Mention one industrial dispute in which the workers have received the support of the Church in their struggle for decent conditions.

In every industrial dispute, in so far as the obtaining of decent conditions is concerned, the Church has given strong support to the cause of the worker. How? By her rigid denunciation of the absence of decent conditions, and her clear statements that social morality demands such decent conditions. Having given this correct teaching to the world, she has done her part. She has no means of forcing people to study her teachings, or to accept them and put them into practice when they have done so. You do not seem to understand the mission of the Church. Many men view her only in the light of their own troubles, and think that her chief duty is to remedy those. The sick seem to think that she is a success only if she proves to be an efficacious medical clinic. The starving man believes that she ought to be a universal soupkitchen. You seem to think that she was meant to be a Court of Industrial Disputes. But Christ established His Church for the salvation of souls, and to tell men what they must believe and do if they would attain eternal salvation. The Church condemns the unjust oppression of workers by capitalists and says to them, “If you go on like that, you will be damned.” She has done her part, and they must save their souls for themselves. But you get a wrong notion into your head of what the Church ought to do, and then blame her for not doing what she was never supposed to do.

Radio Replies Volume 1 by Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble MSC and Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty