Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Crouse, Eric R. “Father Andrew Hogan and Social Activism, 1945-1980.” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 47 (Spring 2005): 59-74. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Crouse, Eric R. “Father Andrew Hogan and Social Activism, 1945-1980.” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 47 (Spring 2005): 59-74. [ Citation Page ] Father Andrew Hogan and Social Activism, 1945-1980 Eric R. Crouse Andrew Hogan's graduation with a Bachelors of Arts degree from St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia in 1945 launched a vigorous and fulfilling adventure in social activism. Having been shaped by the Antigonish Movement as a student and then ordained as a priest in 1949, Father Hogan sought to serve people in need. As an economist, sociologist, educator, and priest, Hogan preached social justice in the classroom and on radio and television. In 1974, he became the federal New Democratic Party candidate for Cape Breton-East Richmond and won at the polls, thus becoming the first Roman Catholic priest in Canadian history to be elected to the House of Commons. He was victorious again in the 1979 election, but lost a tight election the following year. The story of Father Andrew Hogan demonstrates how a Roman Catholic priest in eastern Nova Scotia, galvanized by the Antigonish Movement, embraced ecumenism and social activism and strove to integrate the sacred and secular spheres of life that assisted both Catholics and Protestants.1 _____________________________________ 1. I would like to thank James Cameron, Department of History, St. Francis Xavier University, for his reading and excellent comments of an earlier draft. [ Page 59 ] [ Page ] 60 Early Life Andrew Hogan was born October 28, 1923 at Glace Bay, a gritty coal mining town in Cape Breton that operated under the powerful influence of the Montreal-based British Empire Steel Corporation. In addition to working their 13-hour shifts in BESCO mills and mines, employees lived in company homes, paid company prices at company stores, and burned company coal, an arrangement that left most workers without any real savings. Since his coalminer father had experienced serious labour strife in the coalfields, Hogan became aware of oppositional politics at an early age. For example, he saw communists not as the "skulking kind you read in spy novels" but rather ordinary people who lost faith with an unjust capitalist system.2 After graduating from St. Anne's High School in 1941, he attended St. Francis Xavier University [St.F.X.], the Scottish Catholic school in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he embraced many aspects of university life; he served as the secretary-treasurer of the Debating Society, president of the Dramatic Society, editor of the Xaverian, and captain of the football and hockey teams. As proof of his popularity, he was chosen "all around man on the campus by the students for two years in succession." The 1945 University Year Book stated: "His definite plans for the future do not give us great concern, for we know that he will be successful in any undertaking."3 After graduation, Hogan went to Holy Heart Seminary in Halifax and in 1949 received ordination into the Roman Catholic priesthood. Bishop James Morrison of the Diocese of Antigonish then appointed him to the staff of St.F.X. ______________________________________________________________________________ Archivist Kathleen Mackenzie at SFX also provided indispensable assistance with the Hogan Papers (that were yet to be fully processed). The Hogan Papers consist of 6 linear feet that include his written work and speeches, correspondence, House of Commons reports and debates (1974-1980), and an extensive scrapbook of newspaper and other press clippings that covers his years before and during his political life. The Rev. Dr. Moses Coady Papers cover an earlier period when the Antigonish Movement and the Department of Extension, St. Francis Xavier University were emerging as a force to address the inequities of rural Nova Scotia life. 2. Donald Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," Weekend Magazine, 1 March 1975,10. 3. St.F.X. University Year Book 1945, 17, St. Francis Xavier University Archives [STFXUA]. [ Page ] 61 where he taught Latin and religion until the spring of 1952. His career combined appointments to parishes as well as further stints at St.F.X. In 1954, Father Hogan became athletic director with the task of organizing St.F.X.'s intramural and intercollegiate athletic programs.4 He was a successful hockey and football coach as well. From 1956 to 1961, he worked for the famous St.F.X. Extension Department out of its office in Sydney, Cape Breton. He eventually became director of the People's School, an Extension Department project that promoted adult education through radio, television, and print media. Throughout the 1960s, Hogan kept abreast of the major social and economic issues facing Nova Scotians, and, as well, he took summer courses at Cornell and Harvard, and completed master's degrees in economics and sociology through St. Louis University and Boston University. He was professor of economics at SFX when he became involved with the New Democratic Party. Hogan won the Cape Breton- East Richmond riding in the