Birth and Early Life
Ryan was born on May 25, 1869, in Vermillion (Dakota County), Minnesota, to William Ryan and Maria Luby. Raised in the Populist tradition on a farm homesteaded by his Irish Catholic parents alongside his ten younger siblings, Ryan’s childhood experience with the challenges faced by farmers informed his early investment in economic justice and the role of the Catholic Church in promoting social change.
Ryan’s interest in moral reflection on contemporary economic issues and empathy for the poor was further cultivated in his early teenage years when Ryan read Henry George’s Progress and Poverty. While Ryan later confessed to not fully understanding the book at the time, he cites his first reading of George’s work as the beginning of a life long commitment to questions of social justice.
Read more about this topic: John A. Ryan
Famous quotes containing the words birth, early and/or life:
“I am not fooling myself with dreams of immortality, know how relative all literature is, don’t have any faith in mankind, derive enjoyment from too few things. Sometimes these crises give birth to something worth while, sometimes they simply plunge one deeper into depression, but, of course, it is all part of the same thing.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Consider his life which was valueless
In terms of employment, hotel ledgers, news files.
Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man.
Ask. Was so much expenditure justified
On the death of one so young and so silly
Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)