CHAPTER 8---DOROTHY DAY



CHAPTER 8---DOROTHY DAY

By: David L. Gregory

Thematic Introduction

Dorothy Day was a “divine obedient” (civil disobedient) throughout her life. She lived and practiced the adage that, if you truly give to God that which is God’s, there should not be much left to give to Caesar.[1] She was a champion for peace, and a deep critic of materialism. An enthusiast of the great Russian novelists, she believed that the world would be saved by beauty.[2]

She was anarchist, a card-carrying member of the Wobblies, the International Workers of the World.[3] She was never a member of the Communist Party, but her principles and her activism were rooted in the social, the communal, and the personal, always emphasizing the dignity of the individual person. Like St. Francis of Assisi, she endeavored to see Christ in every person.[4]

In her late twenties, she became a Catholic. She was radical in her social action, and orthodox in her theology. She appreciated the moral lessons of great literature, and they supplemented her grounding in daily prayer, reading Scripture, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.[5] She may be the most important Catholic in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Her relationship to law was, therefore, interesting and problematic. Jesus came in fulfillment of the law. Dorothy Day fervently practiced the two great commandments, love of God and love of neighbor.[6] The Catholic Worker houses of hospitality are variations on the theme of the Good Samaritan---they are the sheltering inns to which the Good Samaritans bring the wounded travelers in this life.[7]

Dorothy Day actualized the Gospel of St. Matthew. Heaven is the way to heaven, and we will enter heaven only with what we have given away in this life to those in need.[8]

Much secular “law” in the materialist and war economy of the United States is not just, and is contrary to God’s law written in the human heart. Dorothy Day was a zealous devotee of God’s law, and had little use for anything that was an impediment to the Law of Love.

These broad themes are revealed in her life of activism for peace, her opposition to war and to materialism,[9] her solidarity with workers, and her personalist emphasis on the dignity of the human.

She first achieved fame as a journalist. In 1933, while living in New York in the depths of the Great Depression, she co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper as the deliberate alternative to the Daily Worker newspaper of the Communist Party.[10] She concurrently initiated the Catholic Worker movement, which opened "houses of hospitality" throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.[11] These sites were established for the purpose of providing shelter for the homeless population and special care for the psychologically disabled.[12]

Dorothy Day's personal life of special solidarity with the poor inspired many, including Thomas Merton,[13] the Trappist monk, Cesar Chavez, President of the United Farm Workers Union, Robert Coles,[14] the Harvard University medical professor, and perhaps the single most famous "alumnus" of the Catholic Worker movement, the socialist, Michael Harrington.[15] Harrington later eloquently challenged the nation with his classic book, The Other America, which, in turn, served as inspiration for President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty."[16]

The primary focus of this Chapter will be an examination of the relevance of Dorothy Day's desire and efforts to enhance lives of dignity for the poor and the marginalized.

Biography—Formative Years

The life of Dorothy May Day began in 1897, in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, New York,[17] and ended eighty three years later on November 29, 1980.[18] Day's early years were anything but those of a model Catholic. Like St. Augustine,[19] much of her youth was spent indulging in the offerings of the material world.[20] She was a hedonist who had love affairs with many men,[21] had an abortion,[22] attempted suicide,[23] experienced two failed marriages,[24] and became the unmarried single mother of a daughter.[25]

Dorothy and her father, John I. Day, were never close.[26] John Day's only true loves were the racetrack and alcohol.[27] John Day uprooted his family many times in search of a permanent position writing about horses and horseracing.[28] Only later in their lives were Day and her father able to treat each other with civility.[29]

In contrast, especially during her early adulthood, Day was very close to her mother, Grace Satterlee Day. Dorothy points out that her mother, though deprived of many material items, enjoyed the little things in life.[30]

On the whole, Dorothy's family was not an easy one of which to be a part. The Days usually lived in poverty, primarily because of John Day's inability to find regular work, which forced the family to relocate a number of times.[31]

Neither Dorothy’s mother, an Episcopalian, or her father, a Congregationalist,[32] attended church services nor took any steps to bring religion into their children's lives; Dorothy and her siblings were not baptized as infants.[33] Dorothy was eventually baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church.[34] However, her connection with Christianity proved to be weak during her teenage years.

In the fall of 1914, Dorothy began attending the University of Illinois at Urbana,[35] beginning a period of further distancing from spirituality, yet one of enlightenment to social concerns. Her grades reflected a student without distinction.[36] Her college days were marked by dissatisfaction with, and distance from, religion.[37] She was stirred by injustices, which she believed to be the true human concern, and, to this end, she sought answers in Marxism.[38]

Dorothy left the University of Illinois in June 1916[39] as a different person from the impressionable, naïve, and relatively apathetic girl she was upon entering. She had developed a passion for a relatively new and radical movement and completely ignored or dismissed two very traditional institutions, namely religion and formal education.[40]

Upon her departure from the University of Illinois, nineteen-year-old Dorothy headed to New York City. She received her first opportunity as a journalist with the Socialist paper, the Call, a sister paper to the Masses.[41] Perhaps an omen of future events rested in Dorothy's first article, a chronicle of her attempt to live for a month on five dollars per week.[42]

When the United States entered World War I, Dorothy began appearing at Columbia University student war protests.[43] She resigned from the Call,[44] began working for the Masses,[45] and took up residence during the summer of 1917 in Greenwich Village, New York City.[46] From 1917 to 1924, most of Day's friends and associates either lived, or were intellectually or culturally connected with, Greenwich Village, especially as writers of new politics or new lives in America.[47] The most prominent of these was the playwright Eugene O'Neill.[48] In 1918, Dorothy began working for the Liberator, which succeeded the Masses and became an American voice of the Russian Revolution.[49] Day began a nurse's training course in response to her need to do something for her fellow man.[50] Dorothy mentioned of this period, "[T]hough I felt the strong, irresistible attraction to good . . . there was also . . . a deliberate choosing of evil."[51]

It was also at this time that Dorothy met, and became infatuated with, Lionel Moise.[52] Lionel soon ended their brief romance, throwing Dorothy into a massive depression, which resulted in an attempt by her to commit suicide.[53] Despite their breakup, Dorothy and Lionel continued to have romantic interludes and in 1919, Dorothy became pregnant.[54] Moise refused to marry her and she decided to terminate the pregnancy.[55]

In 1920, only months after her tragic romance with Lionel ended, Day "married a man on the rebound.”[56] Her short-lived marriage to Barkeley Tobey was a disaster.[57] In the summer of 1921, Dorothy left him and traveled to Chicago in an unsuccessful attempt to win Lionel back.[58] While there, her focus shifted and she became a member of the International Workers of the World (the "Wobblies").[59]

Upon her return to New York City, Dorothy reunited with some old friends whom subsequently introduced her to Forster Batterham.[60] A year later, the two were joined in a common-law marriage.[61] The aloof and inarticulate Forster, an English anarchist and biologist, embodied none of the ideals that Dorothy admired.[62] During the winter of 1925, Dorothy spent much time indulging her many friends, celebrating and socializing. Dorothy bought a fishing shack on the shore of Staten Island where, for four years, she focused upon her personal idea of God's handiwork, that being nature.[63] It was at this time that Day began to informally pray.[64]

In the beginning of June 1925, Day first began to feel physical signs that told her she was again pregnant.[65] Batterham found the prospects of a family, and especially fatherhood, extremely unattractive.[66] He deeply resented the pregnancy and Dorothy's new-found faith in religion.[67]

The birth of her daughter, Tamar Theresa Day, in March of 1927,[68] sparked events which further enhanced Dorothy's working class consciousness and simultaneously brought her closer to the Church. Years later, Dorothy recounted the resolve she had begun to feel after Tamar's baptism, stating, "I had become convinced that I would become a Catholic."[69] The August, 1927 execution of Sacco and Vanzetti induced in Forster a catatonic state and Dorothy left him the following December.[70]

Intellectual and Cultural Context---Personalism, and the Great Depression

Day's introduction to Peter Maurin was an event she later attributed to direct Providential intervention.[71] The editor of Commonweal magazine, a publication by liberal lay Catholics, suggested that Day and Maurin meet. Maurin was one of twenty-two children, from a strong family of Catholic peasants from southern France.[72] Educated by the Christian Brothers before emigrating to Canada and then to the United States (illegally, by the way) in his forties, after a series of itinerant jobs,[73] Maurin deeply believed in both the dignity of the worker and the dignity of labor.[74] The most important belief of Maurin, the autodidactic thinker, was the practice of "personalism."[75] According to Jesus, to love one's neighbor was the second of the two greatest commandments.[76] Maurin believed that this divine command could best be achieved by renewing the Christian community.[77] He became Day’s tutor in applied Catholic theology.

The Founding of the Catholic Worker---Newspaper, Organism, and Movement

In 1932, Peter Maurin proposed the production of a multi-part action program via a newspaper, the establishment of round table discussions, the opening of houses of hospitality, and the creation of farming communes.[78] Day became his collaborator and instrument for realization of his Catholic social vision.

