Religion: For Christian Workers

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The great churches of the U. S. have long been on record in favor of labor unions. But only a tiny minority of ministers and priests frequent picket lines. Last week labor unions loomed large among matters discussed at a Catholic Conference on Industrial Problems in Detroit. One of the great U. S. Catholic leaders, Detroit's Archbishop Edward Mooney, warned the conferees that "religious leaders in the present struggle between Americanism and Communism for the control of labor . . . [must] make Christian principles articulate" or "they will have to share their responsibility in the debacle that ensues."

Next day, to make his own principles articulate, Archbishop Mooney summoned all the 542 priests of his archdiocese—including one whose parish work is something of a side line, and whose love for labor is not great, Rev. Charles Edward ("Silo Charlie"*) Coughlin. As a starter in helping "Christian workers to train themselves in principle and technique to assume the leadership in the unions which their numbers justify," Archbishop Mooney proposed founding parish labor schools. Such schools, he said, might "sift the good from the bad in labor proposals, and be the defenders of sound, constructive union activity against . . . Communistic agitation."