The CCF and the Canadian Catholic Church: a decade of struggle to accommodation.

This is the second article on the history of Cardinal James McGuigan (1894-1974). The first instalment--the Cardinal's life--appeared in November 2003, pp. 36-39, 41--Editor

In response to that terrible capitalist crisis, the Great Depression, two remarkable documents appeared. The first, Quadragesimo Anno, coming from the Vatican in 1931, had profound international repercussions. The other, the Regina Manifesto, coming from the CCF two years later, had profound Canadian consequences. These documents provoked a decade-long struggle for accommodation between the Canadian Catholic Church and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). This process led to the modification of the CCF's political philosophy and revealed a theological spilt between the Church in Quebec and the Church in the rest of the country.

The depression

The Great Depression is traditionally marked by the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. That day, a record 12,894,650 shares traded. The Depression would last a decade and have terrible consequences throughout the industrialized world. In the USA, almost half the banks collapsed, stock prices declined by 80 per cent and unemployment approached 30 per cent. Europe, having large debts with America from the First World War, soon followed into the abyss. Economic hardship especially affected Germany and Great Britain.

Canada, a major exporter of raw products, also suffered severely. Moreover, the prairie provinces were simultaneously affected by a severe drought and collapsing wheat prices. By the mid-thirties, sixty-six percent of Saskatchewan's rural population was on welfare and the provincial income fell by 90 per cent! While Alberta and Manitoba were not quite so desperate, all three provinces were technically bankrupt and tens of thousands of farmers were ruined. This worldwide economic tragedy strengthened the Communists and Fascists in industrialized nations. The Marxists became prominent in fighting for the unemployed and the Fascists established national building programs to get their economies moving.

Pope Pius XI 

Reacting to this threat from the godless, and the failure of the capitalist system to solve the crisis, Pope Pius XI (who reigned from 1921 to 1938) issued his social encyclical Quadragesimo anno (Forty years ago) in 1931. This memorialized the 40th anniversary of the original encyclical on social teaching, Rerum Novarum (Of new things), issued by Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum was to earn Leo the title "the workers' pope," because by stating that workers have the right to form unions, he offended the entrepreneurial classes of his day, which also included some wealthy Catholics.

Quadragesimo Anno, like Rerum Novarum, attacked both capitalism and socialism in trying to blaze a third path between the two "isms." Capitalism, for example, had changed for the worse in the intervening four decades. Giant corporations which now controlled the market had lost personal contact with their workers whom they were forcing to work under inhumane conditions. Corporations even tried to take over national governments, all in the name of profit. Pius explained the process, saying: "First, there is the struggle for dictatorship in the economic sphere itself; then, the fierce battle to acquire control of the state. ... Finally, the clash between states themselves." The pope, similarly to Lenin, had concluded that imperialism leads to war.

However, Pius also felt socialism had changed for the worse. Lenin's triumph, and the establishment of the first Communist state in Russia in 1917, horrified both the Church and the Western bourgeois democracies. But there was another form of socialism: moderate or democratic socialism. Unlike the Marxists, the democratic socialists did not seek the violent overthrow of the state. Instead, they planned to come to power through the ballot box. They did not stand for the absolute abolition of private property, but, rather, wanted a planned economy. The Pope even admitted that their social programs did "strikingly approach the just demands of Christian social reforms."

Also, unlike Communism, moderate socialism did not see itself as opposing Christianity. Yet the Pope rejected it, not being able to take moderate socialism at face value. He was sure that given power the moderate socialists would soon revert to Communism. In other words, like a leopard, socialism could not change its spots. Ironically, Pius was in agreement with the Communists on this because Stalin had also condemned democratic socialism in 1928, as the greatest enemy of the Communist International.

Although he fully rejected socialism, Pius, showing the basic conservative slant of the Vatican, did not fully condemn capitalism. He wanted to reform it. The Pope stated that the Depression was essentially a moral or spiritual crisis, and felt a re-Christianisation of society was necessary to correct the evil. He hoped to accomplish his purpose by demanding that governments limit the power of corporations and plan the economy for the common good. This was the basis of his "third way", to humanize capitalism.

