Fr. Emmett Harrington

Father Emmet Harrington, who taught sociology at Central Catholic High School during the 50s and 60s, was well known for indoctrinating his students with the social teachings of the Catholic Church contained in social encyclicals.

He emphasized basic Catholic principles of social justice such as the dignity of work, the right to a living wage, the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively with management. His influence continues in the lives of many Central Catholic alumni.

Father Harrington, along with a group of young priests of that time, was himself influenced by Msgr. Thomas Tobin, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Portland and for many years the pastor of All Saints.

Msgr. Tobin was renowned for his commitment to labor and other progressive causes. He helped establish a union in the Pastoral Center of the archdiocese, which remains to this day. He sponsored an annual labor school and invited labor leaders and managers to study Catholic social teaching and dialogue about current issues in the workplace.

He was one of many priests throughout the country who were involved in some way with the labor movement. The most famous of these was Msgr. George Higgins from Chicago. Msgr. Higgins was profoundly influenced by the encyclical, Rerum Novarum, and the labor priests of his day who taught the God-given right of workers to organize and bargain collectively and that Catholic teaching was on their side. They set up labor schools to teach workers how to organize and bargain.

In 1944 Msgr. Higgins went to work for the National Catholic Welfare Council (now the National Conference of Catholic Bishops) where he worked with Msgr. John Ryan.

Msgr. Ryan had written the 1919 Bishop’s “Program of Social Reconstruction.” Many of the recommendations in this document were incorporated into Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Msgr. Ryan was an early advocate of the minimum wage and a champion of unions. He wrote, “Effective labor unions are still by far the most powerful force in society for the protection of the laborer’s rights and the improvement of his or her condition. No amount of employer benevolence, no diffusion of a sympathetic attitude on the part of the public, no increase of beneficial legislation, can adequately supply for the lack of organization among the workers themselves.”

These words became Msgr. Higgins’ guide.

He championed labor rights throughout his life. When César Chávez and the farm workers were struggling against the grape growers in California’s Coachella Valley, he advised the American bishops’ committee set up to mediate the dispute and was instrumental in bringing the growers to the bargaining table. In the declining years of his life, he rolled his wheelchair into Sacramento’s Mercy Hospital, part of Catholic Healthcare West, to visit with the workers who were trying to form a union, and, according to the Sacramento Bee, to “prick the hospital system’s Catholic conscience.”