federal elections of 1974 and 1979, the only NDP candidate to win in the province. However, after the Joe Clark Conservative government lost a vote of confidence on its budget in 1980, Hogan lost his seat to the Liberal Party's David Dingwall in a close and bitterly contested election in which Dingwall's campaign team allegedly spread rumours that Hogan, during the election campaign, was at a detox centre drying out.5 Coincidentally, in the same year, the Pope John Paul II issued an order calling on priests to withdraw from public office. Along with other Roman Catholic priests, such as Robert Ogle, Member of Parliament from Saskatchewan who resigned from his political career in 1984, and Congressman Robert Drinan of Massachusetts, Father Hogan lost the chance to seek re-election. Antigonish Movement Hogan's social and political activism had strong connections to the Antigonish Movement, a mostly Catholic-led social and economic movement, centred in the small town of Antigonish, with roots in early ______________________________________ 4. President Hugh J. Somers to Father Andrew Hogan, 20 May 1954, RG 5/12/24021-1, President Somers Papers, STFXUA. 5. See John Demont, "The King of the East," Maclean's, 3 April 1995,22-23. [ Page ] 62 20th century Maritime underdevelopment and poverty.6 Father Jimmy Tompkins, a parish priest who for decades had promoted adult education, and the Rev. Dr. Moses Coady, the director of the Extension Department at St.F.X. were the best-know leaders of the movement for a people's economy.7 These men, stated Hogan, "were our heroes" because of their efforts to promote the co-operative self-help movement. Coady and his staff used adult education as a means toward social improvement and economic organization in fishing, mining, and farm communities in eastern Nova Scotia. Many maritime communities benefited from co-operative stores that sold fish and consumer goods and assisted in the building of homes. The emergence of credit unions also met the needs of many working-class Nova Scotians. Tompkin's justification for credit unions was simple and convincing: "You simply take what extra money you have - the savings in your sock - and let your neighbours use it for a while, only you don't demand his right arm for security."8 Co-operative stores and credit unions provided an alternate to the dominant feudal-like economic and political structures that had often appeared heartless and cruel. Antigonish Movement leaders recognized the hegemonic power of the monopolistic overlords and saw people in the local communities "as groups of exploited working people who needed to join together to gain power."9 By the 1940s, the movement included former radical leaders such as Alex. S. MacIntyre who in the stormy strike period of the 1920s had been vice-president of the United Mine Workers of America. The religious element of the Antigonish Movement, however, prevented any endorsement of activities that contradicted the teaching of the church. Similar to the social activism played out in various Maritime Protestant circles, Antigonish leaders __________________________________________ 6. For an overview of the origins of the Antigonish Movement and the work of the St.F.X. Extension Department, see James D. Cameron, For the People: A History of St. Francis Xavier University (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996), 212-235. 7. See Jim Lotz and Michael Welton, Father Jimmy: Life and Times of Jimmy Tompkins (Wreck Cove, Cape Breton Island: Breton Books, 1997) and Michael Welton, Little Mosie From the Margaree: A Biography of Moses Michael Coady (Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing Inc., 2001). 8. Lotz and Welton, Fat/ier Jimmy, 106. 9. Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," 10. [ Page ] 63 upheld Christian compassion and faithfulness to the teachings of Christ, with no capitulation to bitter Marxist class warfare.10 Fathers Coady and Tompkins were vital to the success of the Antigonish Movement. Of the two, Tompkins was the more iconoclastic, willing to press the limits of Christian social activism and shake up the comfortable. Later in the 1930s, former Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett offered some praise for the Antigonish Movement, but earlier he had told Tompkins: "It is in the Soviet Union you belong, not in the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church."11 Tompkins often spoke out against the unchristian nature of capitalism, especially during the 1930s. And yet Tompkins upheld social activism within a Christian framework: "It is not Christianity that is the opiate of the people, it is the inert state of Christians that furnished some semblance of truth to this libel. It is fossilized education that is the opiate of the people. It keeps them from getting the truth about the condition they are in ... ."12 Coady agreed that people had to educate themselves and use the things of God, such as cooperation, to improve their lives. Responding to the clergy who protested the efforts to organize cooperatives for economic and social betterment, Coady wrote: "My opinion is that either we clergymen go out and live without bathrooms and the other amenities of modern life like so many of the people have to, or if we want these decencies (as we should) then it is our business to do everything we can to get them for the people."13 Some accused Coady of advocating socialism, but as he reasoned, "It is difficult to see how anybody, professing to be religious, would not take seriously this duty of charity toward his more needy neighbours." Besides, a "society of independent individuals without harmony and a ________________________________________ 10. For example, see Eric R. Crouse, "Capitalism Under Fire: Voices of Baptist Social Protest in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia During the Great Depression," Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society XLIII, Spring 2001:39-56. 