June 1, 2011

Religion and Politics in Turkey: To Talk or Not to Talk

Oliver Johnson*

In 1933, after the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt set on enacting a broad, far-reaching and eventually hugely successful set of economic policies that came to be known as the New Deal. The New Deal entailed, among others, measures to create jobs for the less advantaged and vastly improve the social security network. Monsignor John Ryan recognized in the New Deal the potential to help the vast majority of the American Catholics, most of which fresh immigrants from impoverished regions of Europe, to escape poverty and improve their social and economic standing.