The houses of hospitality were Maurin's way of combating the growing, passive, fatalist belief that the state had to assume the social work which God wanted each person to perform.[79] Day immediately adopted the idea and her Fifteenth Street apartment served as the first Catholic Worker house of hospitality.[80] Training the out-of-work was one of the key purposes behind the establishment of the houses. The houses of hospitality soon attracted many young men and women who were eager to volunteer their time and energy for the benefit of the poor.[81]

The first edition of the Catholic Worker was published on May 1, 1933.[82] The fifty-four year old Peter Maurin served as the tangible "rock" upon which the newspaper was founded.[83] Dorothy was involved with all the work of the newspaper; fund- raising, circulation, and reporting, while Peter's role was that of theorist. Maurin ultimately became the elder statesman of the Catholic Worker, contributing "Easy Essays" to its pages.[84] Peter Maurin and his theories were the catalysts that motivated Dorothy Day to find meaning and purpose in her life. Dorothy, in turn, absorbed Maurin's ideas and communicated them on paper to the rest of the population in more tempered fashion.[85]

The growth of the Catholic Worker from the 2,500 copies distributed on May 1, 1933 to its peak of 185,000 copies sold in December of 1940 was truly dramatic; today, the paper continues to be sold for a penny a copy. The Catholic Worker still delivers approximately 91,000 copies of each of its seven annual issues from its New York offices at Maryhouse, 55 East Third Street, on the lower East Side of Manhattan.

Dorothy Day’s Journalism

Day's greatest articles focused upon topics directly relevant to the general work force. She developed a large working-class readership by reporting on strikes, union discussions, and other labor issues. [86] Day, who strongly supported the union movement,[87] came to know influential union leaders very well.[88] In her seventies, in the seventies, she was arrested in California with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Worker Union, during a peaceful march for workers’ rights.[89]

Dorothy Day's column "Day By Day" was, in some ways, the centerpiece of the Catholic Worker newspaper. It contained straightforward monthly essays presenting her personal views on issues that appealed to the common person.[90]

Without question, the Catholic Worker was a major supporter of both the labor movement and Christian ideals but by no means did it merely "report" the news. Its reporters were often on the scene to support and participate in pickets or work stoppages.[91]

The Catholic Worker movement was one of the first Roman Catholic social initiatives post-Reformation to support revolutionary Gospel applications throughout the social order.[92] The houses of hospitality distributed food to the hungry, provided beds for the homeless, and served as "newspaper offices, volunteer centers, soup kitchens, boarding houses, schools" and "places of worship."[93]

Today, there are more than 130 Catholic Worker houses worldwide, scattered across twenty-nine states and five foreign countries.[94] Throughout the thirties and forties, Dorothy Day visited many of these Catholic Worker houses in an attempt to provide whatever aid she could to both the houses and those who benefited from them.[95] Dorothy felt the Church should follow the example of the hospitality houses and fill the empty rooms in rectories, seminaries and monasteries with the poor; or, at the least, each parish should have a hospice for the poor.[96] Her living experiences at the Catholic Worker, her demonstrations against militarism and war, and her solidarity with labor became the integrated bases for her many articles, which, in turn, spurred her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, and her other more extensive writing.

During the sixties and seventies, the effects of both the natural effects of age combined with depression caused by the ongoing departures from this world of so many of her early friends began to limit Dorothy's advocacy; the physical aspect in particular. Her last major political resistance and solidarity venture occurred in August of 1973 when she traveled to California to join Cesar Chavez' United Farm Workers' protest.[97] She thereafter returned to her Third Street apartment in the New York City Catholic Worker House, where she remained until her death, after a long illness, in 1980.[98]

Divine Obedience, Civil Disobedience, Peace Activism, and Pacifism

Dorothy Day was a pacifist even prior to her conversion to Catholicism. During her tenure at the Call and the Masses, Dorothy vigorously protested World War I.[99] She believed the war had been caused by the imperialist competitive system. When the United States entered the fray in 1917, Dorothy and her co-workers at the Masses were subjected to intense governmental scrutiny. In July 1917, it was charged that the publication had violated the Espionage Act, which permitted the postmaster general to direct postal workers to withhold unsealed materials they discerned to advocate treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to law.[100] The governmental histrionics effectively closed the Masses down, robbing Dorothy and her anti-war associates of a voice.[101]

