Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Year and Age Married

As I have time on my hands due to the Stay-at-Home order, I decided to do an investigation of age at time of marriage of ancestors and see if how much much variation occurred over time. Having viewed the data for years, I developed a hypothesis that male age at time of marriage was pretty flat, but that female age has increased.  For example, Josef Hawel was 37 years, and his wife Anna was 23.  What the data indicated to me, before graphing is that in most cases males were in or above their mid-twenties at the time of marriage, and at times older.  Before working on genealogy I always tended to assume that the marriage age of my ancestors would have been younger than what I found.  In Bohemia, as in other countries, it was not unusual to see multi-generation households, and the males, as the main breadwinner, probably wanted to be settled in an occupation before marriage in order to support the intended family.  If they were in farming, this could take time as the parent aged out, or they found their own reliable work.

For purposes of the following data I used only ancestor data for which I had fairly accurate date of marriage and births.  That is data verified by birth and marriage records, or family archival data that was verified by other sources, such as other family histories. As I do more archival research, if possible, I may be able to expand the older data set.  For ancestor marriages, I used the first marriage if there were more than one marriage.  For example, even though Viktoria Koblitz, the first wife of Josef Duscheck was not my great great grandmother, I used her, as I believed it gives a better representation of age at marriage. Josef would remarry after the death of his first wife, and that wife, Rosalie, would produce additional children.

I had not been able to figure out how to do a best-fit line of both males and females in the same graph, so I have separate graphs.  The first two graphs show the marriage and age of my mother and father (right side), and then the reliable data I have for their parents, grandparents, etc.  The table does not include marriage of aunts and uncles, or cousin relations.  For all four charts the X axis is year of marriage and the Y axis is age at time of marriage.  The X axis is in fifty year increments starting in 1700, the Y axis is age in five year increments, starting at 0.

Parent, Grandparent, Etc Year of Marriage by Age
The above graph would indicate that female age at time of marriage for our ancestors increased over time.  However, if the case in the early 1700's were removed, I think the best fit line would be flatter.

Parent, Grandparent, Etc Year of Marriage by Age

The second graph shows a slight decrease in male age, but is generally fairly flat, indicating that there was not a significant change in the best fit line.  Overall, the scatter of the age data points shows females were younger than the males, although there were two exceptions.  Family members, can you guess who the second from right marriage would be?

The next two graphs utilize the same ancestors, but expands the pool for twentieth century marriages by using the date of of myself and my siblings by their age and age of their spouse in year of marriage.  The one instance of two marriages by a sibling, to be consistent with our ancestors, the first marriage was used.  

Hovel Children with Ancestor Marriages
The best fit line in this graph shows that female marriage age saw a slight increase over time.  The scatter graph shows that again males tended to be the older partner, although with a couple exceptions in what is a smaller data set.  In other words, you could say the percent of cougars in the marriage saw a slight increase. 
Hovel Children with Ancestor Marriages
The last graph shows a flat line, and the line would be even more flat if the earliest shown marriage were to be removed.  However, the line would probably not show the slight increase, and perhaps a decrease if the older aged male 1990 marriage was removed. 

Nationally, males tend to be older at time of marriage than their partner, and this generally holds true in this example. According to more recent statistics of present time if couples marry at all they tend to marry later.  As more data points for the Hovel family become available that data could be added. 
Generally speaking the marriage ages are fairly consistent for males, and less so for males.  I could run more statistics, but lack the statistical program to do so, and my old fashioned stat skills are just that too old to desire to engage in such an endeavor.

Note on Archival Data:  For the Hovel side, the Trebon Archives represent a good source, but records can be in three languages, and the script, or handwriting changed over time and is difficult to discern. Even trained personnel have many problems with the handwriting particularly when combined with the quality of the written record.  The Zmarsk Archives which contains information on the Duscheck family is much less user friendly than Trebon, has the same, and sometimes more issues, as many records lack the house number for the village and village.  The villages are small and while each village had a chapel, the main church served several villages. I found the house number, where available, invaluable in searching in the Trebon Archives.  I have not been able to locate birth records for the Sweeney side in Ireland, except for Bridget Cleary's birth record.  I have waded through on line data bases and found the birth/baptismal record of Franziska Leindenheimer, but have not yet located her parents.  I have no idea from where the Pitzenberger family originated, nor does anyone who has posted an ancestry of the family online.  

