Joseph Reiner and Acting

This is the second of three blog posts dealing with the Rev. Joseph Stephen Reiner, SJ, my great uncle.  The first post dealt with the Eucharist and Education, and this post will deal with actions he took to advance social justice.  As I noted in my first post, I see Joseph Reiner having had three main approaches to advance this passion: educating, acting and establishing.  All three are inseparable, they work together in conjunction with his dependence on the Eucharist.  In instituting these approaches he consistently follows his pedagogical methods which match that of Jesuit education--with formation and discernment key for a person to see, judge and act.  He would act for his country, his community, his school, and his church.

The Loyolan 1926

Joseph Reiner was not one to have knowledge lie on the sideline.  He put his depth of knowledge as a historian and sociologist to use by being involved in the community.  However, he used his forum, as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Loyola, to form and shape students for action in social justice.  Robert Hartmann, SJ notes that Joseph Reiner shared a conviction with John Dewey, "that school life should be something more than a sealed-off remote preparation for adult-life.  As Dean he wanted students to avoid the narrowness of being merely, what he called, 'campus minded.'"  This whole ideal goes along with the six main principles of a Jesuit education which are:

CURA PERSONALIS. Latin phrase meaning "care for the person," cura personalis is having concern and care for the personal development of the whole person. ...
MAGIS. ... magis embodies the act of discerning the greater good in a given situation to better glorify or serve God. Magis does NOT mean to always do or give “more” to the point of exhaustion. Magis is the value of striving for the better, striving for excellence.
MEN AND WOMEN FOR AND WITH OTHERS. ... This value embodies a spirit of giving and providing service to those in need and standing with the poor and marginalized.  We are encouraged to pursue justice on behalf of all persons.
UNITY OF MIND AND HEART. ... Our hearts and minds are not divided; they are congruent when the whole person is educated and engaged. This speaks to the diversity of people who go forth to set the world on fire with the Ignatian mission all across the world.
CONTEMPLATIVES IN ACTION. ... Although we are thoughtful and philosophical, we do not merely think about social problems, we take action to address them. Developing the habit of reflection centers and strengthens one's spiritual life and guides our actions.
FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS.  This may be the one phrase that sums up Ignatian Spirituality. It invites a person to search for and find God in every circumstance of life; God is present everywhere and can be found in all of creation. (from Regis University)

These Jesuit principles set the basis for Joseph Reiner and my discernment of his three approaches to social justice.   According to Bielakowski, Fr Reiner's 1933 "Plan for Catholic Social Action" related to the premise of a Jesuit education and Reiner's phrase "that 'attitudes are more important than knowledge" is a statement of value, and Bielakowsi goes on  "which Bauer—a De Paul graduate student in Education—later described as 'the fundamental idea behind Catholic training,' was a deft paraphrase of the Jesuit mission of educating 'the whole person,' character as well as intellect." (Bielakowski p. 104) The education of a whole person allows for one to make judgments and to act.    Attitude is important as it will play to a persons discernment of a situation.  Fr Reiner believed that a properly formed conscience will lead to proper attitude which will inform a person to act.  Without attitude there is no action.  Action is important, as it is what allows a society to function.  Alexis de Tocqueville, in his iconic 19th Century work Democracy in America wrote that the "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by its private citizens."  Fr Reiner, as a historian and sociologist understood this.  Proper formation was necessary, which Reiner realized:

Valuing the approach over and above the content, Reiner’s plan expressed admiration for the extracurriculum as a forum in which students already taught one another the attitudes, priorities, and leadership skills that they perceived as crucial to their aspirations. “Social habits, attitudes, and skills are generally developed more effectively through informal rather than through formal methods of instruction,” it observed, pointing to student government, debating societies, and student publications as examples. According to Jesuit ideals, a Catholic college graduate would leave campus knowing how to use information; at that point he would be equipped to acquire the information itself more or less on his own. (Bielakowski pp 104-105)

