Abstract
In 1934, the Society of Jesus was asked to respond at global and regional levels to the increasing threat of world Communism. In North America, the Jesuits initiated plans to meet the twin threats of Communism and atheism. Between 1934 and 1939, two separate streams of Jesuit anti-Communism began to emerge. The first was a macro-style vision grounded in social reconstruction, which the Jesuits called âEstablishing a Christian Social Order,â known colloquially as the âxoâ program. The other plan was put forward as early as 1934, and elaborated in July 1936 at the Jesuit meeting in West Baden, Indiana, by the writer and editor John LaFarge. LaFargeâs plan, known as the United Front, has never been evaluated by historians. It was a localized program of reactive initiatives meant to meet the gains of the cpusa with effective Catholic counter-Communist public attacks. LaFarge aimed to recruit students, pastors, and fellow Jesuits to see to it that cpusa gains in labor, culture, education, government, and churches were met with equal and effective public counterattacks. In 1937, the publication of the papal encyclical Divini redemptoris signaled that social reconstruction could become a part of authentic Catholic anti-Communism, indicating the eclipse of LaFargeâs United Front. After 1939, when the Jesuit general WÅodzimierz Ledóchowski called for an adoption of the âpositive messageâ of social reconstruction as the dominant means of Jesuit anti-Communism, LaFargeâs more bumptious and militaristic plan began to fade for good. This article chronicles the heretofore unknown struggle between these two antipodes.
About one month before the Allied invasion of France on D-Day, the domestic surveillance unit of the United States Office of Strategic Services (oss) created a bulletin for its director entitled âthe Jesuits and de Gaulle.â The memo, from officer âT3â to Dewitt Clinton Poole (1885â1952), head of the Foreign Nationalities Branch, analyzed an article written by the American Jesuit John LaFarge Jr. (1880â1963) in America magazine entitled âAnd What of de Gaulle?â The oss was interested in LaFargeâs opinion because in 1944 the American public and the American Catholic Church were still ambivalent about the role Charles de Gaulle (1890â1970) might play in the future of France. The Jesuit periodical came to the attention of the American spy organization precisely because of its clarity about de Gaulle. The Jesuits at America argued that since de Gaulle was an anti-Communist, he deserved the support of the church. Americans should not be âtoo cautiousâ to recognize de Gaulle simply because he had entered into talks with some Communist resistance leaders. 1 For LaFarge, American government and American Catholic interests ought to merge in helping de Gaulle âmaintain an effective position against any Communist attempt to dominate the resistance movement and thereby seize power in postwar France.â 2
Although much has been written about Communist infiltration of the oss, Dewitt Clinton Pooleâs anti-Communism has never been called into doubt. In fact, as us diplomatic representative at Archangel, Russia, during the Russian Civil War, he described the scourge of Bolshevism in much the same language that Catholic anti-Communists would describe the âred perilâ throughout the 1930s. For Poole, âthe violence and unreasonâ of Bolshevism threatened a world revolution that might soon overtake democratic nations around the globe. 3 For LaFarge, Communists seemed ready âto fight every day against capitalism until it is destroyed and a soviet government rules in the United States.â 4 âThe most insistent question concerning Communism,â LaFarge wrote to American Catholics in 1937, âis whether it can happen here.â 5
Poole had met LaFarge before and was probably not surprised by the priestâs robust anti-Communism. In the fall of 1942, us spy services were startled to observe that the superior general of the Jesuits, WÅodzimierz Ledóchowski (1866â1942), made a sudden trip from Rome to Switzerland. Poole met secretly with LaFarge on October 28, 1942, and pressed him hard for information. LaFarge refused to offer any information about the trip, but satisfied Pooleâs inquisitive nature by supplying him with some contents of Ledóchowskiâs recent letter to the American Jesuits about the persecution of the church in Europe. Such a missive was considered ad usum Nostrorum tantum (for use only by âOursâ), but LaFarge knew he had to give Poole at least one tidbit. He provided the spy with Jesuit information on ecclesiastical conditions in Belgium and the Netherlands. Still fishing for information on Ledóchowskiâs Swiss sojourn, Poole remarked that LaFargeâs âdiscretion seemed rather to be a matter of principles,â and let the matter drop. 6 Poole understood LaFargeâs daring in simply meeting with him and that, by revealing the contents of Ledóchowskiâs letter, the priest was committing, in Jesuit terms, an act of subterfuge.
By 1944, Poole was assured of LaFargeâs strong anti-Communism. In LaFargeâs eyes, he was simply fighting Communism the same way he proposed to his fellow Jesuits ten years earlierâin what he then called a âUnited Frontâ with other anti-Communists who were committed to the active destruction of global Communism. Part of what the clandestine Poole-LaFarge exchange points out is that LaFarge possessed his own independent vision for how the American Jesuits ought to pursue the issue of anti-Communism.
In much of the historiography on Jesuits and anti-Communism, the role of LaFarge seems to have been obscured. Historian Patrick McNamara, in his excellent study of Edmund A. Walshâs (1885â1956) Jesuit Cold War anti-Communism, characterizes LaFargeâs as viewing of Communism as âjust [â¦] the worst of all isms that he lumped under modernism: secularism, materialism, liberalism, and atheism.â 7 LaFarge does not come off as a major theorist of 1930s Jesuit anti-Communism. Other scholars have either equated LaFargeâs anti-nazism with his anti-Communism or folded LaFargeâs anti-Communism into his work on interracial relations. 8 Still others fail to see LaFarge as an anti-Communist at all. 9 Whatever the circumstance, such characterizations minimize LaFargeâs unique vision for American Jesuit anti-Communism in the 1930s, a view that has been largely missed by historians. 10
In moves so far unstudied by historians, LaFarge introduced plans for how the American Jesuits should attack the growing threat of Communism in July 1934 and in June 1935. He called his program the United Front. LaFargeâs United Front plan was offered in direct response to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, which emphasized the establishment of a global âpopular frontâ anti-fascist movement. For the Communists, Popular Front initiatives had special advantages, especially within liberal Western governments. In the United States, this approach meant that the cpusa could shed the stigma of Communismâs radicalism by pressing American political culture solely against the gains of fascism and nazism. By harping against fascism, Communists aimed to enter mainstream organizations like labor unions, democratic organizations, and liberal political structures. Charles Shipman (1895â1989), an American cpusa agitprop functionary who was elected to the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, wrote that the Popular Front was a âtactical maneuverâ used by Communists to fight Hitler, which ârequired them to shelve some of their most cherished [radical] principles to cooperate with capitalists and bourgeois political parties.â 11 LaFarge saw right through these tactics. His antidote to the Popular Front was for the American Jesuits to construct a Roman Catholic âUnited Frontâ against Communism. LaFarge may have proposed a United Front as early as 1934.
This article will argue that LaFargeâs United Front proposals signaled that, at least in its early stages, American Jesuit anti-Communism was not univocal, as many histories have suggested. 12 Further, it will argue that two separate styles of plans were put forward between 1934 and 1939 on how Jesuits ought to deal with American Communism: LaFargeâs United Front plan, with its emphasis on direct street-level contact in thwarting Communism; and another model, suggested by Jesuits Daniel A. Lord (1888â1955) and Edmund A. Walsh, that focused on meeting Communism by emphasizing Christianityâs inherent ability to assuage the root causes of social and economic dislocation in America. While Lord and Walsh pushed centralization as a means to effect their plan, LaFargeâs plan was entirely decentralized in both structure and action. Decisions on how to counteract Communist gains were to be made by Jesuits on the ground, in the locality where the Communist effort was most viable. Local Jesuits and their lay colleagues were to fight Communism in their own neighborhoods.
