October 22, 2007   •   VOL. 45, NO. 18   •   Oakland, CA

Remembering Father Charles Philipps:
activist for farmworkers and urban poor
 

By Deacon Jeffrey Burns

Who is Father Charles Philipps? There was a time when this question could have been answered by almost any Catholic in the Bay Area. Today, however, the memory of Father Philipps has faded, though his legacy has not.

Father Charles Philipps

Gerald Cox has done the local Church a great service by providing a splendid memoir/biography of this great priest, who was an uncompromising advocate for the poor and a champion of the Church’s teaching on social justice.

Born Sept. 17, 1881 in Stundwiller, Alsace, France, Charles Philipps was ordained a priest in 1911 and immigrated to the United States the same year. When he arrived in San Francisco, the archdiocese covered a vast expanse — 13 Bay Area counties which included a good deal of farm land. From his first pastorate in Hughson in 1921 to his final pastorate at St. Mary’s in West Oakland (1936-1950), Father Philipps stood up for the small farmer, family farms and the migrant farmworker.

Upon his arrival as pastor in Sebastopol in 1930 at the outset of the Great Depression, the priest encouraged farmers to establish cooperatives and was instrumental in the creation of the Farmers Protective League.

In 1933 he became director of the archdiocesan Catholic Rural Life Conference, a position he held until 1952, and was actively involved in the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. Father Philipps regularly advocated for family farms, encouraging a 160-acre limit and decrying California s massive agribusiness and corporate farming. He regularly testified before state and federal agencies with characteristic bluntness.
Cox dubbed Father Philipps “the radical peasant,” as his strident views on farming, grounded in the papal social encyclicals, rankled many.

One farmer in Sebastopol observed, “If he wasn’t a Catholic priest, he would have been tarred and feathered a long time ago.”

NCRLA Director Luigi Ligutti wrote to Philipps, “I am very happy that you have been accused of being a Communist again. After all, such accusations must come your way now and then, or you would be failing in the main purpose of your life. Keep it up. I think we’ll meet a lot of Communists like you in heaven.”

Philipps also was a strong advocate for the appropriate care of the migrant farm-worker. He was known as the Godfather of the Spanish Mission Band, four priests assigned to minister directly to the migrant worker. The Band was instrumental in the success of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, leaders of the United Farm Workers union.

Philipps’ most memorable quip evolved from his work with the Heifer International project which sought to provide cows for a decimated Europe following World War II.

When the rector of the St. Patrick’s Seminary suggested Philipps would do better to send tractors and farming equipment instead of cows, Philipps responded, “Well, Father, that is not a bad idea, but the fact is that tractors don’t s—t.” Manure was an important aspect of European farming. The response has lived on in clerical lore ever since.

Father Philipps was also an advocate for the urban poor and immigrants in Oakland. Unlike many pastors of the era, he did not insist immigrant parishioners learn English, rather he learned their language. He sent his assistant pastor to Mexico to learn Spanish. Father Philipps spoke six languages fluently.

In addition, while he was at St. Mary’s he brought in the Sisters of Social Service for settlement work, established a soup kitchen, a free breakfast program for children, and most significantly, Sunshine Camp, a summer camp for inner-city youth on the Russian River. Each year children from West Oakland and the Fillmore in San Francisco escaped to the beloved camp on the river. The camp was staffed by seminarians and survived on donations alone. It was built by hard work.

As Cox observes, “Charlie considered human sweat almost as a sacramental sign of wholeness and holiness.” He would ask the seminarians, “Are you here to smile or to sweat?” At the camp, hundreds of boys and girls had an experience of the Church that was hard to duplicate or forget.

The priest died on July 18, 1958, at the age of 76. As Cox admits, “Whenever I am confronted with the injustices of society, Charlie’s face looms up in front of me.” Philipps’ life and example inspired many to become social activists.

Cox has written a loving biography of a priest whose story needs to be better known. The book is available directly from Gerald Cox at P.O. Box 337, Navarro, Calif., 95463, (707) 895- 3955 or e mail: kcox@mcn.org.

(Deacon Jeffrey M. Burns serves St. Lawrence O’Toole Parish in Oakland and is archivist for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.)

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