Sunday, March 29, 2020

The Wife App

My spouse and I bought a new vehicle in July 2018.  Before that purchase our most recent vehicle purchases were in 2005 and 2006. I still own and drive the 2006 vehicle.  Needless to say the advances in available electronics in the twelve year time span is unbelievable.  Yet, as I wrote about in a prior blog post, which you can find here, are those advances necessary when one has a wife that is often in a vehicle and will make her comments on your driving well known? Since we tend to keep our vehicles for a long time, my thought, when buying in 2018, was to get one with many of the new advancements in safety technology. I guess you could say I was trying to replace the wife app. My true thinking was that neither of us are getting any younger, so I figured the technology may be useful, that is if you use it.  I am sure the following stories will provide the good and the bad of the technology, or rather me. I doubt the last story would have occurred if the wife app was in the vehicle.  It also makes me wonder if I have become too dependent on technology.
U Connect Control Panel, at main Navigation Screen
But first, a little bit on the technology in our 2018 vehicle.  Some, actually most, of the following you can turn off if you desire.  It of course has the rear view back up camera which is now standard equipment, although this takes some getting used to.  Besides having parallel and back-in park assist, the car will warn you by auto-braking, and noise if you start to get too close to another vehicle for front and rear.  This worked for us while crossing the Hudson River, and a car suddenly slammed on its brakes as I was looking at the river, the cars actions made me instinctively hit the brakes. The vehicle has alarms that sounds when something gets much too close, such as the wall which the garage door matches up against. While it does not have side mirror cameras, it sounds an alarm and provides a notice to you in the side mirror of a car in the adjoining lane when a turn signal is on.  That way you know you are too close to move to that lane. In this case, the turn signal has to be used. It also has variable speed cruise control. It has lane assist, and lets you know if you start crossing into another lane. The windshield wipers sense rain and will turn the front windshield wipers on and determine wiper speed depending on rainfall intensity.  One nice feature the car has is the Voice Recognition (VR) button on the steering wheel.  Press the button and I can ask to "show weather", "find address", set a radio station, hands-free telecommunication (if I had a smartphone), and various other commands. I mainly use it for guidance, and the weather.  It will even provide storm warnings and alerts.  All of this is optional or standard on many vehicles over the past few years.
Lane Assist upper right of dashboard, Green means I am properly aligned in the lane
Even with this technology, the wife app is still working, as it will let you know if you are driving too fast, let you know about approaching vehicles ("Do you see that truck?"), people or cars making an odd movement ahead.  A few times there has been a difference between the wife app and the car's lane assist, when she thinks I am going over a line, but the lane assist in only in amber, or even green.  The wife app will not turn on the windshield wipers, but it would sure let the driver know when to turn them.   With the wiper system, I don't have to concern myself with when the wipers go on, or their speed, the system does it quite well provided the sensor on the windshield is not gunked-up with road salt residue.  I really like the wiper feature when you hit a sudden summer downpour.
Lane Assist, amber means I am starting to get close to another lane or the road edge.
My wife app would not comment on me being 3 mph over the limit,
but my twin brother's wife app probably would.
It was in early summer, about four or five days after having bought the vehicle, that my wife and I left on a trip to go to a family wedding north of New York City.  On our way out and back we stopped at varied attractions. While traveling through Indiana, I heard a tone sound, and I did not really think anything of it, but found it curious.  Well this tone sounded a couple times on that trip and has done so after that trip.  It was not until this past year that we think we figured out what the tone is that the driver, usually me, lacks sufficient hand pressure or grip on the steering wheel. It was figured out when my wife noticed a message on the main dashboard that tells you to get your hands on the wheel. The wife app would not know how much pressure I had on the steering wheel, but it would know if I had my hands on the wheel. I also think it may sound an alarm for something else, perhaps when we cross time zone, as I think the first beep sounded as we moved to the Eastern zone.  The navigation system will even tell me when I approach, or are in, a school crossing zone. With all these features, the car gives beeps and a message on the navigation screen.  The wife app is usually much more verbal. My favorite part of the wife app is when she thinks I am getting too close to a vehicle or too sharp a turn and she grabs the arm rest or the door rest or handle and sucks in her breath and pulls her self tight to the seat.  She thinks I am about to put the wife app out of commission.
Voice Recognition Button on Steering Wheel
bottom center
After hearing that beep, in Indiana, I was conscious of sounds the vehicle would make.  The vehicle, not the wife app.  I think we were beginning our third leg of the trip, after spending the night in Youngstown, OH, and we desired to make it to Harrisburg, PA to see the Civil War Museum.  Well, my wife was driving the first part of the trip, and low and behold, we had just crossed into PA and I hear three soft tones in a row: beep, beep, beep.  Three tones being one directly after the other.  I of course said, rather nicely, but with concern, to my wife who was driving: "What did you do?", to which she responded "nothing., what makes you think it was me?" or something to that effect.  I am sure there was certainly more in her thoughts.  Talking about thoughts, I know I will get an earful about me having commented rather nicely to her about the three beeps, as she would say it was otherwise. An odd noise, but we continued on our way.  The sound continued so I began to be concerned, okay, so I was concerned after the first three beeps. I even started timing, and found that it occurred every three minutes.  After awhile I am beside my self and wonder what is happening.  Although the wife would say I was beside myself at the first few sets of beeps. For one year we had assistance from the manufacturer where we press a button in the car and get a representative, so I decided to use that assistance. Like On-Star.  The person took the information and then noted no reports of that type of sound having been issued, but suggested that when we stop the U-Connect system resets itself when the door is opened and closed, as we thought it was coming from the infotainment (U-Connect) system on the vehicle.  At the next rest stop we pull over turn off the car, get out to use the restroom and stretch our legs, but we found out it continued to beep at three minute intervals.  I called them again and they let the Harrisburg dealer know we would be coming.  Having the navigation system built in the car is not only neat, but can come in very handy.  It is like I should use it most of the time on longer trips.
Varied Prompts when you use VR button
We enter the dealer address into our system, and hear the three beeps every three minutes.  As we pull into the garage to drop it off, the lead tech hears the beeps, and says they will fit it in soon, but they arrange a rental car for us to use.  While waiting a few minutes for the rental car, and I am in the restroom, my wife swore she heard the same beeps.  We then get in to the rental car.  We have just gotten on the highway to head to the museum using the rental car, and what do we hear--the same three beeps.  Okay, I realized, the noise was not the car we were driving.  It was my cell phone telling me it was low on battery. The phone was not on me in the car, but in a storage compartment.  I grabbed it when we changed vehicles. I had never heard it tone this way because, well it is seldom used and I charged it every week, and the battery never got so low for me to know it needed to be recharged.  I figured out that traveling with the trac-phone more battery is used in its search for towers.  Well, I said we should go back, but my wife says we were not going back. She angrily exclaimed that "They would think we were nuts!!" I recall her using the term "we", not "you".  We go to the museum, and while completing our visit we get a message that they could not find anything wrong with the car. They suggested if it occurs again, the infotainment center would need to be pulled, and evaluated but that is a full day job.  They did note, several times, that there is no safety issue with the vehicle.  When picking it up I said if I hear it again I will take it to our local service location. It was not a safety issue. As you can realize we never heard the three beeps again in the car.  My wife still does not let me live that down. She would probably like to put it in my obituary, unless of course, I give her another head-shaker that is even better.  She really likes to shake her head. 
Upper part, center of windshield is the panel that senses rain,
and perhaps other sensors as well
I think my wife likes to think that when I am driving she needs to be in the car with me.  After all, regardless of the newer technology in our 2018 vehicle, I still have my wife app, and at times she will more quickly point out something than does the technology, since she can anticipate whereas the technology has a certain range of influence and only relates to that within its range.  I have to say, the next story is rather humbling, and if I question my wife app anymore, I am sure she will bring up this story.
Navigation Screen
The Saturday before St Patrick's Day I picked up my youngest son in Sun Prairie, and together we were heading to LaCrosse, to pick up a piece of woodworking equipment for his work shop. As we left Sun Prairie and began the drive we got involved in varied conversations.  As we drive by Mauston, I make a mental note that the exit I need is about 15 to 20 minutes away.  There is a good deal of semi-traffic, and I also wonder if I should use my VR button and say "Find Address" for my sister's house in LaCrosse where we will meet up before going to get the sander, but I decide not to do so.  I have been to LaCrosse many times, why would I need the navigation system as a reminder? To make a long story short, we are talking and all of a sudden I see a sign for the distance to Eau Claire. I thought, Oh my Gosh! Eau Claire is not that close! I must have missed the exit, the turn onto I-90.  Not only that, but I also missed the next exit at Millston.  We have to travel several miles to the next exit at Black River Falls, and this is when I decide to use the VR button for travel guidance.  If the wife app was with me there is no way she would have let me miss the turn.  Well, we arrived at LaCrosse about 35 minutes late, and more miles traveled.  However, being a geographer I like to say I am never lost, I am just exploring new territory.  Hwy 27 and 71 to Sparta, was just that, new territory for me.

Far seat is where the Wife App sits
She would not let me post a picture with
her in the seat.

