If, like me, you spend a little too much time on Catholic <em>Twitter</em> – or should I say <em>X</em> – then you might in the past few weeks have scrolled past various photos with a theme that caused a bit of a double take. Beards, braids, flannel shirts and long floaty skirts was the aesthetic that suddenly seemed to dominate my timeline.
While you may be forgiven for thinking the photos came from some New Age festival, they actually came from a conference in upstate New York – predominantly attended by Catholics.
The third annual Catholic Land Movement conference took place in upstate New York at the end of June, with around 300 people in attendance. The conference featured workshops on beekeeping, livestock care, how to work a well, among other homesteading topics.
The conference really stuck to its Catholic credentials: it convened on the site of the North American Martyrs Shrine in Auriesville, attendees prayed the rosary, and on the final day of the conference many of the boys in attendance served a Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by His Excellency Edward Scharfenberger of the Albany Diocese in New York.
Such a blend of homesteading and Catholicism is not unique to upstate New York; the Midwest-Appalachia region will hold its second Catholic Land Movement conference this September, and those interested in the Catholic Land Movement ethos are spread <a href="https://catholiclandmovement.info/chapter-directory"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">far and wide</mark></a>.
But is this some fringe, hippy obsession, or is there more substance behind the aesthetic than meets the eye?
The modern-day iterations of the <a href="https://catholiclandmovement.info/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Catholic Land Movement</mark></a> are undoubtedly inspired by the British Catholic Land Associations pioneered by Fr. Vincent McNabb in the early 20th century.
McNabb helped establish six Catholic Land Associations across England and Scotland, each concerned with building resilient, largely self-sufficient, Catholic families and communities engaged in honest, sanctifying work.
As G. K. Chesterton <a href="https://www.ecatholic2000.com/cts/untitled-495.shtml"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">described</mark></a> it, the hope was that Catholics would not merely own land and work on it, but that they would own and work it with a “certain status of domestic dignity and decency”.
Such a way of life would stand in stark contrast against the exploitative industrialism that had emerged in the late 1800s.
NcNabb’s land movement offered a practical application of the vision articulated by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html"><em><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Rerum Novarum</mark></em></a>, published in 1891.
Pope Leo XIII observed: “If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the Land the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another.”
Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical also led to a focus on the economic principle of distributism – a system advanced by G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc – which aimed to avoid the ills of both socialism and capitalism, and to ensure widespread ownership of productive assets.
Similar philosophies have inspired new political parties in the US and the UK, such as the American Solidarity Party and the UK’s National Distributist Party. Granted, these are relatively small parties, but the American Solidarity Party has a nominee for the upcoming presidential election and the National Distributist Party boasts a town councillor.<br><br>And while the Republican's vice-president nominee JD Vance has not, as far as I know, spoken of himself as endorsing distributism, his criticisms of modern capitalism in the US, and the way it has decimated poorer communities such as the one he grew up in, suggests he is sympathetic to similar ideas and the ethos at the heart of distributism.
Vance has written at length about how Catholic social teaching is a remedy to much of the modern-day capitalist ills that are causing such destruction and misery across the US, with its endless examples where there is nothing close to Chesterton's “domestic dignity and decency” for so many people struggling to get by or dying deaths of despair.
It's likely to be a message we hear more on as the US election heats up. And that might get UK politicians paying attention too. <br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/jd-vances-catholic-conversion-inspired-by-st-augustine-and-wreckage-of-the-modern-age/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">JD Vance’s Catholic conversion inspired by St Augustine – and the wreckage of the modern age</mark></a></strong>
For too long, the West has forgotten that it need not have to choose between unbridled capitalism and dehumanising socialism. A third way exists.
A century on from its heyday, distributism is enjoying something of a revival, albeit perhaps a small one. As is the agrarian Catholicism that distributist thinkers of the 20th century so admired.
And as Catholics grow tired of and frustrated by the two party system, and homesteading captures the imagination of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-millennials-people-are-homesteading-control-uncontrollable-food-feel-safe-2024-1#:~:text=Homesteading%20%E2%80%94%20or%20living%20self%2Dsufficiently,leading%20an%20independent%2C%20agrarian%20lifestyle."><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">increasing numbers</mark></a>, both Catholic and otherwise – not least those concerned with environmentalism – distributism’s revival might garner broader enthusiasm yet.
Those attending the conference in upstate New York were not merely a bunch of tree-huggers with a penchant for organic veg. And those interested in pushing distributism as a political alternative to the flawed status-quo are not stuck in the 1800s.
These are committed Catholics inspired by Catholic thinkers, who actively seek a way of life consistent with Catholic social teaching.
When the Catholic Land Associations formed a hundred years ago, unemployment was high and those who did have work laboured long hours for poor wages. Today, three quarters of a million more people are economically inactive compared with four years ago in the UK, while others are slaves to the office as they were once to the factories.
The parallels between then and now are strong. Perhaps Catholics soon will be fleeing to the fields in larger numbers, after all. <br><br><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/trump-warns-of-anti-religious-democrat-policies-theyre-really-after-the-catholics/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Trump warns of anti-religious Democrat policies: ‘They’re really after the Catholics’</mark></a></strong>
<em>Photo: A Catholic homestead; image from <a href="https://catholiclandmovement.info/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Catholic Land Movement</mark></a>. </em>
