Dorothy Day

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Dorothy Day was declared Servant of God when a cause for sainthood was opened for her by Pope John Paul II.

The Servant of God Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist turned social activist, an Industrial Workers of the World member, and later a devout member of the Catholic Church. She became known for her social justice campaigns in defense of the poor, forsaken, hungry and homeless. Alongside Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933, espousing nonviolence, and hospitality for the impoverished and downtrodden.

Life

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York November 8, 1897 to Grace Satterlee Day from New York and John Day from Tennessee. She had two older brothers, and later a sister and another brother joined their family. Her father took a job as a sports writer in San Fransico when Dorothy was sex years old, and only three years later they had to leave as his job was destroyed by the San Fransico Earthquake. Her memories of her mother helping victims of the earthquake put a vivid impression in her mind.

They lived the next twelve years in Chicago. The move was a big step down for the family, and Dorothy began to understand the shame people feel when their circumstances deteriorate. Her parents were nominally Protestant and interested in religion and the Bible. She remembered people praying, and began to identify the Catholic church as being a church "of the people." The rector of the Episcopal Church conviced Mrs. Day to enroll her sons in the choir, so Dorothy began going to church every Sunday. Her father encouraged reading and good literature and she began to develop her social conscience from Hugo, Dickens, Steveneson, Cooper, Sinclair Lewis and others.

She graduated from high school at sixteen years old, and got a scholarhship at the University of Illinois at Urbanain 1914.

Day initially lived a bohemian lifestyle, with two common law marriages. However with the birth of her daughter, she found herself looking for more reverence in her life. This caused her to embrace Catholicism, joining the Church in December 1927.

The movement started with the Catholic Worker newspaper that she and Peter Maurin founded to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the increasingly war-torn 1930s.

Day later opened a "house of hospitality" in the slums of New York City. The movement quickly spread to other cities in the United States, and to Canada and the United Kingdom; more than 30 independent but affiliated CW communities had been founded by 1941. Well over 100 communities exist today, including several in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden.

By the 1960s Day was embraced by left-wing Catholics. Although Day had written passionately about women’s rights, free love and birth control in the 1910s, she opposed the sexual revolution of the sixties, saying she had seen the ill effects of a similar sexual revolution in the 1920s, when she had an abortion.

Day is buried in Resurrection Cemetery on Staten Island, just a few blocks from where her beachside cottage once stood where she first became interested in Catholicism.

Day was proposed for sainthood by the Claretian Missionaries in 1983. Some opponents have found her unworthy because of the "sins of her youth" — pre-marital sex and an abortion. Others, Catholic Workers among them, found the process unworthy of her. Nevertheless, the Pope granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open Day's "cause" in March of 2000, officially bestowing upon her the title of Servant of God.

Her autobiography The Long Loneliness was published in 1952. Day's account of the Catholic Worker movement, Loaves and Fishes, was published in 1963. A popular movie called Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story was produced in 1996 about the life and struggles that Day endured. Day was portrayed by Moira Kelly and Maurin was portrayed by Martin Sheen, both known for their roles on The West Wing television series in the United States. The first full-length documentary about her, "Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint," premiered at Marquette University, where an archives of her papers are housed, on November 29, 2005 [1].

Awards and Recognition

1972: Laetare Medal, University of Notre Dame
1978: Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award
2002: Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame

External links

• The Catholic Worker Movement
• Industrial Workers of the World
• Whole Earth: The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right

Credits

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