Of course, my son had let my wife know we missed the turn, and so all the way home I am thinking about how I am going to hear about this incident and how I make fun of my wife app.  Well, I think she was taking a Debra Barone approach since she did not bring it up right away, as I expected.  She let me stew about it for awhile. Maybe she wanted to see how long before I brought it up.  I don't quite recall if I eventually brought up the missed exit or if she did.  I am sure she knows.  She does not ever, I mean ever, forget such encounters.  She might forget where she placed the vitamin B, or wait that was me.  The jest of her final comment was how I really do need my wife app, and that she needs to be with me.  Well, if I had just used the guidance system that incident would not have occurred.  I still don't know how it was missed.

Part of me wonders, if on long trips I have become to accustomed to the guidance system, or having my wife app with me, particularly  in the 2018 vehicle.  Even before navigation systems I called her the navigator, so in a sense she combines the safety features in the 2018 vehicle and the guidance system.  Even knowing I did not have guidance set, I obviously got too comfortable.  I have been humbled and need to either pay attention, or make sure I have my wife app with me.













Sunday, March 22, 2020

Glitter Outbreak

We have had a glitter outbreak in our house this late winter. Being glitter, I am sure it will continue well into spring, summer and who knows when it will end. Can one ever really get rid of glitter?  I know the source of the glitter.  My wife likes to put her sewing skills to work, and so she occasionally engages the task of making a t-shirt quilt.  In almost all instances of the number she has sewn, they have been made for young people in their senior year of high school, before they move on to, and for their use at, college.  The t-shirt quilt business had been fairly robust in years past, but she has not done many recently.  This year she got a request from one of her former co-workers who has a daughter about to graduate and was asked to make her a t-shirt quilt.
Glit-20 Outbreak source
As a testament to the number of t-shirts young people receive, there is seemingly a t-shirt for every sport, or activity in which they are or were involved.  Most parents, she has sewn for in the past, weed out t-shirts they would like to see in their child's quilt and bring them to my wife. Usually, the t-shirt quilts have been made as a graduation gift, a surprise the the child.  One would think the child would miss a t-shirt or two or three, and that may happen, but I have been told they have so many t-shirts they would not miss twelve, twenty, thirty or whatever the number may be that goes into a quilt.  In the case one was missed, in the overall supply chain my wife is well removed from any in-home squabbles of a missing t-shirt. The t-shirt quilt is often a graduation gift, and in many instances the parent wanting the quilt for their child will tell my wife what color fabric to put between the t-shirt fronts, and on the back. My wife would buy the fabric, get the batting, and then assemble the quilt.
It is Everywhere
This year was different.  The girl knew she would be getting a quilt, after all her older siblings had, so she picked out her t-shirts, and with her mom they chose the fabric to use. This gets to the crux of the story.  For the front edging, and the back fabric mom and daughter chose a fabric with a play of  mainly shades/hues of medium to dark blues and some black, but with glitter.  Yes, glitter. And lots of glitter.  I guess the glitter gives the dark colors some pizzazz.  Can you imagine having a glitter blanket?  I am not sure what it is about girls, but some seem to gravitate to glitter.  Perhaps it is a throw back to the princess nature growing up, or revenge on the parents, or just too much pent up estrogen.  I lived in a dorm for two years, and the dorm beds are often used for seating (whether it be to solve the world problems, or a wapatuli party), so one can imagine the spread of glitter that will occur through her dorm.
Edging of quilt, same as back
But, before it goes to her dorm, it had to be assembled, and that was done by my wife.  My wife washed this fabric, like other fabrics, before doing her handi-work. Then came our laundry day. When helping fold and putting away the laundry nothing looked much amiss.  This was not the case the next morning.  When I completed my shower, I of course dried off with my towel.  A minute later when I was starting to shave I looked in the mirror and saw a mess of sparkles on my head, neck and chest. If one were to have looked at my head, I could easily have been mistaken for the Times' Square New Years Eve ball, only with a mustache.  "Oh my gosh, why am I so sparkly?", I thought.  Sparkly is not a term people would associate with me or my personality. Being severely nearsighted if I did not know better I would have thought I was experiencing a detached retina. My eye doctor has told me that if you ever see flashing or sparkling lights head to the emergency room. Well, I was seeing sparkling lights, but it was really the glowing, glaring glitter magnified by the fluorescent light  above the mirror. It only took a nano-second to realize, as I tried to regain my thoughts among the brilliant flashes that were making my mind spin, that the sparkles had come from the washer or dryer where the glitter fabric had found a home for a short period of time a few days earlier.
Completed project
Photo by Toni Hovel
I don't know how they attach the glitter to the fabric, perhaps by some type of glue, or maybe little invisible prongs.  I do know I had glitter on the neck, face and chest, I chose not to further examine my body, as there is little I can do.  I did try to wipe it off my neck and face, and was partially successful.  Of course, when I wiped it off it is not like it goes in the garbage.  There are a number of locations in which it could go: onto the counter, into the sink, on my hand towel, on the floor or, to one could hope to glitter hell.

If the glitter is on my towels, that means it is also on my clothes.  Even two weeks later I still find some glitter hanging around on a shirt sleeve, my face, my neck, my hand, just as a few examples.  There was glitter on the basement rugs in the sewing room, there was glitter on the living room carpet where the pieces were laid out to find best assembly, and there is still glitter seemingly forever stuck to the kitchen table, particularly in the area that is well worn from the news print that has accumulated onto the kitchen table.  When vacuuming, I wonder how much glitter is in all the dust bunnies that form in the vacuum's canister.  As I started the post this past Wednesday, I noticed glitter on the cuff of my shirt, on my hand, and on my wife--both face and clothes. Thursday while shaving I noticed glitter on my face. And, today, Sunday, as I am about to post the blog, I still found a speck or two on my face.

My wife, being the one who was at the epicenter of the 2020 glitter outbreak, but I have not really noticed much on her, although it occurs occasionally.  It is not like the stuff seems to disintegrate.  It always seems to hang around, perhaps more so than, well, certain viruses. The glitter pandemic in our household started a few weeks ago and its overall distribution within the household seems to be on the decrease, but that is what I can notice.  This household glitter explosion takes me back to my college and grad school days in geography where I studied various spatial dispersion (distribution) models. The problem is the quilt moved to different parts of the house (basement, kitchen table, living room), hence we have the issue of community spread. While I may not know from what exact place the glitter came on my cuff for example, I know from where it originated.  It is probably transferred into our cars, and who knows perhaps even transported to the few places we now go. And, it is probably still hanging around in the washer and dryer. Because it is in the house, I cannot social distance myself from the great 2020 glitter outbreak.  The quilt is finished, and luckily the glitter outbreak is now contained within a large plastic bag.
Wife at work on the quilt
If I had thought of it sooner, I could have created and published a glitter dispersion model for use in other situations. Glitter when it is touched seems to want to hang on to you.  It is as if the glitter square has little tentacles worse than those small plants seeds that stick to clothes and hair. If I had a microscope I would examine a piece in greater detail. As for the girl, when she uses her quilt in her college dorm room, the dorm becomes a new location for another glitter outbreak.  Those people that are glitter adverse may want to social distance themselves from the dorm room she will occupy.  So, as most of the world, including myself, deals with the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, I have to also deal with decorated due to the Glit-20 outbreak in which I am an unwilling recipient.