The Canadian Commonwealth Federation

In 1933 the Canadian Commonwealth Federation (CCF) released its manifesto in Regina, SK. This Regina Manifesto summarized, moderated, and clarified what the party had discussed the previous year in Calgary. This meeting was held during the depth of the Great Depression. That things would never be so bad, was not obvious at the time. The document, with its provocative title, reminding some of the earlier Communist Manifesto, seemed very radical. It stated,

"We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supercede unregulated private enterprise and in which genuine democratic self-government, based on economic equality, will be possible."

The idea of private property, however, caused difficulties, especially between the moderates and the British Columbia radicals. Therefore, the party did not clearly define it.

The party did clearly define how it would come to power, not by revolution, but by constitutional methods; i.e., elections. Also the Manifesto did not advocate a highly centralised bureaucracy. There was to be an idealistic distribution of power throughout the whole Dominion. The program, which reflected both the interests of city workers and farmers, emphasised cooperatives, as did Nova Scotia's Catholic Antigonish Movement.

The CCF also demanded now well-accepted plans such as insurance for crops, health, unemployment, accidents, and old age. Unfortunately, these westerners did not recognize the unique character of Quebec. To them the Quebecois were just another non-English group, waiting to be assimilated. The CCF's Protestant idealism, derived from its roots in the Social Gospel, also alienated the party from people in Quebec.

So despite similarities to the Papal document, the CCF's calling itself socialist, the plan to eliminate capitalism, and its vagueness on private property alienated it from much of the Catholic Church, while the failure to recognize Quebec as a founding nation further alienated it from the French province.

Quebec's reaction

Quebec was the first to react against the new party. Almost six months before the Manifesto was released in the summer of 1933, the head of the new party, J.S. Woodsworth, MP for Winnipeg North Centre, made a speech in Parliament outlining its proposals. This resulted in a report issued in March 1933 by a committee of Quebec clerics who asked Father Georges-Henri Levesque to write it. He condemned the party, fearing that it would raise the horrors of class warfare, that its approach was essentially materialistic, and that it opposed private property.

The report erred in the first charge. The CCF did not believe in class warfare. It recognized class conflict, such as between workers and employers, but the party wanted to solve this by democratic means. The Pope too, had recognized that class conflict existed, and had recommended cooperation as the solution, which was also what the CCF recommended.

The second point was in error also. One major root of the CCF was the Social Gospel. Also, many of the party's supporters were members of the recently formed United Church of Canada, and some prominent leaders were, or had been, ministers, who like Woodsworth, had left the pulpit in protest against their congregations which were under the control of the middle class who ignored the poor. Of course, these Protestant roots were likely an unspoken reason for the committee's rejection of the party, but they mentioned only materialism, not Protestantism.

(The Social Gospel was an attempt to apply Christianity to the collective ills of Canada. It was prominent from the 1890s to the 1930s. Although Protestant, it had much in common with Quadragesimo Anno).

As for the last contention--that the party opposed private property--Levesque had a point. The CCF had as yet no definite position on private property. This was because there was still conflict between the majority, including rural supporters favouring limited private property, and more radical elements who wanted to nationalise even farmland, as it was a "means of production". This was the point that more than any other would delay a settlement between the Catholic Church and the CCF.

Catholic support and condemnation

Shortly after the release of the Manifesto in July 1933, Murray Ballantyne, editor of the Montreal Catholic weekly paper The Beacon, came out in support of the new party. This signalled a split between French and English Catholics. His editorial followed the open approach of the British Labour Party which had been formed in 1906. It had gained power in the 1920s and was now part of the national coalition. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour party, was a practising Christian. The Labourites also had the support of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Francis Bourne. Bourne had stated that the party was a "bulwark of Christianity." Analyzing the political groups, Bourne said that the Conservatives were intimately linked with the Church of England, the Liberals had tried to permanently damage Christian education, and, while there were Marxist elements in the Labour Party, the faithful could defend the Catholic principles in it, as they had in the two old-line parties. He did not believe that Quadragesimo Anno was applicable to the Labourites as it was to the Marxist labour parties on the European continent.

