| Abstrakt: |
This article focuses on the socialization of the Catholic church. Henry Ward Beecher represented church interest in politics long before 1875. Before, during and after the Civil War, he entered into discussions of local and national politics from the pulpit and platform. He and Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, another New York clergyman, were most influential in the Tweed Ring exposure of 1871-2. The corruption in Grant's administration aroused vigorous protests from the clergy. Although the activity of clergymen in national politics as seen in some of the examples quoted was rather disastrous and the clergy earned much deserved opprobrium therefrom, it was in the sphere of local municipal affairs that the most important and best work was done. The Catholic Church, since it represented the greatest proportion, and perhaps number, of the working class in the U.S., was quite naturally concerned with the labor problem. As a matter of fact, at least two great controversies of serious character occurred in the American church during the period over the relation which the church should bear to labor, labor organizations, economic theory of capitalism, etc. |