On a serious note, I hope all are practicing social distancing, and limiting trips.  Stay Healthy.














Sunday, March 15, 2020

Joseph Reiner and Establishing

This is the final in a series of  blog posts on my great uncle, Rev. Joseph Stephen Reiner, SJ. It may, however,  be the most important as what he established would change the church in Chicago, and, in my opinion it would lead to an overall affect on the Church nationally, and even the nation.  Fr. Reiner, as we know was the Dean at Loyola University during a time of great growth, and great upheaval (the start of the Great Depression). Yet, his life was more than academia.  As we saw in the prior posts he was a man of action and wanted students to know how to learn so they could see, judge and act.  His idea of action would persuade him to establish the Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action (first known as CISCORA and later CISCA.  The name change, according to Fr R Hartnett, SJ, in his Loyola speech was because "wags mispronounced that so the name had to be changed."  Hartnett would work closely with Fr Reiner on the establishment of CISCA. While the establishment of CISCA may be the best known activity of Fr Reiner, as Dean he also had other responsibilities.
Loyola University of Chicago
As Dean of Loyola, starting with the nation in a recession, Reiner oversaw expansion of the Arts and Sciences, the main undergraduate body for Loyola. At Loyola, Fr Reiner would establish the School of Commerce, under the College of Arts and Sciences, perhaps in order to assure that those educated in business would understand the liberal arts, and also act in concert with his ideas of Catholic social teaching.  Reiner, however also established the Glee Club, choir and band, showing that all was not business.  He also established, following his idea of student governance, the student council at Loyola.  This too flowed from his overall pedagogical method to advance the idea of see, discern and act, and to provide students the ability to learn for themselves.  Students best followed from a faith that would grow through learning, discernment and action.  Faith was important as he established Friday masses for the student body and with this he established his missal to increase lay participation at mass, for as The Queen's Work (Sodality newspaper) pointed out to him it was the mass that mattered. From the Mass would flow the concept of social justice.

The Mass is the primary aspect of Catholics, but to many following that, is social action.  The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in an online article "New Forms of Solidarity Towards Fraternal Inclusion, Integration and Innovation" (5 Feb 2020) writes that "Throughout his public life, Jesus not only preached about Justice, but also lived it through solidarity and mercy with his neighbors, but especially with the disenfranchised of his time.  When asked which was the most important commandment, he answered with 'love the Lord, your God..., and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:37).'"   Solidarity, the article goes on to say, is one of the Church's three pillars of social doctrine. It is from this teaching, that Fr. Joseph Reiner would get the idea that would be important to changing the Church in Chicago and the nation by establishing CISCA.   Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action would grow out of the Marian movement to be the face for, as the name states, Catholic Action.
Joseph Reiner, SJ
In the early part of the twentieth century many Catholic Universities had Sodality associations which began as Marian devotion and apostolic activity.  Under Popes Pius XI and XII the Sodality movements would take on an expanded role for social action, and Fr Reiner would expand that concept and establish a federation of sodality organizations for Chicago Catholic high schools and colleges--hence he established CISCA.  The Sodality movements of one hundred years ago would become critical to the Church Solidarity movement, one of the three pillars of Catholic doctrine.  Fr Reiner's great idea formed the coalition of the Chicago Sodality organizations with an intent on to promote Catholic action.

