ON MAY 30, 1946, Father Edward A. Conway, S.J., of the National Catholic Welfare Conference had a conversation with Monsignor Howard J. Carroll, general secretary of the NCWC, during which the topic of providing an emissary from the Catholic Church of the United States to the United Nations was broached. Such a full-time observer, Conway noted, would serve in the dual capacity of “rapporteur to the NCWC and as liaison between the NCWC and the U.S. delegation.”¹ According to Conway, what seemed to be needed was someone who would follow developments in the various agencies, prepare summaries thereon, and make...

THE YEARS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING the U.S. entry into World War II witnessed the phenomenal consolidation and apparent triumph of fascism on the continents of Asia and Europe. Along with this overarching menace to democracy, the continuing threat from the expansionist ambitions of Stalin and the seemingly inexorable decline of the League of Nations generated much thought and considerable written commentary from a small group of American Catholics about the nature, structure, and organization of the postwar peace. Frequently the impetus for this American theological and social reflection was foreign, usually emanating from the Vatican, particularly from Pope Pius XII, but...

TWENTY-ONE YEARS after the inauguration of the UN Office Catherine Schaefer composed an apologia for human rights. Her credo was entitled “God’s Love for Men.”

It was through love that God created man in His Own image, giving him freedom and intelligence to rule over his creation. Through love he made of all mankind one family that they should seek Him and build up the earth in his design. Through love God sent his only begotten Son to be born like men, to share their life, seeking out the poor, the weak, the despised—and by love’s gift of self,...

AFTER THE PUBLICATION of the NCWC Declaration on Human Rights in February 1947, Catherine Schaefer and her staff at the Office for UN Affairs were gratified by its positive reception. For instance, Schaefer noted that UN commission members were referring to the text, or even quoting from it, to support particular points or principles.¹

This chapter will discuss the debate within the Human Rights Commission and the effect that the NCWC’s draft declaration had on its subsequent discussions. It will also chronicle the broad repercussions that Catholic activities had at the UN in matters concerning international human rights.

In her...

IN THE SUMMER of 1950 Catherine Schaefer looked back on the brief history of the UN Office and, with the considerable expertise of a veteran observer and consultant, with as much experience as anyone could claim at the UN, reviewed her office’s effectiveness during the previous year, as well as its achievements and failures going back to October 1946. First of all, it was unquestionably the case that the NCWC office had placed an increased emphasis on the UN’s work in relation to the problems of underdeveloped countries. This was underscored by a remarkable four-month study trip to Africa by...

BY THE 1950s, the Catholic social teachings that were the basis and justification for the work of Catherine Schaefer and her staff at the Office for UN Affairs had been endorsed by socially aware American Catholics for generations. These principles, central to the very nature of Catholicism, traced their origins to the Middle Ages, principally in the scholastic theology of the great Dominican Thomas Aquinas. The nineteenth century had seen the advent of a medieval intellectual revival with a renewed Catholic interest in scholastic methods and ideas. This, in turn, spawned a torrent of explication and renovation known as neo-Thomism....

IN AN AUGUST 1947 memorandum to the Reverend Howard J. Carroll of the NCWC, Catherine Schaefer wrote the following paragraph:

Special assistance in supplying documentation and day-to-day information has been given to … the National Council of Catholic Women, and other interested departments of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, on the matter of consultative relationships of international organizations with the Economic and Social Council. In the latter connection, as consultant to the National Council of Catholic Women International Relations Committee, the Assistant to the General Secretary, NCWC, for United Nations Affairs, [i.e., Schaefer] spoke before the ECOSOC Commission on the...

AFTER SIX MONTHS as director of the NCWC Office in New York, Catherine Schaefer drafted in August 1946 a report to the Reverend Howard J. Carroll in Washington, D.C. In that statement she expressed some reservations about her role as assistant to the general secretary for UN Affairs, as well as the scope of the new office. At this point she was still giving pride of place to her role as Catholic “observer” and rapporteur to the American Church, functions that would receive only secondary consideration in her future reports. Schaefer had lofty plans for what she envisioned to be...

ON FEBRUARY 15, 1967, a meeting of the Administrative Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops was convened at the headquarters of the United States Catholic Conference at 1312 Massachusetts Avenue in the Northwest section of Washington. That morning, forty-three members of the American hierarchy, including Archbishop John F. Dearden of Detroit, chairman of the Administrative Committee, and Bishop Paul J. Tanner, the general secretary of the USCC, filed dutifully into the conference room. Cardinal Spellman opened the session with a prayer.¹

The eighth item on the agenda was a report presented by the episcopal chairman of the Administrative...

ON MAY 24, 1972, Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and United States Catholic Conference, belatedly resolved after his decision to close the Division for United Nations Affairs to question a member of the staff of that office about its much-heralded relations with other consultants from international Catholic organizations, nongovernmental organizations accredited to the UN, the proposed ending of which, brought on by the USCC’s termination of the UN Division, had caused him no end of aggravation and even provoked an international controversy within the Roman Catholic Church during the preceding twelve months....