Given the discriminatory and oft cited charge that Catholics were un-American because of their sole allegiance to the Pope, Day faced even greater scrutiny as a Catholic pacifist. However, Day’s religious faith only served to strengthen her anti-war views. In fact, as a secular radical Day had become disenchanted with the Left’s inability to make a difference, but as a Catholic, she felt her faith provided her with renewed determination.[102] She was able to incorporate her religious faith into her pacifist stance. Day stated, “the Sermon on the Mount is our Christian Manifesto.”[103] Day believed Jesus’ command to love thy neighbor required the practice of nonviolence. She argued nonviolence was as integral to church doctrine as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception or the infallibility of the Pope.[104]

Day often faced conflicting loyalties to social radicals and the Church hierarchy. At the outset of the Spanish Civil war, Day took a neutral stance, enraging many of her former socialist and radical acquaintances, who supported the anti-Franco forces.[105] However, she also drew the ire of the church, who supported Franco’s Spanish fascists because of the anti-religious philosophy of the anti-Franco communist forces. In response to the left wing supporters of the anti-Franco forces, Dorothy replied, “[a]nd now the Communist is teaching that only by the use of force, only by killing our enemies, not by loving them and giving ourselves up to death, giving ourselves up to the Cross, will we conquer.”[106] She also responded to those criticizing her neutral stance within the church by stating, “[t]he Catholic Church cannot be destroyed in Spain or in Mexico… we do not believe that force of arms can save it.”[107] To Day, the question was not about fascism, communism or capitalism, it was about pacifism.

During President Roosevelt’s Phony War of 1939-41,[108] Day condemned his veiled preparation for war.[109] She argued, “[I]nstead of gearing ourselves in this country for a gigantic production of death-dealing bombers and men trained to kill, we should be producing food, medical supplies, ambulances, doctors and nurses for the works of mercy, to heal and rebuild a shattered world.”[110] However, the attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized American support for the war effort. Many within the Catholic Church argued the American entrance into World War II was justified.[111] Even hundreds of Dorothy’s own Catholic Workers now ignored her call for pacifism, believing the invasion required a military response.[112] Day maintained that an invasion did not justify a violent response. Arguing that pacifism did not mean appeasement, she argued one should use spiritual weapons like prayer and reception of the sacraments and other forms of nonviolent resistance to ward off invaders.[113] Day pointed to the hypocrisy the government’s expectation that Negroes be pacifists in the face of violent aggression in their own country while not living up to the same standard.[114]

Still, the majority viewed her position as unfathomable, and the Catholic Worker movement paid a price. The Catholic Worker newspaper lost over 100,000 readers,[115] and by 1945, only ten houses of hospitality continued to operate.[116] Day persevered, and refused to tone down her rhetoric. As the nation celebrated imminent victory following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dorothy mocked President Truman’s jubilance and referred to the scientists who created the bomb as “murderers”.[117] She argued God had already pronounced judgment on America’s decision to drop the bomb. Dorothy wrote, “James and John (John the beloved) wished to call down fire from heaven on their enemies, Jesus said: ‘You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of Man came not to destroy souls but to save." She said also, "What you do unto the least of these my brethren, you do unto me.’"[118] Upon learning of the Holocaust, Day did wonder aloud, “If I had known all this… would I have maintained my pacifism?” But she added, “…all the violence didn’t save the Jews.”[119]

Following World War II, Dorothy Day continued to protest a growing military complex in response to the heating up of the Cold War. The United States government initiated a number of Civil Defense drills, which simulated a nuclear attack on New York City, during which citizens were required to seek shelter.[120] In order to highlight the futility of seeking shelter in a nuclear attack, Day and other Catholic Workers, led by Ammon Hennacy, refused to take shelter[121]and famously sat in park benches as the air raid sirens wailed.[122] Not only did Day hope the protests would reveal the drills as a farce, but also she saw it as an opportunity to perform penance for her sin as an American “for having been the first to make and use the atom bomb.”[123] As a result of her protests she served some jail time, but continued, and on May 3, 1960, over a thousand protesters from the Catholic Worker, The War Resisters League, the Fellowship Reconciliation, and other pacifist groups, led a peace rally in New York.[124] Embarrassed, the government ceased the drills shortly thereafter.[125]

Dorothy Day protested the nuclear arms race. Her worst nightmare came agonizingly close to becoming a reality. In early October 1962, President Kennedy became aware of a Soviet nuclear buildup in Cuba.[126] Kennedy sent a naval blockade of Cuba to force the missiles’ removal, bringing the world near “the abyss of destruction.”[127] In response, Day visited Cuba in order to give a human face to the Cuban people.[128] In her column she wrote of meeting devout Catholic families who feared an impending invasion much as American families feared a nuclear strike.[129] Day hoped to bridge American and Cuban people in spite of their governments. She condemned both nations for their continued militarization. She wrote, “I hate the arms buildup in Cuba as I hate it in my own country.”[130] However, she continued to strive to create an understanding in the United States that “the Cubans are our next door brothers, and knowing them, will love them.”[131]