11. "Excerpts from the Antigonish Movement in Retrospect," 11, 18, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 12. Lotz and Welton, Father Jimmy, 114. 13. Coady to Foote, 1 December 1943, RG 30.3/18/390-398, Coady Papers, As Director of Ext. Dept., STFXUA. [ Page ] 64 spirit of cooperation is woefully inefficient."14 As a Roman Catholic from Cape Breton Island and a student at St. Francis Xavier University, Hogan heard this powerful socio- economic critique developed by the leaders of the Antigonish Movement. He intended to become a lawyer, but as a result of Tompkin's and Coady's influence he changed his mind. Their critique of the status quo shaped his social conscience and developed his interest in adult education, all done in a manner that combined the spiritual with practical works of mercy. Another important theme nurtured in the Antigonish Movement was ecumenism. Fathers Tompkins and Coady blazed an ecumenical trail by respecting and working with people of different religious backgrounds. In his understanding of cooperation, Coady stressed that "neutrality in religion" was a fundamental principle.15 The barrier between Catholics and Protestants had often been viewed as virtually impassable, but it was not unusual to have the local Protestant minister visit Tompkins on the rectory veranda, an act that was symbolic of greater tolerance among followers of Christ. "When I was growing up," Mary Laben stated, "you wouldn't dare look at the side of the road that the [other] church was. Father Jimmy changed that."16 In one story, Tompkins praised the work of a volunteer who helped the Catholics build a new fish store. The man, claimed Tompkins, was a Baptist "and one of our most respected citizens."17 The Catholic priests were successful in reaching out to the whole community - Catholics, Protestants, and unbelievers. In an editorial the Halifax Chronicle- Herald wrote of Coady's organizing activities: "No better man could be found for this important work - he is of the people and he had never lost the common touch with the people, their needs and ambitions."18 He ____________________________________ 14. M.M. Coady, Masters of Their Own Destiny: The Story of the Antigonish Movement of Adult Education Through Economic Cooperation (New York: Harper & Row Publishers), 143,151,40. 15. Coady to Foote, 1 December 1943, RG 30.3/18/390-398, Coady Papers, As Director of Extension Department, STFXUA. 16. Lotz and Welton, Father Jimmy, 136. 17. Ibid, 108-109. 18. Malcolm MacLellan, Coady Remembered (Antigonish: St. Francis Xavier University Press, 1985), 51. [ Page ] 65 was even successful in Protestant Guysborough County.19 Greater tolerance was a characteristic that facilitated the Antigonish Movement in crossing religious boundaries; it also helped Andrew Hogan, the politician, do likewise many years later. While Coady and other extension workers did reach out to unions and urban workers, they tended to identify most effectively with farmers, fishermen, and rural organizations. Hogan, on the other hand, with his roots in industrial Cape Breton, was much more in tune with the urban life, industrial workers, and labour unions. Observing and respecting the strong solidarity and camaraderie that was characteristic among the coalminers and steelworkers, he supported labour union activity and often corresponded with various unions.20 When Hogan became director of the St.F.X. Extension-sponsored People's Schools that used both radio and television, he received financial support from Cape Breton unions. In the Sydney, Sydney Mines, and Glace Bay areas, there were Sunday afternoon television programs and weekly evening classes conducted by Hogan. St.F.X. paid his salary because of the university's commitment to adult education among the industrial workers of Cape Breton.21 Social Action It is no surprise that Hogan had special interest in the plight of coalminers. By 1960 he researched and presented the case against the threatened closure of the Cape Breton coalmines in a brief to the Royal Commission on Coal. In his assessment of Justice Rand's Report on the Coal Industry, Hogan stated that decent wages for the miners suffering from the "iniquitous prevailing rate system" was much more important than talk of "wild life sanctuaries and aquaria for the National Park." In a positive reference to one Catholic politician - the United States President-Elect John F. Kennedy - Hogan argued that individuals "with a depth of social consciousness" were essential to solve the coal __________________________________ 19. Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," 12. 