Hartnett says that Fr Daniel Lord's contribution to American Catholic education lay in "giving extra-curricular activities a religious orientation."  However, Fr Reiner, according to Hartnett, took this and pioneered, a movement.  Reiner had Lord give a retreat at Loyola in 1926 and from that retreat Reiner would get the idea to create CISCA.  What Reiner did was to create a methodology, out of Lord's freewheeling thoughts, what would be called a four-ply system. Hartnett states that "Nothing happened, however, until Father Reiner applied his very apostolic but very practical and systematic mind and will to this challenge."  Fr Reiner established four main committees or methods of action for the Sodality movement which can be summed up as: liturgy, mission support, literature, and social action. And since all that Lord knew of social action came from Reiner, Hartnett says that Reiner's social action program "filled a serious gap in Father Lord's sodality program." Hartnett would go on to say that the social action platform created by Fr Reiner was "devoted to extending the reign of Christ the King throughout the political and social orders." However, he goes further stating that by establishing the social action committee, Reiner was in line with current Catholic thought, I quote Hartnett:  "Pius XII's encyclical Christ the King... gave this committee a special impetus and contemporary relevance."  What is important is that Reiner in establishing these four courses of thought precipitated action by the student Sodality organization.  Hartnett writes that one week of each month was centered on each theme. He goes on to say that "Father Reiner drew up a mimeographed page which he posted and distributed each week, outlining the meaning, of the week, spiritually, the objectives to be pursued and the means to be adopted to achieve them."  (Underlining in original copy of speech text.)  In this, you can see the triumvirate of Reiner's overall thinking relating to action, and in the mind of Fr Reiner the three are interrelated, it is like educating, acting and establishing.
Fr Joseph Reiner, SJ
Bielakowski, comes to the same conclusion, but has a different means and reason.  Her dissertation begins with the following quote:
In March 1927 Vatican Secretary of State Rafael Cardinal Merry Del Val privately advised Jesuit Father General Wladimir Ledochowski that the Holy See viewed Jesuit universities in the United States as insufficiently Catholic in character. Ledochowski informed American Jesuit Provincials that, among the charges leveled, was that Jesuit educators exerted “practically no influence over the religious and spiritual welfare of the students.” In Chicago, Loyola University administrators responded to this warning by enlarging the Loyola student Sodality’s newly-established Catholic Action program into a hegemonic presence, not only on the Loyola Arts campus in Rogers Park, but throughout Chicago’s network of Catholic schools. By 1928 Loyola students headed a federation of 52 Chicago-area Catholic universities, colleges, and high schools, initially known as the Chicago Intercollegiate Conference on Religious Activities (CISCORA).  (p. 1)
The meeting she quotes took place in March 1927, but almost a year earlier the 1926 Eucharistic Congress held in Chicago gave Loyola University a means to enlighten their students, through participation in the congress.  My goodness, even Bielakowski had this to say about the Eucharistic Congress and its affect on Loyola (perhaps Dean Reiner was prescient to the Holy See comments that would come a year later):
The International Eucharistic Congress offered a perfect opportunity to re-create that reputation. Held in Chicago in the summer of 1926, it gathered the various layers of Catholics’ religious commitment—international, national, and local—mixed them, and charged them with urgency and excitement. Parading Chicago’s Catholic high school and college students on Soldier Field in front of visiting dignitaries, it invited Catholic youth to see themselves as an integral part of a vast, triumphal Church institution, united in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Likewise, it offered Catholic educational administrators the opportunity to display their students’ religious fidelity and zeal on an international stage. (p. 102)
Not only that, but it was in January 1927, three months before the Vatican Secretary of State made his complaint to the head of the Jesuit order about Jesuit Colleges in the US, that Robert Hartnett a then student at Loyola is quoted by Biewlakowski (the same Robert Hartnett  who as a Jesuit provided an address at Loyola on Fr Reiner in 1965) as saying this to the Sodality organization at Loyola:
Our sodality has been too much of a touch-and-go affair,” Loyola student Robert Harnett declaimed in January 1927. It has to assume a much larger importance in our school life. It ought to ramify through all our other activities: fraternities, debates, recreation, sports—everything, including also our social life.’
Bielakowski goes on to say:
Arts College Dean Joseph Reiner, S.J., applauded the word “ramify”: indeed the idea, if not the diction, had been mainly his—and that idea was even more ambitious than Harnett initially suggested to the small group of Catholic students gathered in the chemistry room. They spoke of reorienting extracurricular life at Loyola University toward Catholic ideals. Reiner, however, saw the Sodality’s social and cultural ascendancy on campus as only a first step toward realizing the Catholic Action ideal of an assertive “lay apostolate” that would extend the Church’s influence throughout secular society. (bold by author)
CISCA Leadership
The timing of the exchanges shows that Bielakwoski's main thesis is off.  Reiner was instituting his idea of liturgy, mission support, literature, and social action at Loyola before the Vatican condemnation.  Coincidence is different that causation.  What led to Joseph Reiner implementing his four ply approach was his belief that the Eucharistic is central to the faith and the faith requires action, particularly social action.  Whatever the case may be, there was, as my wife would say, a Godincidence.  Joseph Reiner, saw his instituted vision of the Sodality program as providing a Catholic culture for an extra-curricular activity.  He likely realized an emerging coalescence around social action.  As we know he had been involved with social action since the early part of the twentieth century when he contributed to the 1903 Our Sunday Visitor on "Jones and Smith Discuss Socialism. "  The 1925 encyclical, the issues of income inequality, racism, lack of worker rights, religious discrimination, limited ecumenism, were all issues in the 1920's and in particular in the 1930's following the stock market crash of 1929.  More important they were all issues in which Fr Reiner was involved.  He could now work to expand his model of social action.  While Bielakowski keeps up the political aspect to prove the thesis of her dissertation she does note:  "Aside from the Sodality’s political value, Reiner’s interest in Catholic Action organization appears to have been sincere and genuine." (p. 97)  It is quite clear to me that Fr Reiner has an obvious interest in social action, prior to the Vatican mandate; the dates are in his favor.  His ideas preceded, but likely would assist Loyola in mitigating, if not out-right countering, the Vatican comments.
Dean Joseph Reiner, SJ
After having formed his four-ply system for the Loyola Sodality, he took his activity to a whole other level and one that would have implications for the national Church and perhaps the United States.  I think it best to depend on Hartnett, who was integrally involved, provide what happened next:
Then he [Reiner] go a bright idea:to call a day-long, diocesan-wide meeting to form an archdiocesan Sodality Union of Catholic colleges and universities to teardrop along the lines of his four-ply system.  To everyone's surprise, the students of neighboring Catholic institutions responded enthusiastically to this invitation and proved themselves very articulate in discussing their  religious concerns in public. Catholic collegians had never done anything like this before.  This was the first such Sodality Union formed in the United States. (Hartnett)
This was the beginning of CISCORA, later CISCA.  Johnson, in her book, One in Christ, notes that "this meeting involved ninety-six representatives from twenty-three schools."  Bielakowski indicates that this organization was crucial to showing that Jesuit authorities keeping a tab on the Univeristy were heading the Vatican order. She writes:
At Loyola, sodality “ramification” served, not only international Catholicism’s broader political and ideological interests, but also the university’s immediate needs. As Chapter 1 showed, to counteract Vatican allegations of eroding Catholic character at Jesuit institutions in the United States, Jesuit international and provincial supervision of Loyola University’s extracurriculum increased to the extent of scrutinizing student publications, thereby pushing Loyola administrators to organize and formalize censorship procedures that had formerly been casual and discretionary. Loyola’s administration, however, did not only seek to downplay the morally questionable aspects of student life, such as irreverent language; it also sought to demonstrate that Catholicism was integral to Jesuit education—and furthermore, that Loyola students enthusiastically implemented the Vatican’s “Catholic Action” agenda outside as well as inside the classroom. The re-vitalization and extension of the Loyola Sodality became an important part of this administrative agenda. Reflecting in 1937on CISCORA’s founding ten years earlier, former Loyola student Robert Hartnett—by then a Jesuit priest—acknowledged the federation’s origin in Jesuit anxieties regarding the religious character of extracurricular campus life. “In 1927, it could be said with no little justice: ‘Catholic students in Catholic colleges have till now formed organizations to promote journalism, dramatics, debating, athletics, dances, just about everything except their Catholicism,’” he told a student audience. “Thanks to Fathers Lord and Reiner, that accusation has been blotted out. The Lord be praised!” (p 96)
Bielakowski takes the view that the clergy exercised even greater oversight.  Perhaps, but this goes along with her thesis, after all, that with the Vatican watching they had to play it right. She writes that in 1927 Reiner, still Dean, pushed as he had never before pushed.
And he pushed them. Before the school term ended in 1927, Reiner, acting with and through Harnett, not only propelled Loyola’s extracurricular religious organization, a chapter of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, toward a leading role on Loyola’s Arts campus, but also expanded it into Chicago Inter Student Conference on Religious Activities (CISCORA)—later Chicago Inter-Student Catholic Action (CISCA)--an elaborate citywide federation of Catholic student organizations that included Mundelein College, De Paul University, and the four other colleges and 51 high schools that comprised Chicago’s system of Catholic youth education. Co-opting the rhetoric and values of collegiate “campus life,” the CISCORA federation’s program stressed student leadership and initiative in an effort to form “lay apostles”—outspoken Catholic leaders who nevertheless would focus and confine their activity within boundaries set by the clergy. In the early 1930s, these boundaries would grow more explicit, tightening administrative authority over student culture at Loyola and Mundelein, and—in the late 1930s—De Paul. (pp 95-96)
Fr J Reiner, SJ
As we know the four-ply system established by Fr Reiner became the basis on which Loyola's Sodality would function, and later form the basis when he established CISCORA, (later CISCA).  Bielakowski talks about students being called to be counter-cultural, and called to be leaders, but this required careful and concerted balancing with clerical input. "Reiner intended the Loyola Sodality and CISCORA, its extension, to re-interpret “campus life” values of student leadership, initiative, solidarity, and obedience in terms of the Catholic Action “lay apostolate”-- a catchphrase generally defined as 'the participation of the laity in the mission of the clergy.'" (p. 103)  What the Church realized is that for it to be relevant in the industrializing world lay persons would "have to take the lead in shaping the values, organization, and tone of the secular society in which they moved, making that society more accordant with recent Papal statements on social justice and morality in industrial societies." (Bielakowski, p 103)  Bielakowski would further expand on this idea 'For Chicago’s Catholic students, this leadership obligation could involve welcoming an African-American into their parish in defiance of popular hostility, distributing Catholic literature on buses and street corners, rebuking friends for lewd conversation, or visibly protesting movies with sexual content.' (p. 103) "However, in order to become 'lay apostles,' students would have to muster the courage to openly oppose prevailing social and cultural trends—to set rather than submit to secular social patterns—while at the same time remaining obedient followers of the Church hierarchy that supplied them with ideals and principles." (p. 103-104)
Article in Loyola Newspaper