Cold War militarization coincided with the holding of the Second Vatican Council. The twenty-first ecumenical council of the church convened in four sessions in the fall of each year from 1962 to 1965. In 1963, Day was one of fifty “Mothers for Peace”, a group of international peace advocates, who traveled to Rome to support and thank Pope John XXIII for his Encyclical Pacem in Terris.[132] In the Encyclical, Pope John XXIII asked that stockpiles of weapons be reduced and nuclear weapons be banned.[133] As pleased as Dorothy was by these words from the Holy Father, she still longed for a “more radical condemnation of the instruments of modern warfare.”[134] In one of his last appearances, Pope John XXIII blessed Day and her fellow pilgrims, thanking them for their efforts.[135]

In September of 1965, Day returned to Rome for the last session of the Second Vatican Council.[136] She wanted to ensure the Council included a condemnation of nuclear war and support for conscientious objection in the pastoral constitution.[137] She faced opposition from certain factions within the Church hierarchy on both accounts. Some bishops argued that without a nuclear arsenal the world could not face down communism, which threatened the Church.[138] Day mocked such circular logic. She claimed, “to establish a balance of terror, and so keeping the world at peace was long ago condemned by Benedict XV, who spoke of ‘the fallacy of an armed peace.’”[139] The idea of a conscientious objector concerned many because they believed it caused one to choose church over state. Day was quick to quote St. Peter who said, “we must obey God, not men.”[140]

In order to “overcome the sprit of violence in the world,” Day took part in a ten day fast.[141] The women’s efforts were recognized during a Council session by Bishop Boillon, of Verdun, France.[142] On her return home in October, even before the Council had produced a constitution, Day already deemed the trip a success, writing, “Everyone said our visits and our fast and vigil (we each kept an hour before the Blessed Sacrament each day besides daily Mass) did much good.”[143]

Dorothy’s optimism proved founded when the Council released “Gaudium et Spes.” The document condemned the “indiscriminate destruction of cities,”[144] declared the conscientious objection a valid option[145] and questioned the billions of dollars being spent on the arms race while millions starve and suffer.[146] Most satisfying to Day was the condemnation of nuclear war.[147]

The Second Vatican Council had little effect on the escalation of violence in Vietnam. Day was not blinded by the euphoria over the Second Vatican Council’s pronouncements on peace. She understood that the clergy could speak out, but wars would go on.[148] Not surprisingly, Day gave little credence to the Defense department’s domino theory, which claimed Southeast Asia was a needed plug to stop the flow of communist aggression. The conflict in Vietnam, as Day saw it, was not over freedom or Christianity, but “our possessions.”[149] As usual, Day viewed events on a grander scale, reiterating that Communists and Imperialists, South and North Vietnamese are all sons of God.[150]

Catholic Workers were among the first to protest our government’s actions in Vietnam through public protests and sit-ins.[151] The movement benefited from the fact support for the war in Vietnam was not as galvanized as it had been in World War II.[152] The Catholic Worker was not the pariah it was in its earlier anti-war campaigns, and now their past afforded them much cachet with the next generation of protesters.[153]

However, as the war escalated, the methods of protest grew more drastic. In 1965, Catholic Worker Richard Laporte immolated himself in front of the United Nations.[154] Dorothy was horrified and worried there would be “copycats.”[155] LaPorte’s action was followed by less severe acts of civil disobedience by the Berrigan brothers. Priests and Catholic Workers Daniel and Philip Berrigan burned and poured blood on draft registration files in Cantonsville, Maryland.[156] The act was the first of its kind and encouraged other protesters to partake in similar actions.[157] Although Day understood the frustration of the protesters,[158]she worried violent acts of protest or the destruction of property could leave the movement spiritually vulnerable. She always supported the Berrigans, expressing her love and offering her prayers, but she maintained that the destruction of property violated the golden rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”[159]

The Catholic Worker movement gained a number of converts due to its antiwar stance in during the turbulent Vietnam period. Day had weathered the storm of negative public reaction for her advocacy of pacifism. Vilified in the thirties, she was now celebrated. Today, there are 185 Catholic Worker houses of hospitality in the U.S. and globally.[160] The Catholic Worker now delivers 91,000 copies of each of its seven annual issues from its New York offices. [161] Its mission and its faith continue to be known.[162] Plowshares and Pax Christi, contemporary social justice movements, both opposing the use of nuclear weapons and promoting peace through nonviolent civil disobedience, can be traced to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker.[163]

The Political Theory of Dorothy Day

She never proclaimed a grand masterwork or a sophisticated intellectual agenda. Instead, her political theory, loosely and broadly construed, can be best understood as manifestations of her applied journalism and social activism, framed by her Catholic faith and commitment to social justice through the Gospel of St. Matthew and the performance of the corporal works of mercy.

