ABSTRACT
Although some earlier spokesmen for American Catholicism, such as Cardinal Gibbons, had shown deep concern about the problems of industrial society, they faced strong conservative forces in the Church before the First World War. Only with the impact of war and the need to consider reconstruction did Catholic social thought in America become truly creative, while drawing upon the social encyclicals of Leo XIII. Father John A. Ryan (1869-1945) was a major figure in this process through his writings and organizational work in what became the National Catholic Welfare Conference. He was largely responsible for drafting the 1919 document commonly known as 'The Bishop's Program'; the article below, written in 1922, is a concise expression of its principles.