20. For example, see Canadian Labour Congress letter - Donald MacDonald to the Rev. Andrew Hogan, 20 June 1966, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 21. Andrew Hogan, "An Assessment of Justice Rand's Report on the Coal Industry," 2, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. [ Page ] 66 problem.22 In the sixties, Hogan expressed his views on issues related to the beleaguered coal and steel industries. In his 1968 speech at the Cape Breton Labour Council banquet, he declared that workers who spent up to 35 years in a coalmine should not have to "live out their last days in subsistence."23 Moreover, the "proletarian housing" policy adopted by mine owners for decades had to be corrected. Two years earlier, Hogan had written "that a laissez-faire, let nature take its course attitude about the remaining mining towns could be fatal for the area."24 This approach foreshadowed a disaster similar to that in the Appalachian area with its resulting poverty and shame - a blot on the free enterprise system of the United States.25 In an interview on the issue of steel industry jobs, Hogan urged consistent government investment rather than a diversion of money into the tourist industry. He argued that the former is a labour intensive industry, even with modernization, whereas the tourist industry created far fewer jobs, most of which were seasonal and geared primarily to the employment of women at minimum wage standards.26 Hogan fought for the workers and was even critical of the Cape Breton Development Corporation [DEVCO], a federal Crown corporation that purchased the mines in 1967. He predicted: "we know that even under public ownership there will be an adversary relationship between a union and management."27 _________________________________________ 22. Ibid, 18,27. 23. Andrew Hogan, "Some Observations On Area Redevelopment Plans for Cape Breton," December, 1968,18, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. Hogan believed that DEVCO was "not a private profit institution out to gouge Cape Bretoners. It is a Crown Corporation." 24. Reverend A. Hogan, "Cape Breton - Its Present Problems and Future Challenges (A Socio-Economic Interpretation)" Reprinted from the Proceedings of the 18th Dominion/Provincial Conference On Coal September 1966,100 and 115, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 25. Ibid, 111. 26. "Fr. Hogan on the Steel Crisis," Atlantic Mirror, Feb-March, 1968; "Some Observations on Area Redevelopment Plans for Cape Breton - Address to Cape Breton Labour Council Banquet," 1 December 1968, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 27. House of Commons, Report from Ottawa, June 1978, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. Hogan, however, in at least one occasion was criticized for taking a reactionary position. In 1965, he received criticism for his suggestion that there [ Page ] 67 Hogan was a Catholic priest compelled to be the voice of Catholic and Protestant workers who experienced the fears of uncertainty in the Maritime work place. But he was no radical ideologue; he sought practical solutions that were cognizant of the "underlying economics that plants had to live with." He believed that "though many of the trade union people were uttering the cliches of traditional socialism, that's exactly where it stayed, at the level of cliches." Moreover, Hogan added, "if you asked them to make sacrifices in terms of really learning about the industry they were in, and running the show or demanding that they run the show, they balked."28 Influenced by the Antigonish Movement, Hogan wanted workers to educate themselves and act in a responsible manner that resulted in genuine improvements for the working class. Teaching economics at St. F.X. kept Hogan busy in the early 1970s. In 1972, the Liberals asked him to run for Parliament, a request he refused. However in 1974, Hogan the priest-professor became Hogan the federal politician - but not with the Liberal Party. Hogan's political life as a Member of Parliament began when he became a New Democrat for Cape Breton - East Richmond, one of 16 NDP candidates elected in the national contest. But why did he join the NDP, a party that in recent decades had distanced itself from its religious roots? Had not the elite of the party ignored or lost any appreciation for the groundswell of Christian beliefs pervasive among ordinary working people, particularly in the Maritimes where polling data show higher than national rates of religiosity?29 Many years later, the Catholic Insight expressed its _____________________________________________________________________________ be a two year pause in union organization of new plants in the Cape Breton region. See "Unnecessary Price" and "Development Image of Cape Breton Labour," Extension Dept Collection, RG 30-3, STFXUA. 28. Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," 14. 