Encouraging Coreligionists in the Academy

Furfey pursued an intellectual apostolate according to which he advanced social justice in theory and practice through his scholarship and correspondence. In the mid-1930’s Furfey concentrated on developing and articulating a specifically Catholic response to social problems. He revised his objective, concentrating on developing a Catholic technique and corresponding foundational Catholic motivation to address social problems. Furfey advanced and defended his position in print, writing several books and many articles on the topic, and through voluminous correspondence with leading Catholic intellectuals in the United States. Il Poverello House and Fides House represented his and his colleagues’ attempt to develop a social reform technique that was both thoroughly Catholic and rigorously scientific. He received support and cooperation from his colleagues at CUA and in the broader Catholic community. A rift emerged at his home institution. Mary Elizabeth Walsh most prominently supported and advanced supernatural sociology while Gladys Sellew wavered, expressing distress and dissatisfaction with respect to the meaning and application of supernatural sociology. The chapter also considers the challenges to Furfey’s theological society levelled by Raymond McGowan, Wilfred Parsons, and John Courtney Murray.

Pursuing Salvation on the Playground

Paul Hanly Furfey spent his early professional career, from the time of his hire onto the faculty of the sociology department at Catholic University of America to the time just before he took a sabbatical to Germany, emphasizing scientific resources for social reform through childhood development. He promoted the integration of the social sciences and the Christian tradition as a way to effectively socialize children. He believed that the latest psychological and sociological standards provided important insight into child-rearing and that the data provided by these disciplines should be joined to spiritual resources in order to be effective in the more important question of salvation. Children could be raised to honourable adulthood and ultimately merit heaven given a conventional approach to childrearing. He continued his explorations into the place of philosophy and theology in the field of sociology. He challenged a materialist bias in the field while criticizing those who did not pursue their research with adequate rigor.

Pursuing Social Justice in the Academy and Higher Education

In the years leading to Furfey’s retirement, he adapted his vision for the sociology department at CUA to make broader claims about the social justice mission for Catholic higher education. He continued to model how to marshal university resources for the common good in his own department. Into the 1950’s and 1960’s, Furfey shifted the emphasis in his writing and activism back to science and philosophy without abandoning his theological commitments. While personalism was still the hallmark of Furfey’s and his associates’ community activism at Fides House, the shape of their work changed over time as the operation expanded. Fides House enjoyed tremendous success. Within a decade, their work became more technical and they moved into increasingly larger quarters to serve increasing numbers of people. Furfey returned to empirical sociology on juvenile delinquency and, in his theoretical work, he adjusted his rhetoric to reach a broader audience by adopting a more conciliatory tone. He published his magnum opus Scope and Method of Sociology (1953). As he approached retirement, Furfey vowed to redouble his personal contributions to social justice activism by living in solidarity with the marginalized in his neighborhood.

Placing Social Justice at the Center of the Sociology Department

As department chair, Furfey integrated social justice into the curriculum of the Department of Sociology, analysing scientific research data according to Christian analysis. In this period, Furfey began to interpret the Christian tradition in language approximating non-violent class struggle and sought alternative social reform strategies where spirituality and science would intersect. He cultivated the social and political interests of his students. According to his “Catholic Social Manifesto,” his department would now favor personalistic social action guided by divine grace over political action guided by human prudence. He and his colleauges would pursue nonviolent activism, grounded in love, to promote social change. Nevertheless, they would continue to pursue rigorous scientific research and approach their social justice reform according to the latest standards. Furfey and his colleagues Mary Elizabeth Walsh and Gladys Sellew launched Il Poverello House and later Fides House to explore the intersection of a theologically-informed spirituality with contemporary sociology and social work.

Recapitulating the Just Society in a Word: “Love. Just Love.”

In the last two decades of his life, Furfey continued to promote social change through spirituality, scholarship, and activism. He performed empirical sociological research, reflected on those findings through the lens of Catholic social teaching and ethics, and he advocated peace, racial justice and economic equality. Here, as he also reflected on his lifelong commitment to social justice from within the Christian tradition, Furfey became increasingly explicit and specific in articulating the necessary role of the Christian intellectual in bringing about social change by identifying and raising awareness about social problems as well as charting a way to redress those problems. In that respect, he reframed his longstanding argument that personalism and social legislation must go hand-in-hand. Drawing on liberation theologians’ insights, he began to talk in terms of the need for foundational structural change through nonviolent direct action. Prayer, in the form of contemplation, remained at the center of the Furfey’s technique for social reform. Indeed, as he approached the end of his life, he summarized his quest for social transformation in a single word, love.

