Still Potentially Dangerous in Some Quarters
The charges that led Gen. John L. DeWitt to deport Sylvester Andriano from the Western
Defense Region in 1942 were bogus, the product of an anti-Catholic campaign by
Communist Party activists, Masonic anti-Catholics in the Italian community, and
recent Italian anti-Fascist exiles (fuorusciti). This wartime abuse of civil rights in
the name of national security grew from a discourse of demonizing the religious, not
solely the racial and ethnic, Other. The article makes several arguments about ethnicity
and religion on the Pacific Coast: Faith-based political activism played a significant
role in the region9s urban political culture, as did cultural politics between
Catholics and anti-Catholics. Irish American Catholic clergy welcomed, rather than
excluded, Italian American laymen into the Church9s highest councils in San Francisco,
where the Irish had long dominated civic life. However, Italian Americans were
bitterly divided between devout Catholics and disaffected anti-clericals.
The Limits of American Catholic Antifascism: The Case of John A. Ryan
Writing in the midst of World War II, the Italian exiles Gaetano Salvemini and Giorgio La Piana charged that the Catholic church in America had bestowed its blessing upon Benito Mussolini and fascism.1 In discussing this charge the historian John Diggins admitted that “at first glance it does appear that the American clergy had indeed composed a political choir in behalf of Fascism.”2 Diggins portrayed a large number of Catholic clergy led by figures like Cardinal William O'Connell of Boston and Father Charles E. Coughlin who found occasion to praise Mussolini. He outlined the views of the major Catholic periodicals and discovered that only the Paulist-sponsored Catholic World took exception to fascism with any consistency.3 Nonetheless, Diggins partially dismissed the charge of Salvemini and La Piana. He argued that the Catholic church in the United States during the interwar years was not a pro-Fascist monolith and briefly touched on the anti-Fascist endeavors of such individuals as Monsignor Joseph Giarrochi, Father Francis Duffy, and Father James Gillis, C.S.P., the erstwhile editor of the Catholic World. Notably, Diggins accorded particular status among Catholic anti-Fascists to Monsignor John A. Ryan, whom he described as having waged “a relentless assault upon Mussolini's dictatorship and upon the Catholic defense of Fascism” and as being “the theological thorn in the flesh of complacent Catholic apologists for Fascism.”4
Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction to Wilson's Political Thought Part 3 Progress and the Organic State Chapter 4 The State (chapters 1, 2, 13, 16) Chapter 5 "Christ's Army" Chapter 6 "Christian Progress" Part 7 Political Liberty and the Scope and Ends of Government Chapter 8 "Socialism and Democracy" Chapter 9 "A Calendar of Great Americans" Chapter 10 "Address on Thomas Jefferson" Chapter 11 "The Authors and Signers of the Declaration of Independence" Chapter 12 The New Freedom (chapters 1, 2) Part 13 Institutional Reform Chapter 14 "Cabinet Government in the United States" Chapter 15 Congressional Government (chapter 2 & conclusion) Chapter 16 Constitutional Government in the United States (chapters 3, 8) Chapter 17 "Wanted - A Party" Part 18 Political and Administrative Leadership Chapter 19 "Leaders of Men" Chapter 20 "The Study of Administration" Part 21 Foreign Policy Chapter 22 "War Message to Congress" Chapter 23 "Fourteen Points" Part 24 Appendix A. Chronology of Wilson's Academic Work and Other Selected Events Part 25 Appendix B. Selected Bibliography