Loyola Chicago, c 1926

This is critical, for Fr. Reiner did not teach just facts.  He wanted to students to gain knowledge and to act on their own.  Fr Reiner pedagogy provided a formula for students to learn, discern attitudes, and form leadership skills from one another.  This would become part of the whole idea of see, judge, and act--for them to come to their own conclusions.  This action, by Fr Reiner is critical to a democracy.  An informed citizenry, is what de Tocqueville said is important to a functioning democracy.  But, Reiner also matched another critical observation that de Tocuqueville made regarding the United States--"Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith."  Joseph Reiner had a method of allowing the individual to see, judge and act, but he did so within the Catholic moral and social justice theology, much of what goes back to Pope Leo XIII encyclical Rerum Novarum. The formation of conscience, however, required a difficult balancing between a variety of factors that are at interplay in college life.

Part of Address to Catholic Education Assoc
Nov 1924

His goal was to form good citizens.  While we know that he contributed to the "Jones and Smith Discuss Socialism" in Our Sunday Visitor starting in 1903, Bielakowski believes that his actions during and  just after World War I formed and shaped his ability to deal in a variety of situations and with a variety of people, she writes:

While teaching at Xavier University in Cincinnati, he crossed the Ohio River to help soldiers stationed at Fort Thomas in Newport, Kentucky, through the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918. During the war he also served on a Red Cross committee on disabled soldiers, and afterward helped to found a local committee on employment for ex-servicemen. While involvement with social welfare agencies was not unusual for
volunteer and military chaplains, whose concern for the soldiers often led them beyond
the standard duties of counseling and public worship, Reiner’s service seems to have
been particularly valuable: in 1945 Sister Mary Roberta Bauer noted that the U.S. War
Department had awarded him “special recognition for his outstanding work." (p. 98)

It is important to note that during WWI armed forces chaplains were not well organized and were not paid.  During WWI most chaplains would work closely with a variety of social service agencies. (Coffman) Yet, Reiner was not overseas, but served in the United States at Fort Thomas. Ft.Thomas was an army induction center and over 80,000 were processed thourgh the fort for WWI and WWII.  It seems that most of Fr Reiner's work was done 102 years ago during that generations Coronavirus, the Spanish flu.  According to the Kenton County Library, the Spanish Flu reporting started nationwide in September. It noted that Spanish Flu cases in that area of Kentucky grew in Oct and Nov, held steady for December and then started to decline.  Just before Christmas Churches and schools were allowed to reopen.  It is estimated that over 25% of the army had the flu at some point in 1917-1918. By October four out of every 1000 soldiers in the US Army died of the Spanish flu. (Coffman, p. 82) 

Fort Thomas Soldiers during Drill
1918
Source: Ft. Thomas History website

But Joseph Reiner's work did not end with tending to soldier needs at Forth Thomas, KY, where he would have had done Catholic and non-Catholic services. He was to soldiers at Fort Thomas a WWI version of Fr. Mulchay, popularized in the TV show MASH.  He took his duty beyond chaplaincy and assisted with disabled soldiers, and went even further in forming a committee on employment for the dough boys. The United States was a late entry into WWI, but from entry into Europe April 1917 to the Armistice on 11 Nov 1918 the US had over 4.7 million soldiers involved.  That is a massive amount of persons to mobilize and would cause a great disruption here on the home front.  And, it also meant adjustments as soldiers reentered civilian life.  His actions during the war are critical to his further actions in social justice. His experience in WWI, would according to Bielakowski contribute to his later involvement in local communities:

Reiner’s experience of volunteer chaplaincy, which required him to minister to non-Catholic as well as Catholic soldiers in a time of crisis, probably increased his skill and confidence in relating to non-Catholics; also, it probably helped to stretch his perception of community identification and responsibility beyond Catholic enclaves to include the city and the nation, as well as lending a sense of urgency to his reform impulses. 

