The involvement of the U.S. Catholic Church in labor traces itself back more than a century, with its roots embodied in the experience and teaching of a remarkable churchman, Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore.

All Archbishop Gibbons' early life was calculated to make him sympathetic to the cause of the workingman. He was born in 1834, into a Baltimore family of modest means, the father of which knew from personal experience the problems that beset a wage earner who had to provide for a wife and six children. Gibbons' father died at an early age, necessitating his son's going to work at age 13 to provide for his mother and the younger children. He never forgot that experience.

Ordained a priest for Baltimore in 1861, he was consecrated a bishop in North Carolina at age 36 in 1868, was the youngest prelate of the First Vatican Council, and after serving three years as bishop of Richmond, Va., became the archbishop of Baltimore in 1877.

Several years into his ministry as archbishop, he was approached by Terence V. Powderly, head of the Knights of Labor in the U.S. He was sympathetic to Powderly's plea that membership had to be secret for fear of reprisals --- blacklisting and worse. Rome had condemned secret societies and the Knights of Labor in Canada had been condemned for this reason.

On Feb. 20 1887, Archbishop Gibbons made his masterful pleas for labor before the Congregation of the Holy Office. He quoted Cardinal Henry Edward Manning of Westminster that the church had no longer to deal with parliaments and princes but rather with the masses --- and the church could not afford to alienate the working classes. As he put it, "To lose the heart of the people would be a misfortune for which the friendship of the rich would be no compensation."

As the result of his stirring address, the expected condemnation of the Knights in America never took place and Archbishop Gibbons became a hero of labor, internationally and at home. Four years later Pope Leo the XIII issued his famous encyclical "Rerum Novarum" ("On Capital and Labor"), which defended the right of the working man to join organizations for collective bargaining purposes.

In America this first of the social documents of the church received scant attention. Most noted the pope's condemnation of the socialism and went on with their business as usual. However, in 1906 John A. Ryan, a brilliant young priest then studying at the Catholic University in Washington, zeroed in on a single phrase --- "a living wage" --- that Leo used in his encyclical and he wrote his doctrinal thesis on "A Living Wage: Its Ethical & Economic Aspects."

The thesis attracted national attention, and when Minnesota was enacting minimum wage legislation in 1911 it called for Msgr. Ryan to write the proposal that was written into law. By 1913 eight states introduced minimum wage legislation, until it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1922 as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court restored the legislation during the 1930s.

Following the First World War a group of socialists in England, following the leadership of George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs, devised a plan for social reconstruction for England. In the U.S., Msgr. Ryan --- now head of the Social Justice Department of the U.S. bishops --- was intrigued. He devised a similar, 12-point program for the U.S. It was presented at the U.S. Catholic Conference that year and was accepted in its entirety.

The program called for an eight-hour workday, accident compensation, the abolition of child labor, and the abolition of sweat shops, among its key components. It is a credit to the bishops' influence that all but two of the 12 propositions were enacted into law by the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

Msgr. Ryan was greatly influenced by Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul. As teacher of social doctrine at Catholic University, he in turn influenced Msgr. George Higgins and Bishop Hugh Donohue of Stockton and Fresno. When Cesar Chavez started organizing his workers in the early 1960s, he noted that he had been made aware of the Catholic social teaching by a priest in San Jose. He called on the hierarchy in California to defend his right to organize.

Bishop Donohue immediately drew up a statement in defense of their right to organize, to which all of the bishops of California attached their names. They also recognized the plight of the small farmer and advised them to form associations, too, for their protection --- and survival.

Behind this involvement is the principle that men are responsible for the way society is organized. The church will reject any theory that justifies the exploitation of the many by the few.

Msgr. Sean B. Flanagan is pastor of St. Bartholomew Church in Long Beach and has been involved with the farm labor movement.