For a White-Collar Union

Auto workers have the U.A.W.

Teachers have growing unions. Papal encyclicals have strongly defended the right of men to form voluntary associations and protect special interests. Why, then, should there not be an American Federation of Priests for those low-paid, hard-working servants of the Roman Catholic Church? Last week the Rev.

William DuBay of Los Angeles set about trying to form a union among the nation's 59,000 priests to seek better wages and working conditions.

Freedom & Discipline. Father DuBay is the angry young curate who gained a measure of national notoriety in 1964 by publicly demanding that the Pope remove Los Angeles' James Francis Cardinal McIntyre from office, charging McIntyre with failure to support civil rights for Negroes. After that, Du Bay fetched up as chaplain to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, a job that gave him plenty of time to brood about the inequities of the priestly life. His ten-point program of grievances that need to be corrected includes an end to arbitrary transfers, a tenure policy that would give priests the right to a hearing before they could be suspended, and a professional salary that would end priests' dependence on Mass and baptism offerings.

DuBay insists that he is not challeng ing the right of bishops to rule, but merely seeking to restore a lost balance in the church between discipline and freedom. "The union is one way that the church can apply its social teachings to itself," he says. The proposal does point up the fact that the parish priest is underprivileged in rights and rewards.

Bound by the vow of obedience, he is absolutely subject to the commands of his bishop, has no canonical means of protesting a tyrannical order, and sel dom gets more than $150 a month plus food and lodging.

Elected Bishops. A union of priests is not the only change he would like to see in the church. Scheduled for publication this week is a book of his, called The Human Church (Doubleday, $4.50), in which DuBay puts forward a program of reform that makes the ideas of Luther seem positively papalist by comparison. Among other proposals, DuBay suggests that bishops be elected for limited terms, that their statements must represent a consensus of the faith ful, and that the parochial school sys tem should be abandoned in favor of informal programs to teach Catholics the principles of Christian action. DuBay argues that the church should voluntarily abandon its tax exemptions and let individual congregations create their own liturgies and creeds.

DuBay's union is not likely to get very far. Even sympathetic priests would be reluctant to put their necks on the line by joining up. Moreover, DuBay's Federation of Priests will get no help from the A.F.L.-C.l.O., whose president, Catholic Layman George Meany, scoffed that trade unions are intended to help "those who work for wages and not independent contractors." Autocratic Cardinal McIntyre indicated his displeasure by transferring DuBay from St. John's to a Santa Monica parish as curate, at a $50-a-month cut in salary. With that, DuBay warned that if the cardinal tries to block the union, he will sue His Eminence for violating laws that protect labor organizers. Cardinal McIntyre then suspended him altogether.

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