Fr Reiner would involve himself in a variety of social causes.  However, I suspect as sociologist he well understood the local and national picture.  Fortman and Hartnett indicate that Fr Reiner was involved in a rather expansive undertaking that would keep most persons occupied for a lifetime.  While in Cincinnati, Fr Reiner was on the Board of Director's of a number of Protestant dominated organizations, which included:  Cincinnati Consumer League, Better Housing League, Juvenile Protection Association, the very secular Social Hygiene Committee, and the highly Protestant, elite, philanthropic City Club.  But, he was also a member of the Milk Commission while in Cincinnati. (I think it important to recall Hartnett's comment in the first blog post, "that these reformist interventions had more than a little to do with Father Reiner's removal to the more progressive climate of Wisconsin.")  Was his proposals on some of these commissions met with disdain?

Joseph Reiner WWI Draft Card

I was intrigued by the Milk Commission, probably because I am from the Dairy State, so some basic  research took me back to a time when I was in college and taking sociology courses to recall the purpose of a Milk Commission.  While today milk prices are in a free-fall in part due to a lack of demand by the Millennial and I generations, 100 years ago access to quality milk was viewed as important. As the nation urbanized cows became less frequent in individual households, think of the urban legend of Mrs O'Leary's urban cow knocking over the lantern and starting the Chicago fire in 1871. As Henry Erdman wrote in 1921 in the Marketing of Whole Milk, milk became a problem when producers and consumers became more separated.  As cows ceased to be part of the home life in the urban area, at first the producers would go to town with their milk to sell the product.  As urbanization increased the distance increased and they "farmed" the supply out to milkmen.  That too became more difficult and middle men were brought in.  This then led to the issues of supply and demand, and also quality.  Affecting the supply-demand relationship is that milk is highly perishable, and the need a stronger quality control (think watering down); in that era milk was important to the diet. When I think if this situation it brings to mind the movie  the Cinderella Man  where James Braddock waters down the milk for his children, as he cannot afford to buy more.  However, milk production-and its distribution can not easily adjust to increased market in a growing city.

Speech to Catholic Education Assoc
Nov 1924

Cities grew because of industrialization, and it was in this era when mass movements from farm to city started to occur.  Industrialization of course also meant that labor issues arose (think Braddock working on the docks). Fr. Reiner was a member of the American Association of Labor Legislation body.  He worked to limit work hours of women and children, and perhaps realizing the potential lack of security in the streets of an urban area, he worked to limit how late in the day women could work, probably so as to have a mother at home to put her children to bed.  He was not always successful in his reform efforts.  Given his interest in labor, he would assist in seeing the formation of cooperatives by varied organizations, and in this respect he was a member of the Cooperative League of the United States.

Oak Park "Parker" 11 Nov 1927

In another month the United States will hold its decennial census.  It is on the census that seats for the US House of Representatives will be apportioned to states, and how each state will set the boundaries for those districts, state office districts, and county and local office districts.  I used to work on census maps for the community I worked for, and I am glad I do not have to do such this year.  Seeing the squabbles at a local level I can imagine what it is like at the state level.  Anyway, Joseph Reiner was a member of the Proportional Representation League, which actually was formed during the Columbian Exposition in his hometown of Chicago, to promote just apportionment maps.

His action carried over to other areas, such as the more sectarian Catholic Industrial Conference, and the Catholic Association for International Peace (CAIP). While, the CAIP was formed in 1927, mainly due to the action of Msgr. John Ryan, its creation came about after the 1926 Eucharistic Congress held in Chicago.  The Eucharistic Congress led to the creation of informal committees that discussed the issues of international peace and its relationship to Catholic teachings.  The CAIP undertook studies and publications related to war and world hot spots.  Msgr. Ryan is often considered the main pioneer of Catholic Social action, and I suspect that Reiner and Ryan met during the Eucharistic Congress in 1926, if not before.  In the epilogue of his autobiography Msgr. Ryan would mention the now deceased Fr Reiner, as being one of the "handful of pioneers in this field" of Catholic social justice and action. (Hartnett)  Hartnett also says that it was Fr Reiner who taught Fr Lord, SJ (who seems to have coordinated the Sodality movements) "whatever the latter learned about Catholic social thought and action." Reiner was a recognized pioneer in urging the study of social problems in the United States.  His syllabus was distributed to 165 Catholic colleges and universities in the nation.