While LaFargeâs plan for localized action gained steam early on, the centralized, social reconstructionist approach of Lord and Walsh slowly eclipsed the more pugnacious posture of LaFargeâs United Front. By 1939, the reconstructionists would dominate the Jesuit conversation on anti-Communism, as LaFarge and his supporters dropped out of view and conformed to new directions. This article will delve into the effects and consequences of this heretofore unexamined Jesuit minority voice that argued for their âUnited Frontâ against American Communism. It will show that in American Jesuit circles for a five year period between 1934 and 1939, there was a short-lived, but intense, under the surface split on how to deal with and defeat Communism in the United States. 13
âWe can now take the aggressive sideâ: Deploying a Theology of the United Front
On April 17, 1934, Ledóchowski issued a letter to the provincials of the United States and Canada entitled, âOn Combating Communism.â The Jesuit general and his American underlings began to single out left-leaning groups and Communist front organizations as destabilizing elements for the progress of Catholicism. It is important to understand the workings of this new framework. In a report on the early reception, perception, and integration of Ledóchowskiâs directive, an anonymous Jesuit author described his role as a âcombatantâ in the war against Communism. Just as the Jesuits were called during the Counter-Reformation, so too now they were called to combat âthe lies of Communism and atheism, the great heresy of our times, more dangerous probably than any heresy of the past.â 14
In responding to this call from Ledóchowski, LaFarge believed that his United Front plan would be well-suited to both the desires of the superior general and the realities of Popular Front tactics. For LaFarge, the Popular Front was all about combat. As historian Gerd-Rainer Horn has argued, the Popular Front as envisioned by Communist theorists was not meant to be a benign social construction. Rather, the Popular Front was described as a âpopular front in combatâ and as a means of exercising an inevitable âconquest of powerâ over capitalism. 15 Popular Front initiatives often took the shape of âanti-Nazi Leagues,â or âPro-Democracyâ organizations. LaFargeâs United Front plans showed a clear understanding of this dynamic.
The writer of the report on Ledóchowskiâs letter on combating Communism, although anonymous, integrated the language of a Jesuit counter-front, or United Front, directly into his conclusions. âThe hour has come,â he stated in nearly apocalyptic terms, âwhen isolated efforts to hold back the tide of atheism and Communism must be consolidated into a united Jesuit front.â 16 Just as the Communist International was requiring the unification of European socialist and progressive parties to fight fascism as a âPopular Front,â Father Ledóchowski was giving LaFarge and his Jesuit âfrontistsâ a reason to style themselves as a spiritual fighting force. 17 The American Jesuit writing the report called for âa worthwhile, systematized, warfare against the common enemy of Christianity and civilization.â 18
The anonymous writer employed an ample amount of martial rhetoric. âThere is no questioning the vigor and number of the enemy,â he recalled, âwe have seen at first hand their resourcefulness.â Placing all Jesuit works in the balance, the author stated, âthe joint efforts of the Society in America will not be too much if we are to repel the assaults of these brilliant adversaries.â 19 Regarding Communist penetration of Catholic programs, the author commented, âThrough infiltration they are affecting labor groups, the student classes, the colored, and the foreign-born.â More pressingly, the Communists were âappealing precisely to the people who make up our parishes [â¦] and our students.â 20
Characterizing the urgency of how things looked in 1934, the author recalled that the battle could not be put on hold. âThe enemy is active here and now. The Holy Father and His Paternity count on us for a vigorous defense and a systematic offensive.â 21 The author indicated that plans were laid for a meeting of American Jesuits where plans could be proposed âto parallel communist propaganda with Jesuit propaganda.â 22
Ten days later, Ledóchowski wrote a follow-up letter, but one which largely has been understudied by historians. In âOn the Need of Vigorously Opposing Modern Atheism,â Ledóchowski redoubled his efforts and his martial rhetoric. Conceptually connecting Communism and atheism, he spoke of the âdestructive efforts of Militant Atheistsâ around the globe. 23 Ledóchowski was clear in how Communists and atheists ought to be treated, seeing the two concepts as interchangeable. 24 âOur first endeavor,â he made clear, âought to be the detection and open denunciation of these frauds.â He rallied the global Jesuits, saying, âLet all of Ours realize and be convinced that our fight is with the greatest and most widespread revolt against all that is called God, or that is worshipped.â 25 By the mid-thirties, many American Jesuits were appropriating the binary and belligerent language of âopen denunciationâ into how they viewed both atheism and Communism.
With LaFarge proposing a United Front, he was definitionally employing military language to get his point across. 26 Yet, in the matter of martial spiritual rhetoric, the Jesuits had a long and complex past. 27 Lorenzo Scupoli (c.1530â1610), the Theatine spiritual writer of the sixteenth century, penned his classic text The Spiritual Combat in 1589 and, from the first, found it hard to shake observations about Jesuit influences. âThe military symbolism behind the concept of âspiritual combat,ââ historian William V. Hudon has argued, âechoed the military experience and focus of Ignatius.â 28 Some scholars have even ascribed authorship of Scupoliâs book the Italian Jesuit Achille Gagliardi (1537â1607). 29 Whatever the case, Scupoliâs emphasis on asceticism in connection to the influence of the will upon the soul was seen as a personalization and tightening of the Meditation on the Two Standards contained in Ignatiusâs Spiritual Exercises. 30 Here, the meditating Jesuit saw before him Christ, commanding the forces of good, and Lucifer, commanding the forces of evil. Oneâs decision about which âcommanderâ to follow was a key element in the conversion of the soul. 31
As Peter McDonough has explained, American Jesuits whose training occurred prior to Vatican ii were inculcated into a âcombativeâ mode of study and discipline, especially in the period of their training when they studied philosophy. A Jesuitâs transition from the novitiate, where much emphasis was placed on regimented prayer and reflection, to academic studies where aggression was rewarded, McDonough sees as a move âfrom the feminine to the masculine.â 32 In this transition from obeisance to the acquisition of skills, âcombativeness, controlled by obedience, was emphasized.â 33 As Jesuit trainees were granted more autonomy in their lives and in their work, âthe program shifted from an almost exclusive emphasis on supervision and religious drill to greater stress on the combative and competitive ethos of the society.â 34 The study of philosophy was meant to âpromote Godâs glory, to widen the influence of the Church, and to slay heresy outright by the two-edged sword of tongue and pen.â 35
Taking up this call, North American Jesuits met at Loyola University in Chicago on July 3 and 4 to respond to Ledóchowskiâs letters and to figure out precisely how they would âslay the heresyâ of global Communism. The meeting was presided over by Edmund Walsh, founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and the leading Catholic expert in the United States on Communism. One of the results of the Chicago meeting was a resolution indicating that âthere must be a united frontâ against Communism rather than âany divergenceâ from the goal of eradicating Communist inroads in the United States. 36 While it is unclear whether or not LaFarge attended this original Chicago meeting on Communism, the framework and lexicon that he would readily adopt was not only present but underscored.
