Reception
During his lifetime, Ryan met fierce criticism for his economic and political thought. He was at times labeled a socialist for his endorsement of policies such as public housing, social security, unemployment insurance, and women’s rights in the work place, as well as his critique of unregulated free market capitalism. Refusing to prescribe to either a liberal or conservative political doctrine, instead choosing to support policies based on his theological beliefs, Ryan displeased both liberal and conservative politicians at times. Ryan’s overtly political acts also earned him disapproval within the Catholic Church.
Yet Ryan was also a deeply respected moral theologian throughout his lifetime. With his position with the NCWC, he was authorized by the Bishops as their principal Catholic spokesman for social reform within the United States, and became the first Catholic priest to deliver the benediction at a presidential inauguration in 1937.
Read more about this topic: John A. Ryan
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)