1869-1945
Priest and Professor

Vocation.

Father John A. Ryan was born in Minnesota to an Irish immigrant family. While attending a Christian Brothers school he decided to become a priest, and during his training he was deeply influenced by the publication of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum, which spoke for social justice and condemned both the excesses of capitalism and the dangers of socialism. He was also impressed by the ideas of Archbishop John Ireland of Saint Paul, who sought to acculturate the Roman Catholic Church to the United States without compromising any of its essential qualities.

Reforming Capitalism.

Ryan was ordained in 1898 and earned a Ph.D. at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation, published as The Living Wage (1906), presented his belief that capitalism should be reformed to accord with Christian concepts of brotherhood and community. In 1915 he returned to...