The âfrontistsâ who would align with LaFarge wasted no time in acting âto parallel communistic propaganda with Jesuit propaganda.â 37 At the same time, in Rome, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (1876â1958) was setting to his own battle against atheistic Communism. As historian Giuliana Chamedes has explained, Pacelli was a moving force behind the creation of the Secretariat on Atheism in 1933. For Pacelli, international Communism âhad declared war on God himselfâ and therefore was to be fought openly and with tenacity. 38 In addition, when it came to the battle against Communism, Pacelli often used his position in the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs to eschew âthe wait-and-see approachâ of Pope Pius xi (r.1922â39) and âundermine the Tedeschini-Pius line.â 39 Outwardly, the subtle rift between Pius xi and Pacelli on Communism was not noticeable. Only later would LaFarge understand the reality of this split between Pacelli and Pius xi on the transnational struggle against Communism. Meanwhile, in the United States, local efforts were taking shape.
Immediately on the heels of Ledóchowskiâs letter and the Chicago meeting, Californian Jesuit Joseph A. Vaughan (1890â1961) triggered the first volley in a so-called âpamphlet warâ between the Jesuits and their American Communist foes. In his pamphlet The Communistic Crisis, Vaughan was clear and convincing about the role that the Society of Jesus would play in the new confrontation with Communism. As one of the first to move publicly on the issue, Vaughan was convinced that Communism was âboth a philosophy and a religion,â with Lenin as its âarch-priest.â 40 Inevitably, Communism would lead its adherents to âreject all religion, and deny the existence of God and the immortal soul.â 41 At the local level, Vaughan took to the radio to denounce Stalin over the Los Angeles airwaves. 42 As Jesuit âfrontistsâ such as Vaughan geared-up to confront Communism regionally, geopolitical realignments were taking place so quickly in the early 1930s that Father Ledóchowskiâs new North American anti-Communist initiative was in danger of stumbling out of the blocks.
In October 1933, the Roosevelt-Litvinov Agreement was signed, effectively recognizing the Soviet Union as a us diplomatic partner. Catholics scoffed at Soviet commissar of foreign affairs Maxim Litvinovâs (1876â1951) assurance that the Soviet Union would no longer âpermit the formation or residence on its territory of any organization or group whose objective is the overthrow of the political or social order of [â¦] the United States.â 43 Vaughan saw this as mere posturing because the Communist International (Comintern), the Russian-directed clearinghouse for the world revolutionary movement, was not abolished. On top of this, and more important still, in October 1934, the League of Nations admitted the ussr as a permanent member. For us Catholics, it seemed as if the âpopular front in combatâ was winning battle after battle.
While Vaughan found this whole situation demoralizing, he also saw it as a further call to the battle lines. âThe Bolsheviks frankly admit that since the United States has recognized the Soviets,â he wrote with a wisp of American Catholic exceptionalism, âthe only international force capable of stemming the tide of world-wide social revolution is the Catholic Church.â 44 As with most of his fellow âfrontists,â the choice was one of an isolated American Society of Jesus, spurned by the us government, facing down an international foe with global revolutionary ambitions. In his Ignatian framework, it was the choice of the Two Standards all over again; âit is a question of Moscow or Rome,â Vaughan averred. 45
In June 1935, the Missouri-Chicago Province held a four-day meeting âon Communism and atheismâ in West Baden, Indiana. The meeting was crucial to the history of Jesuit anti-Communism because in West Baden two Jesuits were called forward to present entirely separate and nearly diametric plans for how the American Jesuits should deal with the problem of Communism. 46 John LaFarge, the assistant editor of America magazine, and Daniel A. Lord, a Missouri province Jesuit and editor of The Queenâs Work sodality magazine, would both push for their plans to be adopted by an eager, yet still unsettled North American constituency.
At West Baden, LaFargeâs plan was considered first. As an early âcombatant,â he urged a head-on confrontation with the Communist International, âpooling our experiences and observations as to the existence of this menace.â 47 Employing a martial concept, LaFarge proposed that the Jesuits in the United States form a âUnited Frontâ campaign against Communism. Just as the Popular Front had infiltrated and taken over unsuspecting organizations, so Catholics should âplan a United Frontâ to âgain control of worthy causes, such as [the] peace [movement], Labor, Adult Education, [and] cooperative movements.â 48 In this way they could beat the Soviets at their own game. LaFarge was alarmed to see that the Soviets had such deep influence in the world of film, literature, and the stage (singling out playwright Clifford Odets, who was then a member of the Communist Party). LaFarge called for the âAmerican capture of Russian Communismâ by creating a plan for American intellectuals to co-opt Communism and turn it upside down. 49 Frederic Siedenburg, S.J. (1872â1939), director of the Chicago Province Anti-Communist Committee, suggested that with a United Front, American Jesuits could âgo afterâ Communists in the same way âthe American Legion went after [â¦] Communism [â¦] in the ccc (Civilian Conservation Corps).â 50
Siedenbergâs comment reflected that any United Front plan was bound to be a âfists-upâ approach to stopping Communism in the United States. The âUnited frontâ plan would consist of meeting the âopen propagandaâ of Soviet agencies, with an equal counteroffensive of Jesuit propaganda. 51 LaFarge intended his United Front to influence secular newspaper writers, American businessmen, and âNegro intellectuals.â 52 Jesuit colleges were to be used as special places for the motivation of Catholic students against Communism. The âmain tacticsâ of the âfrontistsâ included âdirect instruction of our young college men [â¦] as to the organized [Communist] movements and their danger.â 53 As LaFarge made clear, he would be âtraining students for combat.â 54 Siedenberg aptly characterized the United Front with his enthusiastic intervention, âwe march together but strike separately.â 55
While such grand thinking buoyed LaFargeâs listeners, his new formula posed a unique obstacle for Jesuits, men used to a regimented, hierarchical, top-down mode of institutional life. LaFargeâs plan was bereft of any central organizational structure. The United Front, as any military front would be, should be spread horizontally throughout society. As LaFarge put it, the United Front should be ready to counter-attack Communist initiatives âin our locality.â 56
One issue that persistently rankled LaFarge was the 1933 us recognition of the Soviet Union. He proposed the Jesuits adopt a âknock Russiaâ policy. âWhy should we show consideration for Russia?â he asked. LaFarge noted that even though the us had recognized the Soviet Union, âcordiality is lacking,â and that could provide cover for an American Jesuit plan of âknockingâ Russia off its balance in their public initiatives and publications. 57 LaFarge was disgusted with Catholics who refused to stand up to the Soviets, even âour wealthy Catholics [who] âpussyfootâ [around] attacks on Russia and Communists.â 58
Unfortunately, LaFargeâs fixation with the us recognition of the Soviet Union set him at odds with his confrère, Edmund Walsh. Two years earlier, Walsh had been one of the few Catholic voices to absolve President Roosevelt for Soviet recognition. âRoosevelt has put God back into Russia,â Walsh clamored in approval. 59 As LaFargeâs United Front plan moved forward, Walsh would maintain a steady, far-off, and critical eye. Oblivious, LaFarge continued to drum up support for his proposal. The United Front was on the march.