Ballantyne's defence, backed up by Toronto's Catholic Register under editor Henry Somerville, provoked a Quebec response that many Catholics thought was now the official position of the Church. In February 1934 the Archbishop of Montreal, Georges Gauthier, issued a pastoral letter condemning the CCF on the grounds mentioned in the Levesque Report; i.e., its potential for class warfare, its alleged materialistic basis, and its failure to support private property. Many ordinary Catholics, not realizing that Gauthier's pastoral applied only to his archdiocese, took this to heart. In reality, a split had developed between the Quebec bishops and the other Canadian prelates, as symbolized by the difference in the interpretation of the word "socialism" in the French and English minds.

Saskatchewan

The fight for recognition of the CCF by the Church continued, erupting next in the Archdiocese of Regina, that depression-stricken area. The CCF had started attracting Catholic votes despite the traditional Catholic loyalty to the Liberal Party. The Liberals had defended the Catholics against the Tories, who had shamelessly won the 1929 election with the help of the anti-Catholic Orange Order and that racist American import, the Ku Klux Klan.

In May 1934, an incident at Notre Dame College in Wilcox, SK, led to an accommodation between the Archbishop of Regina, James C. McGuigan, and the provincial CCF leader, M.J. Coldwell. The rector of Notre Dame College, Father J. Athol Murray, had expelled two students for joining the CCF. The Archbishop chastised his priest, fearing a return of the anti-Catholic bigotry of 1929. He told him, "... I have written to Mr. Coldwell and ... have explained my complete neutrality in political matters. ... You must not under any consideration take any action or make any statement that might further complicate the delicate situation that has been caused." Thus the matter came to a satisfactory solution, with Murray silenced and Coldwell reassured.

McGuigan in Toronto

When Archbishop McGuigan transferred to Toronto in 1935, he met the editor of the Catholic Register, Henry Somerville. Somerville had been defending the CCF along with his Montreal colleague, Murray Ballantyne. These two men, who would influence their respective archbishops, were a contrast. Somerville, born to a working-class family in England, had become interested in Rerum Novarum and Catholic participation in the new Labour Party. Due to a grant, he attended Ruskin College at Oxford where he received a diploma in Labour Studies with distinction. In 1913 the Archbishop of Toronto, Neil McNeil, invited Somerville to Toronto to help him work on social problems. Somerville quickly moved to the Catholic Register where he tried to educate both the laity and clergy with his "Life and Labour" column. After returning from some years in England, he continued this column under McNeil's successor, James McGuigan.

Ballantyne, on the other hand, was born to a well-to-do middle class family in Montreal. His father had been a cabinet minister in Borden's time and became a senator. After his conversion to Catholicism, the younger Ballanryne, like Somerville, became interested in the papal encyclicals and when he became editor of the Beacon, tried to influence the Quebecois, but initially did not get the same reception as Somerville in Toronto. He had to wait for the death of Gauthier and his replacement by Joseph Charbonneau before he received his Archbishop's ear.

Meanwhile, French Canada continued to condemn the party. For example, in 1933 the Archbishop of Quebec, Cardinal Jean-Marie-Rodrique Villeneuve, stated that one could not be both a Catholic and a socialist. He repeated this warning periodically. Meanwhile, the papal nuncio, Ildebrando Antoniuitti, became concerned by the continuing division in the Church. Therefore, in 1938 he wrote the Ontario bishops. McGuigan answered him, stating, "Considering the evils of the existing social order, ... we could not possibly condemn this political party ... " The Archbishop of Toronto suggested "a committee of expert representatives of various sections of the country" be formed. It would be over five years before anything would be done.

In the meantime, the CCF was growing with experience and becoming more moderate. Simultaneously, its popularity increased. During the Second World War its share of votes in federal elections doubled from 8% to 16%. The party also shook off the attempts by the Communist Party to penetrate it.

In the 1930s, the CCF had fought for civil rights, even those of the outlawed Communist Party. Because of this, they tended to be tarred with the Communist brush. Not only were they condemned for these actions but also for radical statements from party members in British Columbia. However, the tide turned with the Second World War alliance with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. That made Marxists acceptable at war gatherings. This also made the CCF more acceptable. For example in 1942, the CCF won the seat sought by former prime minister Arthur Meighen. The party was on the move and ahead of the Conservatives in the polls.

