Charles Owen Rice
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Monsignor Charles Owen Rice (1908–2005) was a Roman Catholic priest and an American labor activist.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrants. His mother died when he was four, and he and his brother were sent to Ireland to be raised by a grandmother. Seven years later he returned to the United States. In 1934, after studies at Duquesne University and Saint Vincent Seminary, he was ordained into the priesthood in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he served for seven decades.
During the Great Depression Rice began his activism in social causes and especially in the American labor movement. Rice was mentored by Pittsburgh's original labor priest Father James Cox. He met Dorothy Day and was a friend of Philip Murray, founder of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He continued his involvement in the Catholic Left throughout the eras of Civil Rights, Vietnam War, the women's movement, and the anti-war movements of recent years.
References
- Nate Guidry and Jon Schmitz (2005). ["Labor Priest" Msgr. Rice Dies at 96]. Retrieved November 14, 2005.
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