29. See Allen Mills, Fool for Christ: The Political Thought of JS Woodworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) and Ian McKay, "The Maritime CCF: Reflections on a Tradition," The New Maritimes, July-August, 1984,4-10. The distancing of social democratic elites and religion can be seen in David Lewis's excellent political history. See David Lewis, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909-1958 (Toronto: Macmillan 1981). One of the more publicized polling results on Canadian religiosity is Mary Nemeth, "God is Alive," Maclean's, 12 April 1993, 32. [ Page ] 68 bewilderment that Hogan had joined a party whose tradition "represents a socialist-secularist rejection of Catholic moral principles."30 If Hogan's choice of party was a contradiction in the eyes of some, his involvement with the NDP did correspond with his desire to improve the lot of ordinary working people who experienced the threatening forces of unrestrained capitalism. It is also true that the early leaders of the St.F.X. Extension Department had sympathy for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation [CCF], the predecessor of the New Democratic Party. For example, in a 1943 letter to Father John T. McGee, Coady wrote there was nothing in the C.C.F. program that barred a Catholic from joining it on moral or religious grounds.31 In the 1940s and 1950s, Coady himself had kept in touch, through correspondence and meetings, with Clarence Gillis, CCF Member of Parliament for Cape Breton South from 1940 to 1957. In August 1953, Coady congratulated Gillis on his "magnificent victory in yesterday's election."32 When Roman Catholics in Quebec were being told not to vote for the CCF, Coady and other St.F.X. priests-professors were in occasional contact with the fledgling democratic socialist party.33 The Antigonish Movement and St.F.X. did not endorse any one party officially, but politics were alive and thriving in the eastern Nova Scotian milieu. David Dingwall, the man who later defeated Hogan in Cape Breton-East Richmond, recalled his father's words: "there were two important callings: the priesthood and public service."34 Although Hogan was an exception in that he did both, he had followed the political path of those before him. Politicians educated at St.F.X. made impressive progress in the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the dynamic work of the St.F.X. Extension Department heightened the interest of both students and ______________________________________ 30. Catholic Insight, July-August 2002, Vol. 10, Issue 6, 32. 31. Coady to McGee, 30 April 1943, RG 30, Coady Papers, As Director of Extension Department, STFXUA. 32. Coady to Gillis, 11 August 1953, RG 30-2/1/1339, Coady Papers, STFXUA. 33. Murray G. Ballantyne, "The Catholic Church and the CCF," The Canadian Catholic Historical Association, Report 1963,34. Clarence Gillis to Dr. Coady, 2 July 1943, RG 30-2/1/1336. STFXUA. 34. See Demont, "The King of the East," 23. [ Page ] 69 faculty in social justice and political affairs. In 1948, students formed the Students' Political Association; it became a dynamic society that gave such later notables as Senator B. Alasdair Graham (1950), the Honourable Warren Allmand (1954), Senator Lowell Murray (1956), and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, opportunities to develop contacts and refine their political skills.35 The political activism of St.F.X. members elicited public comment even in the early 1960s.36 In the federal election of 1962, 18 academics from across Canada ran for office; four were victorious and two of these were from St.F.X.37 Hogan was the first Canadian Roman Catholic priest to be elected to the House of Commons, but a number of Protestant ministers had already successfully entered political life as Members of Parliament. One example was Stanley Knowles of the United Church who was in Ottawa from 1942 into the 1980s. Historians acknowledge the social gospel roots of democratic socialism in Canada, including a rejuvenated social gospel found in the United Church of Canada in the 1970s. Some referred to the United Church "as the NDP at prayer."38 However, those in the United Church who supported NDP politics did not always maintain the evangelical beliefs of their Methodist heritage. Stanley Knowles, like J.S. Woodworth before him, questioned orthodox Christian beliefs, including the divinity of Christ.39 In support of left- wing causes, many United Church leaders tended to disassociate themselves from the orthodox theology of their Methodist and Presbyterian ancestors. The Roman Catholic Church had better success in being "outspoken critics of the 'market-oriented policies,"' without _______________________________________ 35. Cameron, For the People, 311-312. 36. Canadian Association of University Teachers, Bulletin, November 1962, editorial, STFXUA. 37. These were Allan J. MacEachen, economist, and John B. Stewart, political scientist. Members of 25th Parliament, 1962: [http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/ house/mpsparl. asp? lang=E&parl=2 5]. 38. George Rawlyk, "Politics, Religion, and the Canadian Experience: A Preliminary Probe" in Mark Noll, ed., Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the 1980s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 272. 