The kicker to all of this, as she would go on to note, is the application of varied principles and values, that these Catholic lay students, women and men, would have to defy, but yet submit, lead and do all in the "appropriate context." (Bielakowski, p 104)  "Cultivating this delicate balance of defiance, submission, and leadership in students involved careful attention to character formation", she would go on to say. (p. 104)  She then claims that "Indeed, Reiner based his 1933 'Plan for Catholic Social Action' on a central premise of Jesuit education: that 'attitudes are more important than knowledge.'"  What we see is the culmination of Joseph Reiner's thoughts on education, and action, leaving it to the laity, but within boundaries.  He believed that young men and women educated to learn, discern and act would follow the proper course of action whether it be liturgy, missions, literature, or social action.

CISCA would go on to spur action in Chicago, that would have relevance throughout the nation.  As Sparr explains, there was at the same time a desire by some Catholic leaders, including Daniel Lord, SJ, and Francis Talbot, SJ, a  belief  that a "Catholic-Christian orthodoxy offered the only standards, the only fixed body of unchanging truths capable of saving the world from chaos." (p. 18)  What they saw, was a world "menaced by war, depression, class struggle, and philosophical and spiritual decay." (Sparr p. 17).  The Church criticized both capitalism and communism.  As the 1930's approached CISCORA would find itself moving forward and with a literary basis to help it move along.  In fact, it was moving so well that Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Sheil would ask that the organization be moved from Loyola (as the lead) and become apart of the CYO.  In this action, Fr Reiner would cease to be Dean in 1931 and take on the role of CISCA moderator full time.  It is in this role that he would spend the last three years of his life.
Fr Reiner
CISCA became an influential body in Chicago, and interestingly for its formative years women tended to be the main lay student leaders.  CISCA would become a social action agency.  There were a number of areas in which it operated, but let me identify a few.  First, after the 1929 stock market collapse the Great Depression started.  While Archbishop Mundelein was concerning himself with contraception, Reiner was overseeing CISCA, and promoting a different doctrine foreign to the United States.  He was promoting a system not of wealth and privilege, but one of service and action.  Service, in his mind what could create and define and individual, it was a different kind of wealth. He understood that service was important to the human race, and to him it did not take psychological studies to prove its worth to the spirit, body and mind.  It reminds me of the saying that a millionaire on his death bed does not talk about the million he did not make.  Reiner understood that his idea of service was unique and different.  Bielakowski makes the comment this way: "Reiner felt that Catholic students should be educated to admire “men and women who share and sacrifice rather than acquire and hold, who serve the common welfare rather than…. promote their personal advantages…” (p 106)  Later in her dissertation she says much the same: "Catholic Action ideology supported this indictment of middle-class values, as Catholic educators denounced familiar ideological enemies—individualism and materialism—and called for a prioritization of social values above material self-interest."  (p. 247)  Reiner and Lord were saying much like Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have said about run amok lassie faire capitalism. Fr. Daniel Lord, SJ would indict both that form of capitalism and Marxism in a speech at Mundelein College in 1935, when he claimed both ideologies replaced Christian thought, and that Solidarity and the other two legs of Catholic social action would assist in bringing about a more just society.

Second, the growth of CISCA also corresponded with the formation of the Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s Catholic Worker Movement. The nation was deep into the Great Depression, and activists like Catholic Worker and CISCA were promoting fair labor, worker rights, and the right to unionize. Of the three young men who would form the Catholic Worker movement in Chicago, two were from Loyola and the other from the University of Chicago. Yet, according to Sparr and Hartnett all three had some involvement with CISCSA, although Ed Marciniak was perhaps the most active at the time. (Hartnett; and Sparr p. 118) Sparr offered this: “Chicago offered concrete opportunities for Marciniak and other young lay Catholics to put their faith into practice.” (p. 119) He goes on to note that the greatest of these was CISCA, “the city-wide federation of Catholic high school and college Sodalities and other student groups. The organization was formed by Loyola Jesuit Joseph Reiner in 1927….” (p 118). He goes on to say that Joseph Reiner was one of number of influential Chicago area clerics in the 1930’s and 1940’s who dedicated their careers to the formation of lay Catholic leaders.” (p. 118). Quoting figures, Sparr says that by 1935, CISCA numbered over 20,000 persons “with nearly all of Chicago’s 50 Catholic high schools and eight Catholic colleges and universities represented. (p. 118)  CISCA leaders would distribute copies of the Catholic Worker newspaper to workers, and go on to volunteer in city hospitals and community centers. In the 1940’s CISCA led the integration of Chicago’s rollerskating rinks. (Sparr p 119) During his senior year at Loyola and active in CISCA Marciniak with Alex Reser would open, in 1938, the Chicago Catholic Worker House. (Sparr, p. 119) This is part of the legacy of CISCA, but there is more, on this connection, but first it is important to know that what Marciniak, a son of a grocer and steelworker, in which Sparr says that Marciniak found important was the theology called the Mystical Body of Christ. (p. 118)  