These developments led Murray Ballantyne to write the new Archbishop of Montreal, Joseph Charbonneau, in October 1942, criticizing his predecessor's pastoral against the CCF. Ballantyne pointed out that doctrinaire socialism had "to some extent been abated by experience" and that the party "is perhaps even capable of being made our strongest defence against Communism." After a Quebec committee again dismissed the CCF, Ballantyne wrote Charbonneau again. The Archbishop asked the editor to arrange a meeting with the new national CCF leader, M.J. Coldwell. They met in Ballantyne's home. The lunch went off very well and no major point of disagreement was found. Coldwell made it clear that Catholic participation would be welcome in the party.

Ontario's election in June 1943 represented the first chance the democratic socialists had of forming a government. They lost by a narrow margin to the Tories, who then began several decades of rule. This, and the Montreal meeting, finally got the Church to reexamine the party more closely.

On October 20, 1943, a report by a committee of bishops made up of McGuigan, Charbonneau and Francis Carroll, bishop of Calgary, was released. It concluded that "the faithful are free to support any political party upholding the basic Christian traditions of Canada and favouring needed reforms. ..."

The document continued with a condemnation of Communism as "Revolutionary Socialism which is materialistic in its philosophy, which denies the right of private property, and (concentrates) all economic as well as political power in the State. ..."

Nowhere was the CCF mentioned. Therefore, Somerville and Ballantyne, after consulting with McGuigan and submitting the draft of an editorial to Charbonneau and Villeneuve, released the bishops' declaration, along with an editorial interpreting it as favouring the CCF. This appeared in the Catholic Register, Le Devoir, and L 'Action Catholique. The Globe and Mail followed the Register's lead, headlining "Bishops Permit Catholics to Vote for the CCF Party."

This interpretation released a storm of protest. Many Catholics were caught off guard by the apparent change of policy, and it is reported that important and upset representatives of businesses and politics visited both McGuigan and Villeneuve. Unfortunately, at this time, the CCF leader in B.C., Harold Winch, made several inflammatory speeches that showed the provincial party was not in accord with Coldwell, or the Church. Apparently this doctrinaire socialist did not want Catholics in the party.

This led McGuigan to agonize (as he tended to) over the declaration. In December 1943, he issued a statement that private property was necessary for democracy. M.J. Coldwell, now apparently fuming over Winch, assured the Archbishop that the CCF did indeed stand for private property. The next year, however, all this became academic when the CCF became the first socialist government in North America. It won the Saskatchewan provincial election with the support of many Catholics.

The accommodation between the CCF and the Catholic Church had taken a decade. During that time Quebec constantly fought against any change, while the English Canadian prelates tried not to drive the party to despair. Simultaneously, the two Catholic editors attempted to bring about a compromise. The CCF also helped its case. Learning from experience, it modified its radical stand, fought off Communist penetration, and tried to reduce the damage caused by the extreme leftists.

Strangely, however, the allowance of the Catholic vote did not benefit the party much after Saskatchewan. Renewed anti-Communist feelings following the defeat of Nazis saw the party's popular vote plummet. The CCF eventually had to seek the support of the Canadian Federation of Labour and reconstitute itself in 1960 as the NDP (New Democratic Party). In the meantime, Charbonneau was sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. This was because of conflicts with the authoritarian premier of Quebec, Maurice Duplessis. Stripped of his Archbishopric by the Vatican, he bitterly exiled himself to Victoria, B.C. The accommodation of the CCF had succeeded, but some of the after results were indeed strange.

Bibliography

Ballantyne, Murray G. "The Catholic Church and the CCF," The Canadian Catholic Historical Association: Study Sessions, Toronto, 1963. Toronto, pp. 33-45.

Beck, Jeanne R. "Contrasting Approaches to Social Action: Henry Somerville, the Educator, and Catherine de Hueck, the Activist," in Catholics at the "Gathering Place" ; Historical Essays on the Archdiocese of Toronto, 1841-1991. Mark George McGowan and Brian F. Clark, editors. Toronto. The Canadian Catholic Historical Association. 1993.

Baum, Gregory. Catholics and Canadian Socialism: Political Thought in the Thirties and Forties. Toronto, James Lorimer & Company, 1980.

McGuigan, Peter T. James Cardinal McGuigan, Tormented Prince of the Church. MA diss. Halifax N.S. Saint Mary's University, 1995.

Baum, Gregory, Letter to the author, Feb. 2000.

Keyserlingk, Robert, Letter to the author, 10 July 2000.