39. Susan Mann Trofimenkoff, Stanley Knowles: The Man From Winnipeg North Centre (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1982), 35. [ Page ] 70 questioning major Christian doctrines.40 The crisis of faith experienced by some Protestant leaders who embraced social Christianity,41 did not seem to happen among Catholic leaders of the Antigonish Movement. Fathers Tompkins, Coady, and Hogan never wavered on the issue of Christ's divinity and other essential orthodox beliefs. Given the legacy of the Antigonish Movement, Hogan's running for the New Democrats was not peculiar in Cape Breton Island. The record of the Roman Catholic Church in eastern Nova Scotia for defending the disadvantaged is an impressive one. As one journalist wrote in 1975: "Elsewhere in Canada, a Catholic priest running for the NDP is almost a contradiction in terms."42 In the eyes of many eastern Nova Scotian voters, in the 1970s, NDP social policies in conflict with traditional Catholic beliefs had yet to transcend the socio-economic battles that the party fought for the benefits of the economically disadvantaged. When NDP leader David Lewis was in Cape Breton during the 1974 campaign, Hogan shared that "most of the priests even then were for the unions." One story was recounted of how a man admitted in confession that he had stolen a ton of coal, picked up along the tracks. When he stated that the coal belonged to the company, the priest responded, "How often have I told you, when you come in here you're supposed to tell your sins?"43 In this part of Nova Scotia and at least until 1980, the union of a Catholic priest and the N.D.P. was possible. In comparing the Nova Scotian and American experience, Hogan wrote that the Catholic Church's difficulties in the United States with many non-Catholic and Jewish intellectuals was mainly due to "reactionary communist baiting and labelling of good and sincere people who differed from the orthodox approach."44 The legacy of the Antigonish movement allowed Nova Scotian Catholics considerable _________________________________________ 40. Rawlyk, "Poltitics, Religion, and the Canadian Experience," 270. 41. See David Marshall, Secularizing the Faith: Canadian Protestant Clergy and the Crisis of Belief, 1850-1940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). 42. Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," 10. 43. Ibid. 44. Hogan to Bishop William Power, 13 January 1983, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. [ Page ] 71 leeway to pursue social causes in a manner that elsewhere might have been deemed too socialistic. The ecumenism of the Antigonish Movement also clearly influenced Hogan's political behaviour and, indeed, he went one step further in public space and shed his connections to the priesthood. When he went to Parliament, he went as a politician and not as a priest. In the Common’s debates his only direct reference to the church - a humorous one - was in his first address: "Mr. Speaker, my first reaction in looking at the House of Commons today is to see a combination of the old church and the new church. I see the old church in terms of the stained glass windows, and the new church in terms of the many empty pews that are evident." 45 In his NDP "Report from Ottawa" pamphlets made available to his constituency, Hogan identifies himself as "Andy” rather than the "Rev." A. Hogan and the literature itself is devoid of any religious rhetoric. Instead, the focus is primarily economic news with some reports spiced with hard-hitting and emotional-laden cartoons that attempt to demonstrate the insensitivities of the governing Liberals. The illustrations include one working man labelled "Low Incomes" crushed under a giant shoe with the pant leg labelled "Federal Controls" and a sinister-looking Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the process of knocking an enormous boulder labelled "Cutbacks Fee Hikes Unemployment" on top of a group of unsuspecting young men and women.46 Here Hogan is a player in hard-ball politics, not a common image of a priest serving God. In the day-to-day business of political life in NDP circles, rarely was there any hint that Hogan was a priest. Overall, it appears unlikely that Protestants within his constituency experienced any apprehension about their representative being a Catholic priest with a narrow confessional focus. While Hogan did not speak publicly of his faith, his actions reflected the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the needs of the oppressed. Whether directing his questions to Trudeau or others in the cabinet, Hogan usually addressed the issue of unemployment or topics relating to the work and material needs of working-class people. ____________________________________ 45. House of Commons Debates, 3 October 1974, 3, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 46. "Report from Ottawa," March 1976 and "Report from Ottawa," June 1978, the Rev. Andy Hogan Papers, STFXUA. [ Page ] 72 Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society On occasions he scored important points; but other times his statement elicited fiery opposition, as was the case in 1979, when he attempted to prevent the selling off of Crown-owned oil corporation PetroCan to the private sector.47 Hogan held that neo-conservatives ("doctrinaire free enterprisers") had more power in the government than they should have, but he was willing to listen to their arguments, even when he was aware they lacked all the right economic answers. He was especially sensitive to the issue of regional development. On 13 November 1979, he stated in the House of Commons: "When I was going to high school and to college in Nova Scotia, we were told we could all go to Ontario. Well, Ontario is no longer a very attractive place for jobs. Now everyone says we can all go to Alberta. Of course, if everyone goes to Alberta what it will