She was an applied pragmatist, not an abstract theoretician. Most importantly, she "practiced what she preached" and she lived her beliefs.

Solidarity with Workers, and Workers’ Rights

The dignity of meaningful work, especially through the mediating device of the organized labor union, is a very important unifying thread between the individual and the responsible community. Dignified work contributes significantly to fundamental human dignity and the absence of such work can significantly retard progress toward the establishment of that dignity.[164] The key operatives in Dorothy Day's political theory are the philosophy of personalism, which stresses the centrality of the individual, and the social organizing principle of subsidiarity, which emphasizes the important constituent components of the local community as the primary locus for political organization.[165]

The Primacy of Personalism

Preeminence in the philosophy of personalism is placed upon the dignity of the individual person.[166]

The philosophy of personalism is at the center of Catholic social teaching.[167] Personalism holds that human beings are created in the likeness of God and are endowed by God with a soul, an intellect, and a rational free will.[168] As the creatures of God, made in God's image and possessing these innate spiritual attributes, humans cannot be regarded merely as a means to a goal or reified as objects. Rather, every human being must be treated as a subject in and of himself. The philosophy of personalism thus affirms two basic human needs: the material physical need and the need for dignified work. Addressing these necessities is a central requirement of a properly functioning social order.[169] Through the philosophy of personalism, a person realizes his or her potential when their unique talents are utilized in their work.[170]

Personalism is an integrated and holistic philosophy that respects the individual and pays full attention to the physical and moral dimensions of the human character.[171] Personalism was recognized through the work of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers by direct application of the philosophy in their newspaper, houses of hospitality, and job training schools.[172]

Were it not for Peter Maurin, personalism may have remained solely in the realm of the conceptual. Dorothy Day's mentor translated the philosophy of personalism into action through urging for agrarian manual labor.[173] Thomas Jefferson preceded Maurin as a great champion of agrarian personalism in the United States.[174]

Personalism is closely related to the social organization principle of subsidiarity.[175] Subsidiarity emphasizes that local, community-centered organizations are the most efficacious, most conducive, and most responsive associations in existence for the fulfillment of social needs.[176]

The Principle of Subsidiarity

The principle of subsidiarity, simply stated, holds that political and social activity should be reduced to the most immediate and local context possible.[177] This tenet was at the root of Dorothy Day's vision of political action and continues to vitalize the Catholic Workers' mission statement, which supports any effort in which money is merely a medium of exchange and where human beings are not treated as commodities.[178]

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker refused to pay any federal income taxes, because of the war economy and materialism of our late capitalist political economy. Because of the principle of subsidiarity, however, Dorothy and the Worker believed in, and paid, local taxes, as good members of the local community.

Subsidiarity is powerfully situated in Catholic social theory, possessing political roots many centuries old. At its core, it champions both social cooperation and responsible self-determination. For instance, Catholic social theory regarding activism focuses on individual self-help via the merger of labor union with supplementary social legislation.[179] The principle of subsidiarity was integral to the first modern papal encyclical on the rights of workers, Rerum Novarum, which was promulgated in 1891.[180]

Closely related to the philosophy of personalism, the principle of subsidiarity emphasizes individual free will and the primacy of the human being. It recognizes that "the state should intervene and provide help (subsidium) for only that portion of need that the private sector is unable to provision by itself."[181] This dynamic, therefore, places effective decision-making control in the hands of each individual and reaffirms basic democratic principles. Further, it transforms the attainment of human needs from an exclusively individual concern to one of concern to an entire society.

Subsidiarity helps us determine where the responsibility lies for meeting unmet needs. As the weakening significance of the workplace and the neighborhood leads to greater dependence on the state to provide for needs, personal freedom will be compromised.