Mission Statement "Federated Colored Catholics"
c 1927

Fr Reiner also was a pioneer in ecumenism 35 years before Saint John XXIII "officially declared this policy to be authentic Christian attitude."  (Hartnett)  Inn this regard, Hartnett notes, that Fr. Reiner had a few Jesuit tongues waging when he invited a speaker from the YMCA, who was a leader in Protestant missionary work, to speak at Loyola. In 1920 he spoke at Hebrew Union College on Catholic social teaching and Rerum Novarum.  But, there was more.  In what could be the start of a bad joke, there was a priest a minister and two Jewish Rabbis break bread at a banquet, but it was not a joke, rather part of a newspaper headline (Lancaster, OH Daily Eagle, Dec 3, 1926).  Fr, Reiner was the priest who spoke at this Chicago event "attended by 70 prominent Chicago Jews."(Daily Eagle)  However, it was what Fr, Reiner said at that event that is important and provides a look into his life of social justice: "I preach to you intolerance of intolerance.  Be it social, religious, industrial or racial" the paper quotes Father Joseph Reiner, SJ, Dean of Loyola University saying. But the Daily Eagle also provides this: "'Most of all I preach intolerance of ignorance,' he declared in holding that 'our tolerance of ignorance is the source of our intolerance of each other.'" This quote well follows from the Fr Reiner quote, noted by Bielakowski  (p. 104), that "attitudes are more important than knowledge."

Invitation to Speak At Hebrew  Union College, 1 May 1920
Source:  https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069180/1920-05-01/ed-1/seq-3/

His intolerance of ignorance also was applied to racial issues.  Fr. Reiner encouraged more African-Americans to attend Loyola. Reiner also favored the formation of the Loyola Guild.  A group of Black Catholics at Loyola created the Guild under the auspices of Fr. Arnold Garvey, SJ, then an English professor at Loyola.  According to Johnson, the Guild attempted to alter white stereotypes of blacks by bringing prominent black speakers to campus.  (p. 35) It also "worked to improve black perspectives on the Catholic Church."  (Johnson p. 35)  But, his involvement went well beyond academia. Fr. Reiner was the moderator of the Federated Colored Catholics (FCC) 1931 national convention. (Johnson, p. 35) Catholics were looked down upon, so can you imagine the double whammy of being an African-American Catholic. Fr. Reiner's actions at assistance for African Americans would not, as you shall see in the blog on Establishing, end with the creation of the Loyola Guild or moderating the FCC event.

Part speech to Chicago Jewish Group,1926
Quoted in Daily Eagle

If racial justice is a hot button and a challenge for the nation, one of the greatest challenges that Fr Reiner would face was internal to his faith, and Church as an institution.  It is the issue of birth control.  In 1930 Pope Pius XI, issued Casti Connubii in which he declared that contraception was inherently evil. Fr Reiner, was drawn into this controversy by trying to find a way for the faithful to meet Church teaching on birth control.

This would roil the Catholic world, but no where more so than Chicago. Leslie Woodcock-Tentler , a professor at the Catholic University of America in her book Catholics and Contraception notes that she "found only one single instance of a bishop's responding to the encyclical by directing his priests to alter their practice as confessor's." (p. 81) That bishop would be Archbishop George Mundelien of Chicago.  Showing a statement that only a single male who is shut off from larger society could make he "instructed confessors in 1931 to question married female penitents about the sin of birth control."  I can already see heads steaming.  In 1932 he changed the demand to includes males, not out of some altruism, but due to what he heard from  his priests.  "In some cases they (males) are the real offenders."  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 81). Wives were implicating their husbands.  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 82).  Why should they be the only ones to take the blame.  Contraception was a difficult issue for a priest to bring up in the confessional, although that did not stop George Mundelein.  That difficulty was recognized by Joseph Reiner, and I quote Woodcock-Tentler: "A Jesuit stationed in Chicago offered heartrending testimony to the costs of the archdiocese new regime. 'Every priest who is close to the people admits that contraception is the hardest problem of the confessional today' according to Father Joseph Reiner." (Woodcock-Tentler, p 82)

