Charles Owen Rice

Charles Owen Rice (November 21, 1908 – November 13, 2005) was a Catholic priest and an American labor activist.

Background

Rice 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 his paternal grandmother, in a large extended family home along the seafront in Bellurgan, County Louth. 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. Also that year, the three priests formed the Catholic Radical Alliance.

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, and as a leader of the Catholic Radical Alliance, was involved in strikes against the H.J. Heinz Company.

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.

Rice helped form the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists. From 1937 to 1969, Rice held a weekly radio program on which he often discussed the labor movement, communism, and St. Joseph's House. Rice was appointed rent director of the Hill District during World War II.