On an individual level, local social groups provide the best forum for the kind of self-determination envisioned in subsidiarity theory. Modern conditions have deprived many people the type of local democracy called for by subsidiarity. As such, the decline of the notion of subsidiarity inevitably follows.[182]

Personalism and subsidiarity both focus on the dignity of the individual person.[183] While personalism focuses on individual activism, subsidiarity calls for as many decisions as possible to be decided on the smallest[184] level possible, which may not necessarily be the individual level. Where personalism seems to reject any form of communalism and materialism, in favor of individual spiritual vision as a means to reshape the community,[185] subsidiarity requires some variety of mid-level organization, whether it be a public association, union, fraternal club, or daily human interaction, in order to develop our abilities to directly control our lives and world.[186]

Personalism and subsidiarity are two adjacent limbs on the tree representing the activities and messages of Dorothy Day. Their intentional renewal and nurturing of public relationships of mutual respect and accountability across the divisions of a pluralistic, atomized society—whether via labor unions or the broader plane of working peoples' associations—make Day's theory, practice, and Catholic social teaching, extraordinarily relevant today.

The Centrality of Labor

Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and the members of the Catholic Worker practiced what they preached.. Day consistently emphasized the dignity and the importance of work while encouraging the solidarity of labor with the unemployed and ever-present poor. Dorothy's writing was eloquent and her personal commitment to, and solidarity with, workers was magnificent. In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Day recounts how her awareness of labor issues first emerged during college. She studied labor history and admired labor’s martyrs.[187]

Dorothy Day's first signs of a maturing labor consciousness, thus, were formed far from the contours of Catholic teaching or the influence of the Catholic Church. In her autobiography, she summarized the early social influences on her thought, including socialism, syndicalism, and anarchism, while, Catholicism, on the other hand, was “a world apart” from her.[188]

In 1932, Day wrote a piece regarding a Washington D.C. convention of protesting tenant farmers. In it, she recounts the poverty of the demonstrators, the willingness of the participants to share food, and the comraderie which blossomed between the farmers, the poor, and the unemployed.[189] In reflecting on this work years later, Dorothy experienced shame and remorse over her abstraction, her absence of solidarity, and her detachment from workers, eventually coming to the realization “that after three years of Catholicism… I still did not know personally one Catholic layman.”[190] It was in this galvanizing epiphany experience that Dorothy Day's labor and social consciousness as a Catholic was fused, rejuvenated, and revivified in a new, different, transforming way.[191]

The first issue of the Catholic Worker newspaper, printed on May 1, 1933,[192] gave Day the opportunity she desired. The Catholic Worker embodied solidarity, speaking directly to workers of all classes, but admittedly thinking first of the poor.[193]

Throughout the volatile period of labor organizing which accompanied the Great Depression, Dorothy Day constantly supplemented her journalistic efforts in the Catholic Worker by physically joining workers at job sites and on picket lines.[194] In 1934, Dorothy and other employees of the Catholic Worker picketed the Ohrbach Department Store in Manhattan, side by side with the store's own striking employees.[195] "The most spectacular help" Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker gave was through providing housing and food to strikers during the formation of the National Maritime Workers Union in May, 1936.[196]

With the support of the Archbishop of Detroit, who urged her to "go to them, to write about them," Dorothy traveled to Flint, Michigan to cover a sit-down strike being staged in a number of General Motors' factories.[197] For more than two decades, beginning in 1937, the Catholic Worker was the intellectual home for the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists.[198] At its zenith, the Association maintained fourteen chapters and one hundred labor schools, most of which were concentrated in New York and Detroit.[199]

Perhaps Dorothy's most direct advocacy on behalf of labor was her challenge to Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York. In 1949, the unionized gravediggers of Calvary Cemetery, went on strike against their employer, the trustees of St. Patrick Cathedral, principally, Cardinal Spellman.[200] The strike continued for over a month, until it was crushed by the Cardinal who personally ordered the union-breaking and whom led his seminarians into the cemetery as replacement workers.[201] Cardinal Spellman stated "his resistance to the strike was 'the most important thing I have done in my ten years in New York."[202] He proclaimed that the union's strike was "communist-inspired" and that he was "happy to be a strike breaker."[203]

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker bore profound and direct witness to the Cardinal’s egregious repudiation of Catholic social teaching on the rights of workers. Dorothy Day was one of the few who publicly supported the Union.[204] Day wrote a very eloquent letter to Cardinal Spellman on March 4, 1949, noting of the strikers and their demands, “It is a question of their dignity as men, their dignity as workers, and the right to have a union of their own, and a right to talk over their grievances.”[205] Day's letter emphasized the dignity of all persons, especially, laborers. The letter stressed peace, conciliation, and the imperative of charity, decency and kindness toward everyone.