One of the first major supporters of LaFargeâs plan was Father Joseph Husslein (1873â1952), dean of the School of Social Service at St. Louis University. Husslein had been studying socialism for twenty-five years, leading to strong conclusions: âI realized no less the thorough, inveterate, and inextinguishable hatred of Christian Faith, Christian culture, and of all religion that underlay the doctrine of Socialism.â 60 Moreover, Husslein was also averse to social reconstructionist ideas. During the 1910s, he even impugned Walter Rauschenbuschâs Social Gospel movement. Husslein viewed the Social Gospel as anti-Catholic since it excluded all Catholic âdogmas [â¦] rites [â¦] sacraments [â¦] and hierarchy.â 61 For Husslein, no scheme of social regeneration could elide the sacramental structures of Roman Catholicism and remain valid.
The same held true for Communism, with its secretive methods and tactics. âThe Communistic method,â Husslein argued in 1935, treasured âthe complete free and open discussion of all subjects and plans, but once a matter is settled, there is to be blind obedience.â 62 This was why, Husslein argued, âThe United Frontâ had to be endorsed. 63 LaFargeâs United Front scheme presumed blind obedience, kept Roman Catholicism pristine, and pitted Jesuits against Communists by employing the interchangeable tactic of blind obedience. For Jesuits, blind obedience was to goodness and Christ. For Communists, it was a blind obedience to what Husslein called âthe standard of Satan.â 64
Hussleinâs vivid endorsement of the LaFarge plan must have come as somewhat of a surprise to Hussleinâs friend, Daniel Lord, who soon proposed a plan of his own for American Jesuit anti-Communism. In contrast to LaFarge and the other âfrontistsâ who wanted to âknockâ Russia, Lord offered a plan that called for Jesuit anti-Communism to be delivered in a more subtle, yet no less public way. While Lord admitted that, âwe can now take the aggressive side,â his plan for social reconstruction was much less pugilistic than LaFargeâs. 65 It was also a plan of centralization. As Lordâs plan evolved, he came to the conclusion that âyou canât fight atheists and Communists by showing them how wrong they are,â but rather how ârightâ the âCatholic solutionâ was for Americaâs social ills. 66 Entering into local slugfests with Earl Browder (1891â1973) and the cpusa was not a part of what Lord had in mind (Father Charles Edward Coughlin [1891â1979] and his âChristian Frontâ eventually would take up this role). 67 Lord described his plan as ânot [a] content program, but an approach and a method of distribution.â 68 Lordâs strategy, while not conciliatory to Communism, was socially distributive, much less contentious, and much more centralized than anything LaFarge and his allies were putting forward.
Lord was a formidable voice (and face) of Catholicism during the 1930s. The Queenâs Work devotional magazine had a circulation of about 100,000. Lordâs main vocation was dealing with Catholic youth. He travelled the country giving lectures, leading retreats, and leading youth prayer circles at sodality gatherings throughout the us. For the generation of Catholic youth growing up in 1930s, Lord was nearly a national icon. As a pamphleteer and speaker, he made deep inroads into the American Catholic youth consciousness.
Lordâs plan for fighting Communism, had its roots in the âecso,â a Chicago Jesuit plan generated the year before which stood for âEstablish a Christian Social Order.â This plan (sometimes referred to in Jesuit terminology simply as âxoâ) truly was more method than militancy. As Lord explained to his fellow Jesuits gathered in West Baden, his âmethodâ comprised three suppositions. First, that Communism was the most important crisis since the Reformation. Second, that Jesuit âcentersâ could step in and help the bishops with anti-Communist issues, and last, that the ecso was âa program,â and not a set of tactics. 69
LaFargeâs new United Front proposal threatened to upend Lordâs more broad-based program. Lord shied away from any notion that Communism was an âattackâ on Catholicism. In fact, Lordâs xo project called for dropping the words âCommunismâ and âanti-Communismâ altogether. In his effort to find âconstructiveâ and âoriginalâ impulses to fight Communism, Lord suggested that the North American Jesuits, âtake the positive stand without mentioning them [the Communists] by name.â 70
Perhaps unwittingly, in unnaming Communism, Lord was committing a political act. 71 By unnaming Communism, Lord was, as philologist R.J. Nelson has argued, stating a âtruth without reference.â 72 LaFargeâs newly proposed anti-Communist schema was also a reminder that Lordâs xo had defanged American Jesuit anti-Communism of its grounding in local, reactive measures of combat. By the end of the West Baden conference, the proponents of Daniel Lordâs xo plan held pat, while the âfrontistsâ came away believing that the âUnited frontâ action plan would offer the best prospects for defeating Communism in North America.
âThe matter is very complicated,â Lord explained to his fellow Jesuits, âand it will take lots of time to get up a program.â 73 Lordâs scheme, however, was also a program in search of centralization, and centralization was a concept many Jesuits felt comfortable in supporting. xo offered one thing that LaFargeâs contextual and responsive plan of combat did notâthe solace of being programmatic. Consequently, what emerged from West Baden was a move to centralize. This, of course, did not bode well for the LaFarge plan since, while their âfrontâ was united, it was also meant to meet the multitude of local Communist incursions as they arose. If centralization were adopted, LaFarge and his companions were likely to be eclipsed.
Centralization would make it difficult for them to âstrike singly,â as they marched together. Local responsive techniques would have to give way to larger centralized planning. On June 23, 1935, a resolution was passed to send a request to Superior General Ledóchowski in Rome for the Jesuits âto centralize and [â¦] form a permanent national Jesuit institute in America for social and economic research and for the popularization for this program.â 74 As LaFarge saw the mood at West Baden shift before his eyes, he made plans for one last intervention.
LaFarge argued that Lordâs resolution should go forward, but with one reservation. LaFarge was wary about North American Jesuits duplicating the Malines Social Code of 1927, a set of European social reconstructionist principles, which Paul Misner has observed failed to keep many Catholics from embracing fascism. 75 At West Baden, LaFarge argued presciently that the new program should âmeet the American set-up, and accord with [the] American mentality.â 76 Otherwise, LaFarge implied, the entire âset-upâ might implode, and American Jesuit anti-Communism would be neutered in place. The Jesuits ended their West Baden meeting just before midnight. They were excited to send their request to Rome.
