Wobbled by the revolutions in Europe, the Vatican made a seemingly unlikely pivot to the historically Protestant-dominated United States in the 1920s. With appeals to the morals of both Presbyterian bankers and millions of conservative Catholics, it promoted two U.S. priests to Cardinals in 1924 and in 1926 held the International Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Leading labor activist and Communist William F. Dunne came from a Catholic immigrant family, going to Catholic schools in Minnesota. That experience clearly tells in the tone of this analysis of the Vatican’s post-war American offensive.

‘Cardinals and Capitalism, Red Hats and Revolution’ by William F. Dunne from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 51. May 16, 1924.

SPLENDID honors are falling in a shower on the heads of American Catholics and, by a process of diffusion of which the Catholic hierarchy are past masters, upon the rest of the American populace.

TWO American cardinals where but one grew before; red hats, red robes, papal blessings and papal knighthoods; stately ceremonials and parades, high masses and incense, children with flowers singing songs of praise—each child, incidentally, displaying a badge on which is a picture of one or both of the new church dignitaries and which sells for ten cents. The church does not forget the pennies of the poor even when it pulls off a well-staged program with a marked political angle.

Religion and Politics.

RELIGION and politics are never very far apart in the Catholic church at any time but with the creation of two American cardinals in the persons of Hayes and Mundelein, the two questions are so close together that a Communion wafer could not be thrust between them.

IT is all rather obvious—as obvious as the reasons for the publicity given the whole process of cardinal creation by the Hearst papers in a country in which there are some 18,000,000 Catholics.

DURING the war and the period of intense revolutionary activity that followed it, the Vatican fell upon evil days. The faithful wanted bread and peace and land and the church could not give them these things and remain a ruling power. The Catholic empire of Austria-Hungary crumbled; Poland, despite her new-found independence, was in the throes of revolt; the Italian workers were driving towards revolution and in no spot in Europe could the Vatican see any hope for the establishment of that temporal power which it has never ceased to claim—and enforce at the slightest opportunity.

When Revolt Was Checked.

THE tidal wave of revolution ceased for a while to rock the foundations of European capitalism and there set in a period of apathy and hopelessness which the Vatican was not slow to take advantage of. It made peace with the French government and for the first time since the expulsion of the monks, there is a French ambassador at the Vatican; Cardinal Ratti—now pope—went to Poland as an emissary of the French government and helped to organize the offensive against the workers’ and peasants’ government of Russia; came the Fascist counter-revolution in Italy and once more the Vatican had a friend at court in the person of Mussolini; in Germany the Catholic party, particularly in Bavaria, dreams with inspiration from the Vatican, of a new Catholic empire in Europe. Perhaps Poland and Bavaria, they say, can unite under the banner of the papacy with Czecho-Slovakia and the remnants of Austria to give once more political backing to the ambitious keeper of Peter’s keys.

BUT bankrupt nations need money first and the House of Morgan from which the money has come and by which more is promised—loans to France, to Czecho-Slovakia, to Poland and tie proposed loan to Germany, the loan to the Fascist government of Italy—is the fiscal agent of the Vatican in the United States.

“America First.”

THE Catholic church has decided to pay some attention to the United States for the reasons implied above; it is today the only stable capitalist nation where there are any large number of Roman Catholics; the creation of princess of the church among the clergy and knights of St. This and That among the laity is a good method of bringing into line many Americans who, as a nation are among the worst trucklers to titles at large, despite their boasted love for democracy.

THE proposed Morgan loan to Germany has received the endorsement of the Vatican, Morgan himself has made a pilgrimage to Rome, but there are several millions of people in the United States who look askance at the project and who fear that the same result that followed similar loans to the allied governments during the war, will now accrue from this one. The backing of the House of Morgan in this new imperialistic adventure by the American government is a matter on which the American masses have not expressed themselves as yet, but which will soon be a burning issue in the coming presidential campaign.

Where Religion Comes In.

WHAT better method could be devised to secure sanction of this slave scheme by the dupes of the Vatican than to make it a religious issue with the Vatican expressing the wishes of the deity in the matter by its endorsement of the house of Morgan, followed by the elevation to the second highest office in the church of the American clergymen who will make clear its stand on the question?

The big capitalists have come to see that of all the Christian religions the Catholic church is the only one that has any real influence and organization; it is a powerful machine and its edicts admit of no argument; they must be accepted without question by the faithful and they are backed, according to Catholic dogma, by God himself. Superstition and its companion, fear, together with a tremendous economic power, are the weapons wielded by the Catholic church over the millions who subscribe to its creed. It is no mean ally for a desperate capitalist class to have and the House of Morgan is using it to the limit.

Natural Unity.