take is mainly engineers, scientists, technicians and so on." Important questions for Hogan included: "What about those who built this country, the steelworkers, the miners and fishermen and others? Are we to have a conglomeration of four or five big cities in this country?"48 What was the future for people such as Cian MacNeil who pleaded his case to Hogan? MacNeil started mining in 1928 in Inverness and then later continued at New Waterford. In 1951, he had a serious leg injury and in 1965 underwent a major stomach operation, the first of three. Due to a bureaucratic misunderstanding and his physical disability, he was taken off the payroll without receiving a pension. His wife's diabetes, heart trouble, and high blood pressure compounded his stress.49 Other Cape Breton miners with similar stories of hardship struggled to support their families; many turned to the priest turned politician with their needs and also their votes. But in the federal election of February 18,1980, there were not enough votes; Hogan lost by approximately 300 votes. He could be a cantankerous and impatient man and the electoral outcome was a bitter experience. As it turns out, regardless of the election results, Hogan's political career was on borrowed time because of the Vatican decree that priests were not to seek or hold political office. Although his political career was over, Hogan remained in touch with people seeking improved __________________________________ 47. "Hogan Attempts PetroCan Move, 29 November 1979, the Rev. Andy Hogan Papers, Scrapbook -General, STFXUA. 48. House of Commons Debates, 13 November 1979, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 49. Carson McLellan to Hogan, 19 August 1974, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. [ Page ] 73 working and material lives. In his capacity as a part-time Extension worker, he offered his services to the United Mine Workers, hoping that he and other priests could present the miners' views and improve relations between DEVCO and the union.50 Some even urged him to consider taking over the leadership of the provincial NDP, an unworkable option given his obedience to the recent Catholic policy that opposed priests as politicians. He continued to correspond with people such as Tommy Douglas, the former national leader of the NDP who retired from politics in 1979.51 In 1981, he wrote to Father Gregory MacKinnon, president of St.F.X., urging the university to grant Douglas an honorary degree: "I am, of course, prejudiced about Tommy, but even non-NDP partisans would consider him one of the great living Canadians of the last 50 years. When I first went to parliament, Tommy used to talk to me frequently about the correspondence he had with Dr. Coady in the dirty thirties."52 St.F.X. followed his suggestion and conferred an honorary on Douglas at its fall convocation in 1982. That Douglas, a Baptist minister, received support from Father Hogan and such an honour from a staunchly Catholic university, albeit in a more secular climate of education, added one more symbol of the lowering of Catholic and Protestant barriers that were formidable in an earlier age. The Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, in a document called On Ecumenism, clarified that other Christians are Christians and others churches are churches.53 Well before this, Catholics and Protestants, such as Coady and Douglas, inspired by the example of Jesus, were working together to challenge the oppressive elements of capitalism. The Antigonish Movement had a distinct ecumenical flavour that guided people like Father Andrew Hogan, a man concerned with both the temporal and the spiritual spheres of life. As one commentator wrote in 1975, "Andy Hogan is not a saviour; as he would quickly point out, that role has already been taken. But he seems to be a man whose life has been spent preparing to fight for the miners of Glace Bay and _____________________________________ 50. Hogan to Ray Holland, 18 June 1982, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 51. Hogan to T.C. Douglas, 17 August 1982, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 52. Hogan to the Rev. Dr. Gregory MacKinnon, 11 August 1981, Hogan Papers, STFXUA. 53. "Interview with Dr. Gregory Baum," Maclean's, 4 April 1977, 4. [ Page ] 74 New Waterford in Parliament."54 In his social and political activism, Father Andrew Hogan kept true to the legacy of the Antigonish Movement with its ecumenism and its fundamental thrust for a Christian answer to capitalist inequities. ********** ____________________________________ 54. Cameron, "The Priest Who Went to Parliament," 14. Hogan's last years were difficult ones; in 1986, he had a major stroke that prevented him from speaking in his last 16 years. On 10 April 2002, the Cape Bretoner, coalminer's son, professor, activist, politician and, priest died. Father Bob Ogle of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the only other Canadian Catholic priest-Member of Parliament, died four years earlier in 1998. A more critical reflection can be found in the Catholic Insight's obituary of Hogan. The paper wondered how two Catholic priests were "oblivious" to the NDP "overthrow of Catholic- Christian moral and family law" [July-August 2002, Vol. 10, Issue 6, 32]. ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****