Henry Somerville, prolific Catholic journalist during the middle of the 20th century, produced this survey of the Catholic Social Movement in order to chronicle the then-ongoing response of Catholic moral philosophers and social and political activists to the social challenges posed both by the industrial revolution and the socialist/Marxist response that it provoked. This text, having been written in 1933 during the busy heyday of the Catholic Social Movement, provides a “primary-source” immediacy that cannot be achieved by historical retrospectives written years later. It offers an inspiring and eye-opening account of the long and busy tradition of Catholic social and political action in the face of growing hostility to natural, sane, traditional, and spiritual modes of living that were characteristic of the time before the industrial revolution caused the upheaval of American and European lifestyles.
Introduction —Paul Misner, Ph.D.
Author’s Introduction
I. Early Catholic Opposition To Capitalist Individualism
II. A Contrast In France: Ozanam And Marx
III. A Conjunction In Germany: Ketteler And Lassalle
IV. Catholic Leadership Of German Social Legislation
V. Catholic Social Organization In Germany
VI. Advanced Thought In Austria
VII. The Catholic Party In Holland
VIII. Belgium’s Agricultural Guilds
IX. Belgium’s Youth Crusade
X. The Mystery Of France
XI. Christian Trade Unionism