John A. Ryan

The Right Reverend John A. Ryan
Born	John Augustine Ryan (1869-05-25)May 25, 1869 Vermillion, Minnesota, US
Died	September 16, 1945(1945-09-16) (aged 76) Saint Paul, Minnesota, US
Ecclesiastical career
Religion	Catholic Church
Church	Latin Church
Ordained	1898
Academic background
Alma mater	St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary Saint Paul Seminary Catholic University of America
Influences	Thomas Bouquillon[1] Ignatius L. Donnelly[2] Richard T. Ely[3] J. A. Hobson[4] John Ireland[5] William J. Kerby[1] Pope Leo XIII[6]
Academic work
Discipline	Theology
Sub-discipline	Moral theology
School or tradition	Thomism[7]
Institutions	Saint Paul Seminary Catholic University of America
Notable works	A Living Wage (1906)
Influenced	Philip Murray[8]

John Augustine Ryan (1869–1945) was an American Catholic priest who was a noted moral theologian and advocate of social justice. Ryan lived during a decisive moment in the development of Catholic social teaching within the United States. The largest influx of immigrants in America's history, the emancipation of American slaves, and the industrial revolution had produced a new social climate in the early twentieth century, and the Catholic Church faced increasing pressure to take a stance on questions of social reform.^[9]

Ryan saw the social reform debate of the early twentieth century as essentially an argument between libertarian individualists and collectivists concerned with equality, and thus contended that an emphasis on human welfare framed in natural law theory provided the most promising means to combine conflicting concerns over individual and social welfare.^[10] Ryan's influential response was the development of a Catholic critique of the American capitalist system that emphasized the existence of absolute natural human rights.^[11]

While Ryan identified himself primarily as a moral theologian, he also made important contributions to American political life and economic thought. He supported a number of social reforms that were eventually incorporated into the New Deal, and have become elemental to the modern welfare state. Ryan's most well-known contribution to American economic thought was his argument for a minimum wage presented in A Living Wage, a reformulation of his doctoral dissertation.^[12]

Ryan recognized the importance of a "synergistic relation among scholarship, moral teaching, and political activism," which led to his vigorous application of moral thinking to the political arena.^[13]