Discarding âthe American set-upâ: The Rise of the Social Reconstructionism 1936â1939
While LaFarge waited for American Jesuit governance to move, he wasted no time in pressing forward with this concept of a United Front. In spring 1936, he convinced leaders âof over ten thousand high school and college students [to meet] in Washington d.c.â In opening their meeting, the students used radical language to explain their purpose: nothing less than to âlaunch a counter-revolutionâ against Communism. 77 Meeting at Georgetown University, under the nose of Edmund Walsh (who was not included in the program), LaFarge mobilized the local Jesuit sodality movement as they âmapped out a three-point program to block Communist advances in the United States.â 78 It was LaFarge who gave multiple addresses, spelling out precisely how to do this, urging Catholic youth to âabsolutely oppose the professional agitation of Communism, boycott the works of authors writing sympathetically on Communism, and appeal for support to the masses of the people.â 79 This was localized Jesuit counter-punching as LaFargeâs original plan envisioned. AÂ resolution of the conference, according to reports, was âto seek a united front of Catholics and non-Catholics to fight the âcommon foeâ of all Christians.â 80
In September 1936, LaFarge was invited to speak at âa meeting of several hundred Protestant clergy and laymen,â in Asheville, North Carolina, to do just that. As a keynote speaker and consultant to the conference, LaFarge urged the Protestant ministers to unify their ranks against the Communists. âCommunism is primarily a philosophy of life that denies manâs spiritual nature and destiny,â LaFarge warned the ministers, âbut it is also an organized movement, growing out of a complete philosophy of action.â 81 For LaFarge, the âdivided stateâ of the Protestant household militated against any prospects of concerted counter-action. Communism âincites and thrives on the dissention of its enemies.â 82 LaFarge counselled unity to his Protestant hosts while at the same time cautioning them not to adopt solely a reconstructionist program. âMere social reform,â he warned âwill not cure [â¦] the social discontent [â¦] left to fester among the millions of this country.â 83
By fall 1936, LaFarge was quickly becoming the Jesuits âman of actionâ against Communism. He was pronouncing on Communism like an expert and was organizing thousands of Catholic youth and hundreds of interdenominational ministers. The âUnited Frontâ student sodality conference on Communism must have stunned Walsh, particularly because it was a show of force on Walshâs home turf. By early December 1936, Walsh drew a line with LaFarge. He sent him a blunt letter, essentially dressing-down LaFarge for his âdirect attackâ program of anti-Communism. Walsh made clear âThat Communism should not only be fought by direct attack but indirectly, as well, by the constant advocacy [â¦] of civil society is beyond controversy.â 84 The rest of Walshâs four-page letter to LaFarge roundly argued for âthe constructive and affirmative aspects of our campaign,â citing reconstructionist plans such as the papal encyclical Quadragesimo anno and Archbishop Giuseppe Pizzardoâs (1877â1970) 1934 comments on the global program of Catholic Action. 85
Walshâs letter revealed his fear that United Front anti-Communist local counter-attack actions could be viewed by outsiders as blatant political engagement. Walsh made clear that âlocal application of such programs should be left to laymen.â 86 Walsh indicated that Jesuits could be involved in the training of lay leaders, but âit then becomes their obligation to reduce our common Catholic heritage to concrete application in whatever form local circumstances may suggest.â 87 Jesuits were not to play a part on the anti-Communist front lines.
Perhaps the primary worry for Walsh was that Jesuit priestly anti-Communist activity could lead to identification with then foremost priestly anti-Communist in the United States, Charles Edward Coughlin. In fall 1936, Coughlin redoubled his campaign against Communism, even going so far as to insinuate that Catholic groups or persons who criticized his style were openly aiding the Communists. 88 In addition, Coughlin was running a surrogate for president of the United States on the National Union for Social Justice ticket. âSerious consequences could easily result for the Society in the United States,â Walsh warned, if Jesuit leadership were to spearhead local anti-Communist agitation. The Society might be open to charges of colluding with Coughlin, or at least imitating his tactics. Presumably in connection with the abysmal showing of Coughlinâs candidate in the 1936 presidential election, Walsh wrote, âThe recent repudiation of Father Coughlin by the millions who supposedly were loyal followers is a case in point.â 89 Ironically, as LaFargeâs plan for a controlled, considered, and local United Front was being undercut by Walsh, Coughlin was beginning to create his own âChristian Front,â which would prove to be irresponsible, anti-Semitic, violent, and pro-fascist. Walsh was dead wrong in 1936 that Coughlin had been repudiated by millions. He still had millions more in his back pocket.
On the programmatic level, Walsh and his Jesuit colleague Raymond T. Feely (1895â1965) began putting a program in place to abrogate LaFargeâs United Front schema. William P. Leahyâs (1948â) important article on the American Jesuits and the social apostolate emphasizes the central role that Feely played in pushing Superior General Ledóchowski to examine the Lord plan. 90 Feely has been an understudied character in the history of the American Jesuits, but in 1936 he prepared a new proposal for Ledóchowski. While it was composed of both competing strainsâcombatant and social reconstruction conceptsâ Feely used Lordâs title, âxo â Plan of Action for the Establishment of a Christian Social Orderâ to headline the report. In opening his remarks, Feely let the Jesuit general know that there was a split in the way the North American Jesuits were proceeding. âThe plan of action against Atheism and Communism should proceed along a twofold front,â he reported. Without naming LaFargeâs United Front proposal, Feely explained that the âfirst frontâ was âdirect attack upon the organized movements of Communism and Atheism with a refutation of their errors.â 91 The second front was âthe Catholic answer to Communism [â¦] the positive proposal of a Christian social order.â 92 Feelyâs report tactfully melded both schemes, but over the course of its breadth, it clearly signaled that the âfirst frontâ approach should be eliminated.
Because Feely refused to even mention that LaFarge had a plan, while contending that the North American Jesuits were âsplit on two frontsâ about anti-Communism, he effectively thrust the conversation toward the reconstructionist solution. Readers of his report would know of no other option. They would have no idea that LaFarge and his allies also were proposing a comprehensive United Front plan. In the first pages of the report, Feely described the choices as stark: contentious direct action with no central planning or a cerebral and âpositive proposalâ utilizing the advantages of Catholic social teaching. Feely characterized the two fronts as ânegative and positive,â contrasting the frontists in a light which they did not perceive themselves. For the frontists, there was nothing ânegativeâ about facing down Communism. 93
After such introductory observations, the rest of Feelyâs ten-page report aligned with Lordâs social reconstruction agenda from the West Baden meeting. âThe entire plan,â Feely revealed to the Jesuit general, âis summed up in the official title of the movement [â¦], Establishment of a Christian Social Order.â The informal designation for this phrase was to be âxo,â which was also recommended as âthe popular designation of the Jesuit anti-Communist and social movement.â âxo,â then, was Jesuit anti-Communism. The term, however, did not mean direct action anti-Communism, but rather the âmovementâ for social reconstruction that was embedded in Lordâs plan for the establishment of a Christian social order. Feely informed the general, âJesuit social action will be referred to throughout this paper as âxo.ââ With this new designation LaFargeâs combatant agenda had been quashed, or at least subsumed into the larger plan of social action. In the end, Feely described xo to Ledóchowski as simply âa Catholic program of social justice.â 94 The unnaming of Jesuit anti-Communism was complete. 95 Soon, LaFargeâs plan would face another hurdle.
In 1937, Pope Pius xi seemed to broach both of Feelyâs fronts when he published his encyclical Divini redemptoris. The encyclical ranked as the Holy Seeâs strongest condemnation of Communism up to that time. One historian has even called it âa comprehensive exposé of the evils of this doctrine.â 96 Even so, some historians have viewed Divini redemptoris as more than simply another Catholic attack on Communism. In the final part of the encyclical, Pius suggested various remedies for Communism. He recommended that Catholic counter-action should not be comprised solely of counter-punching. Pius made an oblique denunciation of anti-Communist Catholic militancy as he rounded out his letter. Invoking the 1931 social encyclical Quadragesimo anno, Pius indicated that a social justice approach emphasizing poverty relief and the rights of the human person might be the best antidote to the scourge of Communism. 97 As Pius reshaped the fight against global Communism, LaFargeâs United Front plan seemed to be facing some serious obstacles.