Reimagining Social Reform

Paul Hanly Furfey realigned his approach to social reform during and after his sabbatical in Germany, questioning now the efficacy of a purely scientific approach. Furfey’s scientific studies in Germany, the onset of the Great Depression and stirrings of World War II led Furfey to re-evaluate his hypotheses on social reform. His emphasis shifted to a supernatural perspective. Furfey’s progress from optimism in 1931 to a revised approach in 1935 can be traced across three benchmarks: first, his request to study medical science in Germany and his subsequent intellectual conversion while there; second, his report to the rector of CUA upon his return, a report in which Furfey frankly outlined the new directions in his outlook consequent to what he learned while abroad; and, third, his gravitation toward a more determinedly counter-cultural approach to social reform that was inspired, in part, by the Catholic Worker community in New York City. By 1935, Furfey was in the midst of blending these new insights into his already existing theoretical and practical frameworks for promoting social justice.

Engaging Debates Concerning Public Catholicism

Paul Hanly Furfey chose to pursue Social Work in his doctoral studies as a way to best witness to the Christian tradition. As a graduate student, Furfey served in a parish near the university and worked for John O’Grady at Catholic Charities. At Catholic Charities, Furfey became involved in a broader debate over the extent to which Catholic youth should mix with Protestant or secular communities for recreation. Furfey disagreed with Boy Scout leaders who urged Catholics to mix indiscriminately with other children at their camps. Furfey agreed that should Catholics attend BSA camps but only under Catholic auspices. Furfey also disagreed with his Catholic counterpart, Kilian Hennrich of the Catholic Boys Brigade. Hennrich insisted that Catholic boy scouts remain completely separate from non-Catholic institutions where the children might be pulled away from the Catholic Church by Protestant proselytizers or secular indifference. Furfey argued that a compromise was possible in maintaining a Catholic ethos among Catholic boys within a broader secular camping experience. Furfey’s dissertation, later published as a book, The Gang Age, engaged the latest research in the burgeoning field of boyology. His work at the parish and Catholic Charities provided him direct contact with the field.

Learning Constructive Civic Engagement at the Catholic University of America

Paul Hanly Furfey was profoundly influenced by the famous Catholic priest psychologist Thomas Verner Moore who taught him how to balance rigorous scientific study with theological and spiritual analysis. Moore also modelled a civically engaged scholarship by opening clinics in the area surrounding the university. Furfey’s training in the seminary was uninspiring while his graduate studies at CUA were stimulating. His professors at CUA and the Sulpicians at St. Mary’s Seminary introduced Furfey to exciting developments in the Catholic Church in the United States, namely the formation of the National Catholic Welfare Council. While Furfey was drawn to the simplicity of the Jesuit lifestyle, he chose to be ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1922.

Coming of Age in the Archdiocese of Boston

Paul Hanly Furfey’s childhood and young adulthood in the Archdiocese of Boston introduced him in direct and indirect ways to broader developments with in the Roman Catholic Church. He attended parochial school, and attended Jesuit run Boston College High School and Boston College. The Jesuits introduced Furfey to Ignatian spirituality, in particular the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Fufey’s early years were influenced by broader developments in the church concerning centralization of ecclesiastical operations and a rise in authoritarian governance. Debates surrounding Americanism and Modernism were a factor during this era. As he matured, Furfey wrestled with intellectual and spiritual doubt. He resolved to remain committed to Catholicism. Upon graduation from college, Furfey served as a lay evangelist with the Catholic Truth Guild before departing to Washington, DC to attend graduate school at The Catholic University of America.

Introduction: Viewing Paul Hanly Furfey’s Contribution against a Wide Horizon

As he neared retirement, Furfey presented himself as moving through three phases: liberal, radical and revolutionary. Scholars of Furfey’s work subsequently present Furfey as the theorist of Catholic radicalism. This chapter suggests that he was not only the theorist of Catholic radicalism but also a scholar who abided liberal and revolutionary impulses in scholarship and activism across his lifetime. Furfey’s contribution to the tradition of Catholic social thought and practice in the United States was more nuanced than the view that prevails in the current literature.