Monsignor George Higgins was a member of the U.S. Catholic clergy, director of the Social Action Department of the forerunner of today’s U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, attendee to the Vatican II Council, and an authority on labor relations. Cesar Chavez was a farm worker, a lay member of the Church, and a union leader Read More

The year 1919 could be termed a grim one. The First World War had ended in November, 1918, true, but the combatants were still taking measure of that frightful conflict. With more than 70 million people mobilized to fight, more than 16 million had died as a direct result of the war, with another 50 Read More

Yes, a “labor priest” is a thing.  His origins can be found in the intersection of the rise of the modern working class in the nineteenth century and the issuance of the encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891.  The labor priest usually materialized from a working class community, often with immigrant roots, and often possessed an Read More