Amid this backdrop, during summer 1938, LaFarge took his historic tour of Europe that many historians have viewed as being instrumental in shaping his views on fascism and Communism. At the same time, Ledóchowski had come to a conclusion about Feelyâs proposal for ecso. 98 A meeting between LaFarge and Ledóchowski was arranged, and it was in this meeting that the Jesuit superior unveiled his new plan for the North American social apostolate: the replication of the French Jesuit Action Populaire system in the United States. Action Populaire, a self-styled French Jesuit salon for the discussion of social questions, was to be transplanted to America.
For LaFarge, this news must have come as a tremendous blow. As Belgian theologian Roger Aubert has pointed out, Action Populaire and its impulses were grounded in the Malines Social Code of 1927. 99 In LaFargeâs eyes, it was not only the Social Codeâs inability to ward off fascism that worried him, but the fact that a European-style construction would now be forced upon North American Jesuits. Clearly, the Action Populaire schema went against his warning at West Baden that whatever the American Jesuits did, they should do it âin accord with the American mentality.â 100
Action Populaire was founded in 1903 by the Jesuit Henri-Joseph Leroy (1847â1917). By 1938, the group had a headquarters on the outskirts of Paris staffed by twelve Jesuits. These French Jesuits were not activists, particularly in the sense that LaFarge recommend at West Baden. For example, rather than fight Communism, their newsletter, Dossiers de lâAction populaire only âmonitored the growth of Communist influence in France.â 101 Its original mission was to act as âa Christian forum for the discussion of social questions.â 102 As the Popular Front in France mainstreamed Marxism after 1936, Action Populaire was to become the main information center, conference center, and study center of French social Catholicism. âLectures, literature, and counselingâ were to be the main ways in which Action Populaire was to âhelp others to act,â in accord with Catholic social teaching. 103 Under the leadership of Gustave Desbuquois, S.J. (1869â1959), who had worked bumptiously with LaFarge in composing the so-called âhidden encyclical,â Humani generis unitas, in 1938, the Action Populaire quickly moved out of Paris in 1940 and became co-opted by Vichy. Its attempt to ingratiate itself with Marshal Henri Pétainâs new nazi-influenced government would hardly be mentioned by North American Jesuits after World War ii.
Finally, after nearly three years, Ledóchowski formalized his directive for North America in a letter to the provincials in January 1939. At the time, Ledóchowski could not have predicted that Action Populaire in France would eventually veer toward fascism, but the Action Populaire construction was to become the model on which American Jesuit anti-Communism was to proceed. In his letter, Ledóchowski ordered the Americans to establish âa social center [â¦] located in the city of New York [â¦] for [â¦] the struggle against Communism.â 104 For LaFarge, this new model was inorganic, foreign, and certainly seemed to be imposed from the outside and from the top down. Yet LaFarge understood the channels of power within the Society of Jesus. In the same way that he was deferential to his superior general in his work writing Humani generis unitas, when it came to the Action Populaire suggestion, LaFarge equally conceded.
For American Jesuits after 1939, Ledóchowskiâs directive finally gave some clarity. Re-creating the French construct was difficult. In December 1940, John Delaney, S.J. (1906â56) founded the Institute for Social Order (iso). Delaney had a background in labor education and immediately folded his ideas on âlabor schoolsâ into the isoâs brand. Kimball Baker writes, âDelaney came to iso with an ambitious goal to found a labor school in every Jesuit parish and to link a labor school to every Jesuit high school and college.â 105 Consequently, in its first iteration, rather than replicating the French salon model, the iso would become the dominant mechanism in connecting Jesuit spirituality with American labor. The iso would struggle throughout the 1940s to truly identify its mission. It was reorganized in 1943 and again in 1947, both times receiving new national directors. âThe Institute is as yet inchoate,â wrote iso director Leo Brown, S.J. (1900â78) despondently to the Jesuit superior general Jean-Baptiste Janssens (1889â1964) as late as 1948. 106 âIt needs status, stimulus, support, and approbation.â 107 LaFargeâs warnings about adopting such a scheme had long faded.
Conceived in anti-Communism, the iso was in danger of trailing off into obscurity. Due to lack of impact, many American Jesuits thought the iso had been shuttered. âThere seems to be fairly widespread opinion,â an anonymous 1945 report indicated, âthat the Institute for Social Order has been disbanded [â¦].â 108 As hot war turned into the Cold War, the social reconstructionists could claim that they had won the battle over local, direct action as laid out in LaFargeâs shelved United Front plan of 1936. However, the mechanism for effecting social reconstruction was in serious need of repair. A post-war committee was called together to âmake a systematic study of the Institute for Social Order,â and noted that their first priority was to figure out precisely what âthe appropriate objectives of the Institute for Social Order [were].â 109
In 1946, Leo C. Brown wrote an urgent letter to his provincial. Brown, a forty-six-year-old labor priest with a Harvard PhD, was an associate professor of economics at St. Louis University. Through his work with labor unions in St. Louis, Brown came to observe the activities of Communists at the local level. Writing to his provincial, he remarked, âI have slowly come to the definite conclusion that if Communism is to be contested, we must meet it by organization and action.â 110 In many ways, Brown, a social reconstructionist who would become the director of the iso in 1947, was channeling the exact sentiments of LaFarge when he laid out his United Front plan for counter-attacking local Communists in 1936. The struggle between the frontists and the social reconstructionists had carried on, under the surface and under different names, for more than ten years.
Conclusion
During the first days of June 1938, LaFarge found himself in Budapest, Hungary, attending the Thirty-Fourth International Eucharistic Congress. The opening assembly of the congress was presided over by Eugenio Pacelli, the secretary of state of the Holy See, and president of the congress. 111 Pacelliâs address in Heroâs Square must have bowled-over LaFarge. His ninety-minute speech encouraged European nations to create âa United Christian Frontâ against Communism. âCardinal Pacelli Urges United Christian Front to Fight Foes of Church,â would be the headline emerging from his presidential address. Speaking from the heart of Europe, Pacelli called for âheroic measuresâ to be taken on behalf of the church, which was âfaced by a Godless array which opposes the Christian creed.â Pacelli urged that âthreatened by atheistic Communism, all nations should unite [â¦] to combat the spread of Communism.â âThe militant Godless,â he warned, âare face to face with us [â¦] shaking the clenched fist of [the] anti-Christ against everything we hold most sacred.â 112 This was precisely the sort of âface to faceâ battle LaFarge had proposed two years before with his own United Front proposal. It was the same de-centralized, âface-to-face battleâ that would prompt him to meet with DeWitt Clinton Poole in 1942.
A few days after leaving Budapest, LaFarge was in Rome, where he had his own face-to-face meeting with Ledóchowski. It was at this meeting that Ledóchowski pushed and âwas anxious I [LaFarge] should contact Action Populaire in Paris, and do some investigating there.â 113 The generalâs push did not get much more than a mention. It is unclear whether or not LaFarge followed up on the suggestion. âI had already visited the a.p.,â he wrote curtly.
