Catholics on Strike

When a moral question comes up, the Roman Catholic Church searches diligently for a specific answer. To solve a Catholic's problems, canonical experts are constantly at work combining and restating scriptural reading and papal encyclicals in terms of modern living.

One such expert, Redemptorist Father Francis J. Connell, associate professor of moral theology at Washington's Catholic University of America, has carefully spelled out the Catholic answer for such diverse occupational groups as doctors and policemen (TIME, June 3). In the current issue of his university's magazine for the priesthood, the American Ecclesiastical Review, Father Connell addresses himself to C.I.O. President Philip Murray and other good Catholic trade unionists. The question: When Is a Strike Lawful? Some Connell answers:

"That an employee is morally justified in going on a strike . . . certain conditions being presupposed, is an ethical doctrine that no Catholic could deny.*. . .

"However, like other human rights, the right to strike must be qualified. . . . Organized labor has obligations, both in justice and in charity, toward capital, and particularly toward society. . . .

"The principle from which Catholic moralists derive the conditions required to justify a group of strikers is that a strike is a kind of war--an economic war, with employees and employers as the opposing forces. . . . These conditions can be presented under three headings:

1) "There must be a just reason for declaring the strike. . . .

"Catholic theologians nowadays unanimously admit the lawfulness of a defensive strike. ... A strike directed to obtaining better conditions, even though those actually existing are not unjust . . . is not permissible, if it involves the violation of a just contract. But even when there is no injustice . . . there may be a violation of charity toward the employer and the general public. . . .

2) "The benefits anticipated or hoped for from the strike must be sufficiently great to compensate for the evils which it is likely to produce. . . . They may not inflict financial harm on those who own the shop or factory--and still less, on the great body of their fellow citizens--to an extent far out of proportion to the advantages they have set as their goal, even though their demands are just. . . .

3) "The means employed by the strikers must be morally good. . . . Certainly, physical violence against the employers and destruction of their property are prohibited; on the other hand, peaceful picketing is certainly lawful. But it is difficult to state how far force can be employed against strikebreakers--'scabs,' as they are called. Presuming that the employees are engaged in a just defensive strike, it would seem that sufficient physical violence to prevent these men from entering the shops or factories would be permissible, inasmuch as they are unjustly cooperating toward depriving the workers of the means of livelihood. . . .

"We must honestly admit that not a few strikes in our land in recent years would seem to be unjustifiable, according to Catholic moral principles. . . ."

*Times have changed. In 1400, as Father Connell points out, 2,000 striking weavers in Cologne were exiled from the city; the 30 ringleaders were hanged.

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