DAY, DOROTHY 1897-1980

CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE PUBLISHER AND SOCIAL WORKER

Conversion

After spending her young adulthood in nonreligious, left-wing circles in New York City, Dorothy Day was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1927, shortly after the baptism of her illegitimate daughter. Although the American Catholic Church tended to adopt conservative political and religious views in the first half of the twentieth century, Day continued her work for peace and religious meaning while criticizing capitalism. In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, a French immigrant, who introduced her to his ideas about Christians taking personal responsibility for living a Christian life and thus creating a Christian world.

Catholic Worker

After being persuaded by Maurin's ideas, Day took responsibility for publicizing them and putting them into action. In 1933 she began publishing the Catholic Worker, a name that became associated with the movement she and Maurin started. He presented his thoughts in the Catholic Worker; which competed with the Communist Daily Worker, and Day wrote a regular column for the newspaper called "Day by Day" that expressed her thoughts and views as they developed.

Christian Charity

Insisting that Christians assume responsibility for the needs of their fellow human beings, the Catholic Worker movement opened hospices that provided shelter for the ever-growing needy in the early days of the Depression. "Every house should have a Christ's room. It is no use turning people away to an agency, to the city or the state or the Catholic Charities. It is you yourself who must perform the works of mercy."

The Movement

Day's Catholic Worker launched a movement. More Catholic Worker houses were opened, as were Workers' schools and farms. She not only put out the Catholic Worker but also traveled extensively to bring news of the movement to others. While Maurin sought to avoid the whole issue of labor unions—for him they were a part of an unchristian system—Day endorsed the widespread union activity of the 1930s, and Catholic Workers walked picket lines in the heady days of union organization.

Conflict

Day's old radical reputation haunted her, especially when she and the Catholic Worker took stands opposing church involvement in the Spanish Civil War, in which Francisco Franco was widely supported by American Catholics. There were also periodic clashes between Catholic Workers and followers of Father Charles Coughlin's anti-Semitic Christian Front organization in the northeastern cities where both were active.

Pacifism

While Day's charisma and her efforts to create a Catholic radical stand on social and moral issues attracted a devoted group of followers, she encountered deep opposition both in and out of the movement when she took a firm pacifistic stand at the outbreak of World War II. For her and Maurin, war was wrong and the Roman Catholic Church was misguided in refusing to oppose military conflicts. She and her movement would encounter new resistance as the United States drifted into the conflict.

Sources:

Dorothy Day, From Union Square to Rome (Silver Spring, Md.: Preservation of the Faith Press, 1938);

William D. Miller, The Long Loneliness (New York: Harper, 1952);

Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origins of Catholic Radicalism in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982).