Speaking at a testimonial dinner for him at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1952, LaFarge said that he felt very hurt when a colleague once described him as âa champion of lost causes.â 114 In connection to his United Front against Communism, historians have had no inkling that it ever was a cause for LaFarge, much less a lost one. If it were a lost cause, it was one which Pacelli, after being elected Pope Pius xii (r.1939â58), implemented robustly during the early Cold War. As he reflected on what it meant to be a âchampion of lost causesâ to his Waldorf-Astoria audience, âthe way in which he said it,â religion scholar Debra Campbell has observed, âsignaled to the audience that he knew that the causes so dear to his heart could no longer be dismissed as lost.â 115
John LaFarge, âAnd What of de Gaulle?â America 71, no. 5 (1944): 124â25, here 125.
Interoffice memo, T/3 to Dewitt C. Poole, May 5, 1944, microfiche, int-12fr-807, Foreign Nationalities Branch Files, u.s. Office of Strategic Services (Bethesda, md: University Publications of America, 1988). The writer of the memo was astonished by LaFargeâs remarks because o.s.s. contacts with the Dominican order had âshown strong pro-Gaullist trends,â but LaFargeâs synthesis was âthe first such reaction from Jesuit quarters.â
Dewitt C. Poole quoted in Regin Schmidt, Red Scare: fbi and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919â1943 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000), 78.
"Red Party in u.s. Linked to Moscow, Browder Admits," news clipping, box 15, folder 9, Earl Russell Browder file, John LaFarge papers, Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Washington d.c. This is a quote from Earl Browder.
John LaFarge, S.J., âCommunism and the Russian Mind,â Thought 12, no. 1 (1937): 196â210, here 196.
P. to John C. Wiley, October 28, 1942, Foreign Nationalities Branch Files, u.s. Office of Strategic Services.
Southern quoted in Patrick McNamara, A Catholic Cold War: Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., and the Politics of American Anticommunism (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 101.
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., The American Jesuits: A History (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 123; Debra Campbell, ââThe Story Is What Saves Usâ: American Catholic Memoirs,â in The Catholic Studies Reader, ed. James T. Fisher and Margaret M. McGuinness (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 27; Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and u.s. Foreign Affairs, 1935â1960 (Chapel Hill, nc: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 46; of course, the major scholarly biography of LaFarge is connected to his work on interracial relations. See David W. Southern, John LaFarge and the Limits of Catholic Interracialism, 1911â1963 (Baton Rouge, la: Louisiana State University Press, 1996).
Robert A. Rosenbaum, Waking to Danger: Americans and Nazi Germany, 1933â1941 (Santa Barbara, ca: Praeger, 2010), 95.
David W. Southern mentions LaFargeâs âChristian Frontâ concept in footnotes, while highlighting only the race relations implications of LaFargeâs new framework. The ominous âChristian Frontâ wording was an outgrowth in 1936 of LaFargeâs original plan that he termed the âUnited Front.â See Southern, John LaFarge, 215n2, 215n3.
Charles Shipman, It Had to Be Revolution: Memoirs of an American Radical (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1993), x.
See for example William P. Leahy, S.J.âs seminal article âAmerican Jesuits and the Social Apostolate: The Origins and Early Years of the Institute of Social Order,â Mid-America: An Historical Review 73, no. 3 (1991): 227â41.
Ibid, 234â36; Leahy chronicles the level of acceptance and non-acceptance of the âxoâ program, but without mentioning that LaFargeâs United Front as the catalyst for the new Jesuit tug of war.
Anonymous author, report "The Call of Jesuits to Social Order," folder Institute of Social Order â history 1934 (from earliest days) â Author ?, [1], Institute for Social Order collection, bin 660, Jesuit Archives: Central United States, St. Louis, mo (hereafter cited as ja:cus).
Gerd-Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism, and Contingency in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 156.
Anonymous, report "The Call of Jesuits to Social Order," ja:cus.
On the Popular Front see, Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850â2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 263.
Anonymous, "Call of Jesuits to Social Order," [1], ja:cus.
Ibid., [6].
Ibid., [3].
Ibid., [6].
Ibid., [3].
WÅodzimierz Ledóchowski, April 27, 1934, âOn the Need of Vigorously Opposing Modern Atheismâ in Selected Writings of Father Ledóchowski (Chicago: Loyola University Press for the American Assistancy of the Society of Jesus 1945), 601. Emphasis original.
On this see, âatheistic Communism,â paragraph eleven, in the twenty-ninth decree of the twenty-eighth general congregation, Acta Romana Societatis Jesu (Rome: Jesuit Curia, 1938), 9.
Ledóchowski, âOn the Need,â 603.
In essence, a front is the foremost line, or part of an armed force. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the u.s. Military, s.v. âfront,â accessed April 4, 2017, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199891580.001.0001/acref-9780199891580-e-3214.
The French Jesuit theologian Joseph de Guibert (1877â1942) struggled mightily with the idea that Ignatian spirituality was âmilitaristic.â Having lived in France during World War i, and composing his monumental work on Ignatian spirituality as war clouds gathered once again over Europe, de Guibert concluded that âthere is nothing less militaristic, Ânothing less reminiscent of the drill sergeant, then [sic] the spirituality of Ignatius.â The spirituality of Ignatius âwas not a spirituality of the battlefield,â de Guibert insisted, and the only combat Ignatius admitted was âspiritual combat.â See: Joseph de Guibert, S.J., The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, trans. William J. Young, S.J., ed. George E. Ganss, S.J. (Chicago: Institute of Jesuit Sources and Loyola University Press, 1964), 172â73.
William V. Hudon, ed., Theatine Spirituality: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 54.
Ibid., 46.
Pierre Janelle, The Catholic Reformation, ed. Joseph Husslein (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1949), 320.
Patrick McNamara provides an excellent summary of this spirituality in his subchapter on the Jesuit Edmund A. Walsh, âThe Two Standards: Ignatian Spirituality as a Factor in Walshâs Anti-Communism,â in McNamara, Catholic Cold War, 96â98.
Peter McDonough, Men Astutely Trained: A History of the Jesuits in the American Century (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 149.
Ibid.
Ibid., 148.
Ibid.
Anonymous, report "The Call of Jesuits to Social Order," folder Institute of Social Order â history 1934 (from earliest days) â Author?, [2], Institute for Social Order collection, bin 660, ja:cus.
Ibid, [3].
Giuliana Chamedes, âThe Vatican, Nazi Fascism, and the Making of Transnational Anti-Communism in the 1930s,â Journal of Contemporary History 51, no 2 (2015): 261â90, here 269.
Ibid., 267.
Joseph A. Vaughan, S.J., The Communistic Crisis (Los Angeles, 1934), pamphlet, box 1, Raymond T. Feely Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, [6].
Ibid.
Michael F. Engh, S.J., âJust Ones, Past and Present,â in The Just One Justices: The Role of Justice at the Heart of Catholic Higher Education, ed. Mary K. McCullough (Scranton, pa: The University of Scranton Press, 2000), 25.
Ronald E. Powaski, The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917â1991 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 36.
Joseph A. Vaughan, S.J., The Communistic Crisis (Huntington, in: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1934), 1; Vaughan pamphlet 04â18536, Liturgy and Life Collection, John J. Burns Library, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, ma.
Ibid.
Donald W. Southern, in his excellent biography of John LaFarge, writes about the 1935 meeting at West Baden, but omits LaFargeâs âUnited frontâ plan. While Southern refers to LaFarge as a âmilitant anti-Communist,â he does not see this meeting as a tussle between two competing visions of North American Jesuit anti-Communism, as I do here. Apropos to his study, Southern concentrated on LaFargeâs interventions regarding work with African-Americans and African-American Catholics. See Southern, John LaFarge, 217â20.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, folder Communism, Institute for Social Order Collection, bin 661, ja:cus.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid. In the early 1930s, us Army Chief of Staff Douglas A. MacArthur extended US Army Military Intelligence Division surveillance to the Civilian Conservation Corps while Âmaintaining contacts with the American Legion. ccc camps were administered by the us Army. See Shelton Stromquist, Laborâs Cold War: Local Politics in a Global Context Â(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 24.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, ja:cus. Emphasis original. The secretary at West Baden, was Father ÂMartin Carrabine, S.J.â (1894â1965), who directed Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action from 1934 to 1953.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., [7].
Ibid., [4].
Ibid., [3].
Ibid., [4].
Ibid., [3].
Walsh quoted in Thomas R. Maddux, Years of Estrangement: American Relations with the Soviet Union, 1933â1941 (Tallahassee, fl: University Presses of Florida, 1980), 24.
Husslein quoted in Stephen A. Werner, Prophet of the Christian Social Manifesto: Joseph Husslein, S.J.: His Life, Work & Social Thought (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 12.
Husslein quoted in Thomas E. Woods Jr., The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 146.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, [4], ja:cus.
Ibid. Emphasis original.
Husslein quoted in Werner, Prophet of the Christian Social Manifesto, 128n23.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, [9], ja:cus.
âAn Integrated Plan for Social Order,â pamphlet, n.d., folder Institute for Social Order Meeting Minutes 003, bin 660, ja:cus.
Enlightening in this respect is a seventeen-page report housed in Browderâs papers at Syracuse University. âThe Christian Front,â the report indicates, âwas organized by Father Coughlin in New York in August 1938 [⦠as a â¦] necessary crusade against the anti-Christian forces of the Red Revolution. The Christian Front was formed to counteract the Communist Popular Front.â See The Christian Front: Origin and Purpose, n.d., Earl R. Browder papers, box 9, correspondence subject file, The Christian Front, 1938â1940, Earl Browder papers, Syracuse University Library, Department of Special Collections, Syracuse, New York.
âAn Integrated Plan for Social Order,â [4], ja:cus.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, [5], ja:cus.
Ibid., [9].
On the politics of unnaming, see Jonathan E. Abel, Redacted: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan, Asia Pacific Modern 11 (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 2012), 226.
R.J. Nelson, Naming and Reference: The Link of Word to Object (New York: Routledge, 1992), 89.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, ja:cus.
Ibid., [7].
Paul Misner, Catholic Labor Movements in Europe: Social Thought and Action, 1914â1965 (Washington, dc: Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 225.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, [4], aj:cus.
âSodality Votes to Make Drive Upon Radicals,â The Washington Post, April 5, 1936, X8.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
LaFarge quoted in âChristian Front to Combat Communism,â America 55, no. 22 (1936): 508â10, here 508.
Bishop William J. Hafey quoted in ibid., 509.
Ibid., 510.
Edmund A. Walsh to Rev. J. LaFarge, December 2, 1936, [1], John LaFarge papers, box 20, folder 9, Edmund A. Walsh, 1934â1936, Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Washington d.c.
Ibid., [2].
Ibid., [1].
Ibid. Emphasis original.
See Coughlinâs campaign of defamation against the Catholic Laymenâs League in George Seldes, The Catholic Crisis (New York: Julian Messner, 1945), 122.
Edmund A. Walsh to Rev. J. LaFarge, December 2, 1936, [2].
Leahy, âAmerican Jesuits,â 236.
All quotes are taken from report, âxo â Plan of Action for the Establishment of a Christian Social Order through Jesuit Activity,â n.d., box 6, Raymond T. Feely Papers, Hoover Institution Archives.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Foucault called âunnamingâ an act of âcreative disordering.â See Barry Smart, Michel Foucault: Critical Assessments (New York: Routledge, 1994), 30.
Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall, trans. and eds., Church and State through the Centuries: A Collection of Historic Documents with Commentaries (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1967), 542.
On this see, Jonathan P. Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: Americaâs Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 56; and Charles E. Curran, Catholic Social Teaching, 1891âPresent: A Historical, Theological, and Ethical Analysis, Moral Traditions Series (Washington, dc: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 72.
It is unclear who influenced Ledóchowski to choose this particular construction to meet the severe social requirements of the US economic system. Leahy suggests that Father Raymond Feely, S.J. may have beaten LaFarge to Europe and proposed the idea himself. The twenty-eighth general congregation of the Jesuits was meeting in Rome in 1938. Whatever the case, âan American Action Populaire,â was the exact opposite of what LaFarge had recommended for the American scene years earlier. On this see Leahy, âAmerican Jesuits,â 237.
Roger Aubert, Catholic Social Teaching: An Historical Perspective (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2003), 220.
Minutes of the Chicago-Missouri Province Meeting on Communism and Atheism, June 22 to 26, 1935, [4], ja:cus.
David Curtis, âTrue and False Modernity: Catholicism and Communist Marxism in 1930s France,â in Catholicism, Politics, and Society in Twentieth-Century France, ed. Kay Chadwick (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 74.
W.D. Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France (Oxford: Berg, 1995), 242.
Aubert, Catholic Social Teaching, 151.
Ledóchowski quoted in J.P. Fitzpatrick, âNew Directions in the Social Apostolate,â Woodstock Letters 88 (1959): 119â20.
Kimball Baker, âGo to the Workerâ: Americaâs Labor Apostles (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2010), 230â31.
Leo C. Brown, S.J. to Joannes B. Janssens, S.J., July 25, 1948, folder: correspondence, 1948â1950, Institute of Social Order Collection, bin 664, ja:cus.
Ibid.
âInstitute of Social Order,â anonymous report, n.d., âBrown?â in marginalia, folder correspondence, 1948â1950, Institute of Social Order Collection, bin 664, ja:cus.
Ibid. iso disorganization and mission confusion is noticed by Schroth in The American Jesuits, 125.
Interoffice Memo, Leo C. Brown, S.J. to Joseph P. Zuercher, S.J., January 14, 1946, folder iso correspondence, 1946â1947, Institute of Social Order Collection, bin 664, ja:cus.
Deborah S. Cornelius, Hungary in World War ii: Caught in the Cauldron (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 66.
Zsolt Aradi, âCardinal Pacelli Urges United Christian Front to Fight Foes of Church,â The Guardian, June 3, 1938, from Newspaper Archive of Arkansas Catholic, scan of newspaper, accessed April 17, 2017, http://arc.stparchive.com/Archive/ARC/ARC06031938p05.php.
LaFarge personal notes dated June 8, 1938, John LaFarge papers, box 38, folder 3, Correspondence and Notes from Europe, 1938 file, Georgetown University Library Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Washington d.c.
Debra Campbell, âThe Story Is What Saves Us: American Catholic Memoirs,â in The Catholic Studies Reader, ed. James T. Fisher and Margaret M. McGuinness (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 27.
Ibid.