Third, is the doctrine that would promote action.  The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ is at both simple and complex.  It is, however, what compelled Marciniak and others into social justice.  This connection, to Marciniak, was his awakening.  The Mystical Body doctrine was developed, according to Johnson, within the liturgical movement, a movement of which Fr Virgil Michel, OSB of St John's University was highly involved. (p. 54)  Under the Mystical Body doctrine, all are one in Christ, and thus an act against one is an act against Christ. A very basic concept, but to the young men and women it was radical.  They saw a Catholicism that "as the priests offered Christ through the mass, the laity offered Christ through their actions. The student, worker, and parent mattered as much as the priests in the Church's life and the extension of Christ's reign on earth." (Johnson p. 54)  Johnson says that Sr Himebaugh was the doctrine's biggest advocate (p. 54), although  not a theologian she relied on Virgil Michel, OSB of St John's University in Collegeville for the theology behind this doctrine.  Johnson says that when Himebaugh proposed this to Reiner, he was skeptical wondering if CISCAN's would understand that much. (p. 55) Fr. Virgil Michel, would teach the concept to Himebaugh and Fr Reiner's successor, Fr Carrabine, SJ, and would then be their theological sounding board. (Johnson, p. 55)  It is important to note that Carrabine thought that Archbishop Mundelein's heresy hunters would strike down the work, but Virgil Michel of St John's would worked through the issues and give his imprimatur to the essay's prepared by Sr Himebaugh for the CISCAN's.  The whole concept apparently rested on a monk at St John's.  Johnson says that Reiner failed to promote the Mystical Body doctrine, but she does say "While Reiner might have moved in that direction, he died on October 13 [he died on Oct 14, and her is likely from Fortman's work which contained this error] 1934." p. 53)

However, Bielakowski believes that Fr Reiner fully engaged the doctrine of the Mystical Body:
A fundamental step was the equation of the student body with the theology of the transcendent Mystical Body of Christ. If college students already interpreted their social lives in terms of individual submission to the “student body,” then, Reiner suggested, they were only one step away from understanding themselves as members of Christ’s Mystical Body, involving the sublimation of personal identity and desires into the collective will, which was identified with God’s will. Thus Reiner’s “Program for Catholic Social Action” explicitly aimed to “place the natural group instinct on a supernatural basis, expanding it till it includes all the children of God and all the brethren of Christ.” What remained, Reiner thought, was somehow to manipulate this pre-existing peer culture toward the goal of preparing students to structure their social and economic lives according to Catholic ideals. As in campus life, Reiner expected this perception or “spirit” of supernatural community to have practical consequences for the individual. In college, commitment to the “common good” of the institutional peer group theoretically shaped an individual student’s lifestyle—dictating his or her use of time and money, choice of clothing, public expression of opinions, and so forth. Similarly, Reiner presented Catholic Action theology in terms of pervasive community obligation, teaching that “[e]very Catholic, in virtue of the Sacrament of Baptism, is bound to shape both his personal and social life according to the principles of Christ in whose mystical body he is incorporated.” (p.105)
This is a radical thought, and one in which he would engage the CISCANS.  What is interesting is that Johnson understood Reiner's pedagogical methods stating that "Reiner believed his students would advance Christ's teaching by practicing the Catholic Action dictum of seeing a situation, judging what needed to be done, and most importantly, acting on that judgement."  However, what she would go on to say is the most critical that the Mystical Body of Christ was the background of his work:
He [Reiner] knew the importance of mass meetings, a key part of Ciscora's educational plan, but did not want students to think that attending a meeting and experiencing the "emotional thrill" of ideas was Catholic Action. For Reiner, only personal involvement--not fundraising or discussion, but empathizing with others--could unlock Christ's love. Unless students like Christ, engaged physically with others, their experience would not be a "socially vital experience that will carry over and be lasting," or "the charity that is exemplified in the life of Christ and that is impressed upon us by the doctrines of His religion." (p. 55)
That sounds to me a great deal like the Body of Christ doctrine.  Christ's example is what mattered to Fr Reiner and this takes us to perhaps the most critical involvement of CISCA--integration of racial issues.  While Archbishop Mundelein was worried about contraception, and was lax on racial integration, Auxiliary Bishop Sheil was more understanding of racial integration, and so was Fr Reiner.  Dr. Arthur Falls, was an African-American Catholic and pushed for integration within the Church and society as a whole.  While Dean at Loyola, Reiner "encouraged cooperation with the interracial federation and taught students "that the members of all races and nations are brothers and sisters in Christ" to cultivate "attitude of tolerance and charity toward all."  (Johnson, p. 55)  This sounds much like the doctrine of the Mystical Body to me, the doctrine Johnson said he did not accept. Reiner would connect Falls'e Federated Colored Catholics (FCC) group and his involvement with the Urban League  with CISCORA. (Johnson, p 42).  These organizations, with other Catholic groups, would begin holding monthly meetings on racial issues in 1934. (Johnson p. 42)
Dr Arthur Falls, with Patient
Source:  Johnson, p 11
CISCA would engage the Catholic Worker movement and other Catholic organizations to bring about integration in Chicago, and with ripple effects throughout the nation. Peter Maurin, when visiting Chicago in 1934 stayed with Arthur Falls. (Johnson p. 54)  CISCA, as Johnson says, "with its desire to bring Catholic faith to bear on public life while emphasizing individuals' identity as part of a larger whole through the liturgy, was part of a shift among Catholics nationally toward engaging in social issues." (p. 51)  It was this shifting opinion and the boots on the ground that gave Reiner's social justice army a say in the major issue of the time. Reiner's army of would allow the spread of information, and provide encounters. Johnson says it was Dorothy Day who had Falls contact Daniel Lord, SJ, (p. 52) to obtain assistance in the push for integration. How the timing worked, I do not know, but Falls knew Fr Reiner through the FCC and interracial commission, and would find that Reiner was the one who had engaged the students who would assist his movement into social action.  In the 1930's Falls' group would connect with the Catholic Worker, and Falls would purchase their newspaper.  Thus, there was a connection between CISCA and Catholic Worker movements, to assist the Federated Colored Catholics and other organizations in the difficult move to integration and racial justice.
Dorothy Day
CISCA, which was established by Fr Reiner, began to change attitudes. CISCA together with the Catholic Worker movement would partner with Arthur Falls to work on integration within the Church of Chicago, and by extension the nation due to Chicago's national importance.  Falls was encouraged by Maurin, Day and Virgil Michel, "all who supported interracial justice and supported Falls personally." (Johnson, p. 69)  At the same time as CISCA and Catholic Worker were focusing on racial issues.  These two groups, with other lay supporters influenced priests and nuns to develop friendships with one another. This lay movement, started by CISCA and the Catholic Worker "would allow interracial activists to flourish." (Johnson p. 69)  What is critical here, is that Fr Reiner's position that personal involvement was required to bring about social justice is what was key to move this forward.  As Fr Reiner said what was important was the sublimation of the personal to the collective will.  It gets us back to the earlier quotation by Reiner, noted in Johnson's work, when Reiner said:  "Unless students like Christ, engaged physically with others, their experience would not be a 'socially vital experience that will carry over and be lasting,'" Reiner understood what was required for a socially lasting movement.