IT is not hard for the finance-capitalists to form a united front with the Vatican—the most reactionary force in modern society. The catholic religion is a slave religion and it fits in well with the Morgan plan of enslaving the whole working class of Europe. The catholic church is ruled from the top; there are no referendum vote, it has never even resigned itself to capitalism but looks ever backward to the dear dead days of feudalism when its lightest word was law to both prince and peasant. It has adapted itself to capitalism very efficiently but it dreams of a world of toiling millions, whose rulers it chooses, and whose miserable ignorance and physical suffering will wipe out all thought except that of a happy life in the hereafter to which the church will hold the key.

THE Catholic church is not only a great religious institution; it is a tremendously powerful financial institution as well; in the United States it has millions of dollars invested in great industrial enterprises and in Europe its properties are of incalculable value. It has a vested interest in the capitalist system.

Germans, Irish and Poles.

IT is not surprising therefore that the Vatican should give its wholehearted approval to the Morgan plan for enslaving the German workers. Cardinal Mundelein is of German descent and thru him it is believed that the large group of German Catholics in the United States can be rallied to support the Morgan-Dawes scheme. Cardinal Hayes is Irish and there are millions of Catholics of Irish birth and descent in this country and the influence of the church among this politically active nationality will be exerted for the House of Morgan. The Poles, another numerous national group, have not been neglected. Anthony Czarnecki, editor of an influential Polish newspaper, has been made a knight of St. Gregory. That the Lithuanians may not feel slighted one of their priests has been made a monsignor.

So much for the masses.

The Cardinal Capitalists.

THE entente cordiale between the big capitalists and the catholic church was never more in evidence than upon the return of the new cardinals to America. They were welcomed and photographed, immediately upon their arrival, in a room on the New York pier on which they landed, furnished especially by Rodman Wanamaker. Cardinal Mundelein was banquetted by the head officials of the United States Steel corporation and “his services in the Chicago district” were referred to in glowing terms. He made the trip from the east in a private car furnished by the vice-president of the Baltimore and Ohio and in Chicago a banquet was given him at the Drake hotel—one of Chicago’s most high-priced and exclusive hostelries.

E.F. CARRY, head of the Pullman company, employing thousands of underpaid catholic workers, many of whom were on strike at the time, was brought the order of St. Gregory by Cardinal Mundelein; it was presented in “recognition of his philanthropic work.”

THE attitude of the capitalist press—always a good indication of the trend of capitalist opinion—has been one of actual sycophancy. Such words as “prince,” “enthroned,” “glorious,” “multitude of his flock,” “regal robes,” “impressive spectacle,” “symbol of his rank,” “His Eminence,” “blessing on whole city,” “hail return in splendor,” “trumpets sound fanfare,” “in full regalia,” “benign visage thrills crowd,” “Chicago’s prince of the church ascends to his crimson throne,” etc., ad nauseam, have made up the headlines upon which the eyes of the newspaper reading public has feasted.

Evidence of Influence.

It has been a splendid tribute to the power of the catholic church that will make the Ku Klux Klan gnash its teeth in impotent fury for the klan does not know how to meet the power of the Vatican.

DOUBTLESS the rank and file of Catholics—those who bought the badges with the cardinal’s pictures—believe that all this pageantry was the reply of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church to the assaults of the klansmen and the hierarchy will encourage that belief; it is one of the best established dogmas of the church that its followers are persecuted for their faith and the klan has been a godsend to it.

The catholic church however is not worrying about the klan. It is worrying about the breakdown of capitalism and the rise of social revolution. It wisely picks America and the American capitalist class together with the backward sections of the working class to save capitalism and the church from defeat.

Basis For War.

EVERY day’s dispatches from Europe indicate that no European capitalist nation, nor any combination of European nations, can save capitalism in Europe. Only the United States has the financial resources to halt the breakdown and enough backward workers to do the bidding of the capitalist class if it becomes necessary to suppress social revolution in Europe by force of arms.

IT is another holy war that the Catholic church is preparing so war on behalf of capitalism and catholic Christianity and it hopes to use its tremendous power in the United States, linked with the power of the finance-capitalists, for a war of conquest that if successful would again make the catholic church the only religious power worth mentioning in Christendom.

In all America only the Communists raise their voices in protest against this monstrous scheme of church and counting-house, as in the world at large only the Communist International stands four-square against the House of Morgan’s plan for enslaving the German working class as a first step to a more rigid enslavement of the working class of all capitalist nations.

THE creation of two cardinals, the pomp and ceremony consequent thereon, were not religious incidents except in the narrow sense. The House of Morgan and the catholic church, representing together the blackest reaction on the globe, united under the red hat, have merely been conducting a political maneuver which if successful will drench the world with blood while it resounds to the groans of the workers —groans which will mingle with the rattle of their chains to make the most horrid music ever heard in a world to which misery is not new.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n051-may-16-1924-DW-LOC.pdf