INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATOR: SARGENT SHRIVER’S LIFE AS AN ENGAGED CATHOLIC AND AS AN ACTIVE LIBERAL Dissertation Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology By Daniel E. Martin UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio May 2016 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATOR: SARGENT SHRIVER’S LIFE AS AN ENGAGED CATHOLIC AND AS AN ACTIVE LIBERAL Name: Martin, Daniel E. APPROVED BY: ______________________________________ Anthony B. Smith, Ph.D. Committee Chair ______________________________________ Sandra Yocum, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________________ Cecilia A. Moore, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________________ William L. Portier, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________________ David J. O’Brien, Ph.D. Committee Member ii ABSTRACT INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATOR: SARGENT SHRIVER’S LIFE AS AN ENGAGED CATHOLIC AND AS AN ACTIVE LIBERAL Name: Martin, Daniel Edwin University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. Anthony B. Smith This dissertation argues that Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr.’s Roman Catholicism is undervalued when understanding his role crafting late 1950s and 1960s public policies. Shriver played a role in desegregating Chicago’s Catholic and public school systems as well as Catholic hospitals. He helped to shape and lead the Peace Corps. He also designed many of the programs launched in President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Shriver’s ability to produce new policies and agencies within a broader structure of governance is well known. However, Shriver’s Catholicism is often neglected when examining his influence on key public policy initiatives and innovations. This dissertation argues that Shriver’s Roman Catholic upbringing formed him in such a way as to understand the nature of large bureaucracies and to see possibilities for innovation within an overarching structure. Shriver encountered both Catholic religious orders and lay sodalities at a young age and developed a posture of institutional imagination. This aspect of his Roman Catholic faith helped him to pursue social innovation within the iii framework of government power rather than from the edges of US society. Therefore, Shriver’s Catholicism left him uniquely suited for generating new institutions within a broader context of the US government. Shriver’s penchant for innovation echoes the formation of various religious orders and lay sodalities within Roman Catholicism that found room within a much broader Roman Catholic Church for addressing emergent problems. iv Dedicated to My Wife Michele v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION .....................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION SARGENT SHRIVER’S APPROACH TO INSTITUTIONAL IMAGINATION ..................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 SARGENT SHRIVER AS A UNIQUELY WELL-FORMED PUBLIC CATHOLIC ......................................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 2 SARGENT SHRIVER AND THE TRENDS OF TWENTIETH CENTURY POLITICAL LIBERALISM ..............................................................................................52 CHAPTER 3 SARGENT SHRIVER’S INSTITUTIONAL IMAGINATION CONFRONTS THE SIN OF RACISM .............................................................................76 CHAPTER 4 SARGENT SHRIVER AND THE PEACE CORPS .................................103 CHAPTER 5 SARGENT SHRIVER AND THE WAR ON POVERTY ........................136 CONCLUSION SARGENT SHRIVER’S PATH OF HOPE WAS CONSTRUCTED THROUGH INSTITUTIONAL IMAGINATION ..........................................................171 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................176 vi INTRODUCTION SARGENT SHRIVER’S CATHOLIC APPROACH TO INSTITUTIONAL IMAGINATION For Shriver, the Peace Corps, the War on Poverty, and America were acts of the imagination. They were ways that we should see and therefore be in the world. - Bill Moyers1 The Contested Legacy of Sargent Shriver Robert Sargent Shriver’s life as a shaper of public policy cannot be understood without honoring his Roman Catholic faith as the greatest influence on his life. Sargent Shriver was a man who attended daily Mass while also launching and shaping many key progressive programs of the 1960s such as the Peace Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Job Corps and Head Start.2 This fact is theologically and politically interesting enough to warrant further investigation. Shriver’s deeply held Roman Catholic beliefs and well formed Catholic identity encourage questions as to whether the man at the center of the most progressive programs of two US presidents in the 1960s left an underappreciated Catholic stamp on the policies of two presidential administrations. This dissertation will argue that Shriver’s Roman Catholicism was at the heart of his administrative genius and creative efficacy within the US bureaucracy. Shriver’s experience of being educated by members of Catholic religious orders and his participation in lay organizations such as the Saint Vincent de Paul Society taught him through lived experience that organizations within a larger bureaucracy could emerge and effectively marshal human energy toward a common cause. This innate experience of 1 American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver, written and directed by Bruce Orenstein (Chicago Video Project, 2008) DVD, (PBS Television Networks Chicago, 2008). 2 Mark K. Shriver, A Good Man: Rediscovering my Father, Sargent Shriver (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2012) 12. 1 Roman Catholic innovation was buttressed by Shriver’s adult experiences within Catholic organizations aimed at addressing racism as well as his deep reading of Jesuit paleontologist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision for harnessing a sense of global connectivity for the greater glory of God. Sargent Shriver represents a unique manifestation of “Public Catholicism” during the late 1950s and tumultuous 1960s that allowed for Shriver to be deeply engaged in policy making while also living out his Roman Catholic ideals. Many other Catholics also entered into the mainstream of the US consciousness during this time period. Shriver’s role was unique because he did not emerge from an urban system built around immigrant Catholic communities and political bosses nor was he a clergyman. His life as a public Catholic offers both theological and political insights from the position of a Roman Catholic outlier in this pivotal juncture in US history. Shriver’s status outside of the system of political bosses allowed for him to enter into US public policy-making with a different style from many of his Catholic contemporaries. A full-fledged battle has yet to arise regarding the legacy of Sargent Shriver. Given Shriver’s personal history as a peacemaker, the lack of a bitter dispute seems fitting. It would however be a mistake to think that disagreements about Shriver’s legacy do not exist. In the previous decade, Sargent Shriver has been claimed as an ally by various theological, social, and political movements. Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver by Scott Stossel’s was released in 2004 and gives an exhaustive yet lively account of Shriver’s thought and work that has been well received by both Bill Moyers 2 and Michael Novak.3 The public television documentary “American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver” debuted in 2008 and presents Shriver as someone at the forefront of 1960s idealism by helping to design, promote, launch, and manage programs ranging from the Peace Corps and VISTA to Head Start and Legal Services for the Poor.4 Shriver was even eulogized in 2011 by U2’s lead singer and social activist Bono.5 Reflections on Shriver’s legacy intensified in 2013 as notable figures of different ideological stripes invoked Shriver. Conservative pundit Ross Douthat compared Pope Francis’ posture toward world affairs to that of Sargent Shriver in a 2013 New York Times opinion piece.6 Michael Novak’s 2013 memoir Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative fondly recalls his time working with Shriver. Novak claimed that Shriver understood and expressed Catholic ideals in a manner that the Kennedys could not. Novak lauded Shriver’s energy, and commented that much of Shriver’s life work dealt with the topic of civil society. Novak goes as far to say that aspects of the War on Poverty programs, Shriver’s understanding of the positive role of business and his focus on civil society prefigured the Compassionate Conservative movement.7 Mark Shriver memorialized his father by exploring his father’s life through the theological lenses of faith, hope, and love in his 2012 book A Good Man: 3 Scott Stossel, Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004) xi-xv, and Michael Novak, “The Last Liberal: Sargent Shriver’s Life and Times,” The Weekly Standard Vol. 9 No 35 (May 24, 2004), accessed October 18, 2015 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/086bpyxk.asp. 4 American Idealist written and directed by Bruce Orenstein. 5 Bono, “What I learned from Sargent Shriver,” New York Times, January 19, 2011, accessed October 22, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/opinion/20bono.html?_r=0.