While Fr Reiner passed away in 1934, the work of integration was just taking on steam in a nation used to segregation and a thought counter to the Declaration of Independence, that all are created equal.  CISCA would play a large part, although there were times when they did not buy fully into Fall's "militant approach for immediate change" (Johnson. p 162), nonetheless, they were integral and active in promoting the long road for integration. Racial integration was slow, although certainly discrimination still exists.  Fr Reiner was right--attitudes need to change. To change attitudes, and to bring about social action that will carry over and be long lasting all takes time. Fr Reiner as a sociologist and historian understood the time required, and that means a measured approach.
Peter Maurin
I fully appreciate taking a measured approach.  History is littered with the debris of ideas  which moved too quickly.  It is attitude, perhaps following education that will lead to acceptance and then action.  I saw it in my own work as a City Planner, and recognize it in larger historical events.  And, I think Fr Reiner understood that too, which you can see in this comment by Fr Hartnett, who as a student at Loyola when CISCORA was formed, "He was incessantly bent on improving students, on urging them to fulfill what he felt Christ wanted them to be--intellectually, morally, socially, spiritually.  And, he had a deep-seated passion, kept under control, for social justice."  (Bold and italics by author)  The key segment of the last sentence is "kept under control".  Move too fast or push too hard and all you worked for could be lost.  Martin Luther King, Jr understood this too.  Perhaps Fr Reiner learned the lesson the hard way, as some of us do.  Perhaps he pushed too far on one or more of his committees while in Cincinnati, and as Hartmann says this led him to be posted to the more friendly confines of Wisconsin.  CISCA was the pinnacle and culmination of  Fr Reiner's life.  CISCAN's and their involvement in social justice occurred as Fr Reiner had suspected with dependence on the individual to see, judge and act. They took his word and became more personally involved.  The involvement of CISCA in the major social issue of the time, racism, is the greatest gift and legacy which Fr Reiner could have left Chicago and the nation. He taught his students to learn, discern and act.  It would be a stretch to say that CSICA solved the racial issues in Catholic Church of Chicago, and the city as a whole, but I do not think it a stretch that it helped shorten and move the Church and nation along a path for more racial justice. Fr Reiner knew what many others failed to recognize, that racial justice required a change in attitude and personal involvement--a relationship with other people and this would deepen a person's relationship with Christ.

Fr Reiner had a remarkable life.  The creation of his four-ply system which integrated liturgy, missions, literature and social action would flow from the Loyola Sodality to the pioneering CISCA and provide its meaning and strength.  The students themselves were part of the Eucharist, in a metaphorical sense, but no less important sense. The work in social action carried on by the young men and women who were taught to learn and who grew due to to CISCA is a reminder of the power of one man following his blinding light experience in Innsbruck, that he would see as the grace of God.  CISCA recognized his see, judge, act, but more so his mission of service as the ultimate measure of mankind.  It recognized liturgy, mission, literature, and social action. In the greater Chicago area it was well understood that a CISCAN could be depended upon. Hartnett quotes a Jesuit who thought the organization was rather a bunch of baloney until he realized that the people he could depend had been in CISCA. Overtime CISCA has been a major part of the body of work on Chicago social justice in the last century. Bielkowski dissertation, Sparr's 1990 work, and Johnson's 2018 work, and others all point to this.  Fr Reiner in establishing CISCA to promote the social justice movements in the Church and larger society had an impact on worker rights, young men and women to act, and racial justice.  My older brother, Joe, said, that if Fr Reiner had lived longer he would be a saint.  I thought of that comment while working on the birth control section of my prior post and my first impression was no way, not with him pushing papal teaching.  Then it occurred to me that many saints caused "trouble" for the hierarchy during their life, but that "trouble" is what would lead to their sainthood.  An emerging example is Dorothy Day, who even Cardinal Dolan now wants to make a saint, this in spite of the fact that the then New York hierarchy put roadblocks up to her work.  History has taught, unfortunately, that popes and bishops tend to put up more barriers than they take down.  Pushing the barrier has led to many saints.
Front page K Johnson Monograph
It has been a pleasure to push my mind by researching and writing my three blog posts on my great uncle, Fr. Joseph Stephen Reiner, SJ.   Even though his parents owned a tavern, he was a teetotaler, he did not engage in normal activities that define an American (see Hartnett), so he was probably considered an oddball by some.  Yet this "oddball" did much to move the Church and society.  I just hope my meager abilities have done him justice. Fr Reiner was a man who has passed to history, but who has left a mark in the larger history of the nation. He is one of those souls whose mark is little known but indelible. He had the idea to establish a fraternity of the Chicago area Sodality organizations that would change that city.  The mark was in the men and women he touched, but more importantly in the actions they took.  Although, as Hartnett says, "The long-term influence of a priest like Fr Reiner is known to God alone." 
Prayer Card, Front
Fr Reiner is a man the Church could use today.  The clericalism and paternalism that has enveloped the Church is negative and destructive; the priests, and the hierarchy need to realize that the Church is the people. And, as Fr Reiner would say, when people act for justice they act for Christ. Fr Reiner understood, and put into action what it meant to be Catholic.  He saw social action as being part of the message of the Eucharist.  After seeing the shining light in Austria his eyes were focused on the message God delivered to him. He whole approach culminated in his integrated four ply system, the creation of CISCA, and the movement of these concepts to service being the highest calling.  I will conclude with a quote by Fr Robert Hartnett, SJ in perhaps the most fitting tribute to Fr Reiner: 
When Father Reiner died the then Provincial, Father Cloud, sent a letter to all houses of the pre-division Chicago Province asking prayers, not for the repose of his soul, but for the Province.  The Provincial said that the Province had suffered the loss of a priest who had attained to the highest levels of Jesuit spirituality. In nearly forty years, I can recall no similar attestation of a deceased Jesuit's holiness.

Sources:
2020, 5 Feb.   "New Forms of Solidarity Towards Fraternal Inclusion, Integration and Innovation." The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, online article

1990 Sparr, Arnold.  To Promote, Defend and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and the Transformation of American Catholicism 1920-1960.  Greenwood Press, NY NY

2018 Johnson, Karen. One in Christ Oxford University Press. NY, NY.

Bielakowski, Rae, "You Are in the World: Catholic Campus Life at Loyola University Chicago, Mundelein College, and De Paul University, 1924-1950" (2009). Dissertations. 161.

Fortman, Edmund, SJ 1989 "Lineage: A Biographical History of the Chicago Province, Chicago, Loyola University Press pp 49-51. Family archive from Joseph R Sweeney

"Fr Joseph Reiner: A Great Sodality Leader." "The Queens Work". Family archive from Joseph R Sweeney (no date on clipping)

Harnett, RC, SJ April 14, 1965 lecture at Loyola University Community Conference on "Rev Joseph Reiner, SJ, 1881-1934 Dean of College of Arts and Sciences Loyola University 1923-1931". Family archive from Joseph R Sweeney