and as a member of the industrial appeals board of the National Recovery Administration. In general, Ryan played a greater role in presenting New Deal policies to his fellow Catholics than in influencing the formation of government policy.

See Also: NEW DEAL; RELIGION.