Loyola Chicago, c 1926

Father Reiner did not live in a vacuum.  He had spoken to missionaries about the issue of contraception (pardon the potential pun), and many pastors regarding birth control.  A graduate nurse told Fr Reiner that over 50% of Catholics use birth control.  So, Woodcock-Tentler (p. 82) says Reiner asked a pastor what he knew.  The pastor responded that he did not think so, he knew so.  She goes on to say:

Many such Catholics, according to Reiner, had persuaded themselves that birth control was not invariably wrong. For this reason they were not accustomed to mention their contraceptive lapses in confession.  More scrupulous penitents avoided confession, eventually find[ing] themselves outside the Church.  Chicago's now pro-active confessors presumably came into repeated conflict with those in the former group, at least some of whom would have responded by staying away from confession.  As for those in the latter group, the new regime might arguably work to drive even more from the Church. Fr. Reiner for one feared "that Catholics are leaving the Church in 'droves' because of her stand in regard to contraception.'

Although it seems that Archbishop Mundelein's proclamation would not last too long, due mainly to the length of confessional lines.  One monsignor says he was taught in seminary to only question those who had not confessed within six months. Chicago priests, Woodcock-Tentler says would eventually leave it to the penitent to bring up. (pp 82-83) It would be interesting to know what Fr Reiner would say today about the continued obsession with sex by and in the church. 

Source: Family archives

Fr Reiner attempted to find a way for penitents to be successful in Catholic teaching.  He would again be a pioneer, but scorn would come his way.  Just as Pope Pius came out with his encyclical there was the advent of a "scientifically plausible method of fertility control by means of periodic abstention from intercourse, or the rhythm method, as this practice quickly came to be known" (Woodcock-Tentler, p. 104)  Tentler goes on to say that it is unknown to what level rhythm was practiced much less what efficacy, but it did have an effect on Church politics of birth control. (p. 104).  Tentler does not quote the old joke that those who practice rhythm become parents.  She quotes Fr Reiner as saying that rhythm was an "enormous help" in the confessional.

Cincinatti Directory

The issue of a "safe period" for sexual relations was taught in seminaries since the mid nineteenth century, and as a result "Most Catholic moralists assumed that couples might licitly confine their intercourse to the putative safe period." (Woodcock-Tentler, p. 105)  This is important to the following discussion, about  Fr Reiner and Dr. Leo Latz.  Dr Latz, a physician from Chicago had read up on emerging European literature regarding the Knuas method of fertility control.  Dr. Hermann Knaus arrived at his conclusion independently, but about the same time as Dr. Kyusak Ogino in Japan.  They both concluded a safe time for sex "being 12 to 16 days before the anticipated first day of the next menstrual cycle." (Woodcock-Tentler, pp. 105-106) Dr. Latz would self publish The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women, which according to Woodcock-Tentler was followed by other books including one by a Belgian moral theologian. (p. 106)  Thus, at least when Latz's book came out, the theological grounds were not in high dispute.

