Program
The purpose of the Catholic Workers’ School
is to bring Catholic thought
to Catholic workers
so as to prepare them
for Catholic Action.
Besides presenting Catholic thought
to Catholic workers
the Catholic Workers’ School
presents a program of Catholic Action
based on Catholic thought.
The program of the Catholic Workers’
School
is a three-point program:
1. Round-table Discussions
2. Houses of Hospitality
3. Farming Communes.
Round-Table Discussions
We need Round-Table Discussions
to keep trained minds from being academic.
We need Round-Table Discussions
to keep untrained minds from being superficial.
We need Round-Table Discussions
to learn from scholars
how things would be,
if they were as they should be.
We need Round-Table Discussions
to learn from scholars
how a path can be made
from things as they are
to things as they should be.
Communes
We need Communes
to help the unemployed
to help themselves.
We need Communes
to make scholars out of workers
and workers out of scholars,
to substitute a technique of ideals
for our technique of deals.
We need Communes
to create a new society
within the shell of the old
with the philosophy of the new,
which is not a new philosophy
but a very old philosophy,
a philosophy so old
that it looks like new.
Catholic Social Philosophy
The Catholic social philosophy,
is the philosophy of the Common Good
of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Three books where this philosophy is
expressed are:
The Thomistic Doctrine of the Common
Good, by Seraphine Michel;
The Social Principles of the Gospel,
by Alphonse Lugan;
Progress and Religion, by Christopher
Dawson.