In 1933 Latz and Fr Reiner appeared before the Catholic Physicians Guild for Chicago, and as noted in the "Guild Notes" of the Linacre Quarterly, Latz explained his research methods and showed that the methods of Drs. Orgino and Knaus could be applied to shorter and longer fertility cycles.(p. 32) Fr Reiner went on to emphasize that while he "was expressing a purely personal opinion, he declared that it was his conviction, in view of the European literature that he had read, that the rhythm of sterility and fertility as explained in Dr. Latz 's book is correct. He called upon the doctor's present to  investigate the theory thoroughly." (p. 32) Showing paralysis by analysis, which is more common in the Catholic Church then even in the city of Madison, the head of the Chicago Catholic Hospitals noted they should proceed slowly. The article ended on somewhat of a bright note for Fr Reiner and Dr Latz, as it had a Dr Miller "pointing to his own observations and to more recent discoveries, maintained that the periods of sterility and fertility, as outlined by him and Dr. Latz, were accurate." (p 32)

Dr Leo Latz

Latz had obtained an imprimatur on his book from none other than George Mundelein, but the Archbishop withdrew it when Jesuit doctors at  Loyola University School of Medicine argued that the Knaus-Orgino method was based on "tenuous medical grounds."  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 106).  Woodcock-Tentler notes that while the imprimatur was withdrawn, Mundelein allowed Latz to advertise his book.  The story does not end there.  Fr Reiner had given an introduction to Dr Latz's book and my own grandfather would later become involved in publication.  I quote Woodcock-Tentler:  "Latz had the additional consolation of a flowing introduction by Father Joseph Reiner, a Jesuit widely known in Chicago for his leadership work in various social action ministries."  (p. 106)  Latz believed that married couples had a "veritable right to regular fear-free intercourse."  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 107).  I could go much more into what Woodcock-Tentler has to say about Latz and his pioneering work, but Latz received significant criticism, and it came from a variety of sources, many clerical.  (Woodcock-Tentler, pp 114-115)

Father John O'Brien and Fr Reiner believed the discovery of the Knaus-Ogino method was providential.  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 110).  Reiner understood that Catholic families, often due to their working class nature (think again of James Braddock and his difficulties finding work in the movie Cinderella Man) were subjected more to economic downswings, and hardships.  Woodcock-Tentler notes:

That the method seemed almost heaven-sent to men not overly given to sentimentality in matters of faith and morals, suggests how heavy a pastoral burden contraception had become.  Rhythm provided a welcome way out.  "I may be over-enthusiastic about the matter," Joseph Reiner conceded in a private letter defending Leo Latz, "because of the enormous help that the theory has given me in the confessional and because of happy results that I have observed in cases where it was and is being applied"

Fr Reiner's thoughts of efficacy of the matter ran counter to the current prevailing joke about rhythm, although at least one study claimed it to be 70% effective.  Other studies more so.  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 110).  Opposition was highly pronounced in the Jesuit community, and America magazine ran a piercing editorial against rhythm publicity early in 1933."  (Woodcock-Tentler, p 115)  Woodcock-Tentler would say that "Leo Latz himself eventually felt the sting of Jesuit opposition.  At the time he published his book, Latz was on the faculty of the Loyola Medical School, and he was abruptly fired in August 1934. The firing, according to Woodcock-Tentler, was almost certainly a direct result of Latz's prominent association with the cause of rhythm, though the extant documents do not explicitly say so." (p 114)  Some at the Univeristy say it was part of downsizing, others that he failed to get clearance for the publication of his book, which Latz was able to disprove. (p 115)  This firing would hit personal to my Uncle Joseph Reiner Sweeney when he would meet a son of Dr Latz who would go on to criticize  Reiner  for ruining his father's career.

Photo of Reiner and collegues.  note Ahearn to the right
Source: Family archives

But, was Reiner implicit in the firing of Dr. Leo Latz?  The short answer is no, and the long following exchange in the Woodcock-Tentler book is perhaps the best way to cover the whole situation:

But correspondence between Latz supporter Joseph Reiner and two high-ranking Loyola officials suggest that rhythm was fundamentally at issue.  Certain members of the medical faculty at Loyola had been hostile to rhythm from the outset, although Regent Terence Ahearn, SJ seems not have been among them.  But Ahearn was implacably opposed to the theory by 1934, perhaps because of anxieties over its broad dissemination.  The dismissal was devastating to Latz, a devout Catholic who earmarked proceeds from The Rhythm for various Catholic charities.  Reiner alone, as Latz confessed in 1933 "knew the anguish and dishonor I...suffered, when people said: 'I heard you were thrown out of the University.'

It is funny how events happen and their timing. The method by Ogion and Knaus came out just a few years before the release of the papal document. There was also  Mundelein's harsh demand that priests question penitents, starting with women, which in part led Fr Reiner to act. What is odd, is that the negativity at Loyola was not that the Latz book was based on bad science (although some believed that), or even to his having published the book.  The objection was to its being publicized and its wide dissemination. Nor did they object on theological grounds, although others may have had that complaint. Of course, the publicizing may have been a proxy for outright angst against the book on theological, and medical grounds, which they probably had a difficult time countering, given Reiner's research into European thoughts on the morality of the rhythm method.  Tentler would go on to say that "Not every Jesuit was opposed to the publicizing of rhythm.  No friend to the system was more whole-souled than Father Joseph Reiner."  (pp. 115-116)  But, did Latz and Fr Reiner get the last, albeit late, laugh?  Pope Pius XII sanctioned the rhythm method as a natural method of birth control in 1951.  My Uncle, Joseph Reiner Sweeney in an email had told me that "Tom, Yes, Fr. Reiner was right in the front of those seeking the Vatican to loosen up."  The Barque of St Peter turns exceedingly slow.

Front cover of Dr. Leo Latz's Book

In the Church teaching on contraception, Father Reiner, saw a problem, made a judgement and he acted. (He was quite prescient of the state on the Church, and perhaps it did all begin with birth control and the Churches teaching,  but  the institution failed to properly take action against what was going on inside its own walls.) Unfortunately, many did not like the result of the action undertaken by Father Reiner and Dr Latz, in finding a safe time for marital intercourse.  As an obituary in The Queen's Work noted, Joseph Reiner had "a willingness to take rebuffs and come back for more...." He would have found solace to the anguish that would befall him, by his trust in prayer, "a prayer that was deeply intense" (The Queen's Work)  Fr. Mertz, a colleague at Loyola said of Joseph Reiner upon his death in 1934:  "The little or bigger misunderstandings that will come into life of an enthusiastic and religious educator, he took with that grace, strength and patience which distinguished him as a man guided by the spirit of charity and self-denial, whose setbacks are but advances to a goal that is in God."

Front of Prayer Card, 1934
Source:  Univ of Dayton

Fr. Reiner undertook action to further the call of social justice that he received while in Innsbruck, Austria.  Fr Reiner acted in a variety of ways to better the human and social conditions of the Church, community, country and world in which he lived. He served his country at Fort Thomas, earning recognition from the War Department; he acted to create and teach coursework to examine the social and economic consequences of  social action; and he served his community by involvement in varied committees.  But, he was also a leader in ecumenism, and race relations; and he accepted and helped promote a natural method of conception  for Catholic couples against the intransigence of those around him.  Thomas Paine once said, "Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and the angels know of us." Fr. Reiner was a man of high reputation and even higher character.  The following quote I received from Dr. Leslie Woodcock-Tentler of the Catholic University of America, by email well sums up his activism, "I did indeed quote your great uncle, who was surprising (sic) candid when it came to the pastoral problems around birth control. Thoughtful and humane, as well."  (Bold by author)  His reputation lives to this day.  He was a pioneer in educating and in taking action.  Yet, as we shall see, he was a pioneer in establishing to carry on his highly valued work.

Sources:  

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

1986 Coffman, Edward.  The War to End all Wars University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI

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.

2004 Woodcock-Tentler, Leslie, Catholics and Contraception: An American History. Cornell University Press, Cornell, NY

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

1933 Catholic Physicians' Guild"Guild Notes," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 1: No. 2, Article 4.

Mertz, James, J. SJ, article, Family archives, from Joseph R Sweeney.

Regis University

Kenton County Library website