Cardinal Spellman and Dorothy Day, in spite of, or perhaps because of this confrontation, had deep respect for one another.[206] Day was theologically and liturgically traditional, while radical in her social justice activism. She once stated, "[w]hen it comes to labor and politics, . . . I am inclined to be sympathetic to the left, but when it comes to the Catholic Church, then I am far to the right."[207]

The 1949 incident allows us to reflect upon, and appreciate, the authenticity of the Catholic tradition and the way in which any Catholic can, and should, communicate directly with his or her Bishop. Dorothy Day offered us a model of how to communicate within the Church and about how to call to witness the Church's professed commitments to social justice.

The 1949 cemetery workers' strike clearly focuses on the attempt of Dorothy Day and Catholic Workers to engage in responsible dialogue with the Church hierarchy. The relationship between Dorothy Day, committed lay Catholic, and Cardinal Spellman, the most powerful leader among the American Catholic hierarchy, was both very simple and very complex. Because everyone in the Church is called by God to consider actions and their consequences, Dorothy Day called the leadership of her Archdiocese to account for its actions in breaking the strike in 1949.[208]

Dorothy Day's letters in early March of 1949 to Cardinal Spellman, in the context of the cemetery workers' strike, can serve as a model. The Catholic Workers who picketed outside St. Patrick's Cathedral and outside the cemeteries, in solidarity with the strikers in 1949, continue to serve as worthy examples for the even more direct Catholic action of divine obedience today. The ordained hierarchy is infused, and bound, by the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and by Jesus' injunction—it would be better for one within the clergy to have a millstone wrapped around the neck and thrown to the bottom of the lake than to lead one of the least astray. The example of Jesus prompts dialogue; the laity may write and demonstrate. Jesus also prompts, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the hierarchy to read, to listen, to speak, and to lead. If laity and hierarchy do not engage in this often difficult, but indispensable, dialogue, the "alternative" for us all is the millpond.

Today, Catholic Workers have begun asking the hierarchy to rethink institutional distribution of wealth, by their divine obedience (peaceful civil disobedience). Catholic Workers have engaged in divine obedience/peaceful civil disobedience, and have, by their words and examples, urged alternative priorities in accord with the life and example of Jesus.

Even near the end of her life, Dorothy Day continued her commitment of physical presence with the organization of workers. Her last major adventure came in August, 1973, when she went to California to join Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers in demonstration. In her support of Chavez and the Mexican itinerant workers, she, along with a thousand-or-so others, was arrested and briefly jailed.[209]

With her lifetime of fifty years of direct and immediate solidarity with workers and with the poor, Dorothy Day wrote of the absolute imperative of the fusion of labor practice and labor theory, “Going around and seeing such sights is not enough…. One must live with them, share with them their suffering too.”[210] By taking up residence with the unemployed, Day observed the stark and “pitiable” contrast between the organized workers who gained inner strength and dignity from their work and their union, and the unorganized.[211] This submersion of self into the world of those you seek to understand and help was essential to Day who remarked, “Going to the people is the purest and best act in Christian tradition and revolutionary tradition and is the beginning of world brotherhood.”[212]

The struggle for workers' dignity must be perpetual and incessant. Although the poor will always be with us, Dorothy Day reminds us, by her personal witness, to struggle valiantly to improve the status of workers everywhere. She takes note of the achievements, though slowly won, that workers have gained for themselves by utilizing strikes, the disfavored mechanism of the labor movement.[213]

Throughout her half century of direct personal commitment to workers, throughout a half century of participation in labor strikes and solidarity on picket lines, Dorothy Day always kept the dignity of all persons—including the employees, with an emphasis on peace and conciliation, and the imperative of charity, decency, and kindness to all—in mind.

Dorothy’s March 4, 1949 letter to Cardinal Spellman, urging him to negotiate with the graveyard workers, rather than break their strike, perhaps best, and certainly most poignantly, summarizes her practice and her theory. In imploring the Cardinal to go to the striking workers, she was very cognizant of recommending a course of action that would allow the workers to retain their dignity. After all, “It is easier for the great to give in than the poor.”[214]

Because of her personal witness, commitment, and solidarity with workers everywhere, whether expressed on picket lines or in her newspaper, Dorothy Day's lessons for labor have profound practical and theoretical significance.

Day’s unequivocal and courageous personal commitment to literally walk the picket lines with striking workers and to be a member of the labor community in a real and dramatic way, gives her understanding of labor special resonance and genuine meaning. Day's sense of labor is best articulated and appreciated through her articles appearing in the Catholic Worker newspaper. Dorothy's statements on labor reflect a rich, complex, and sophisticated mind. They also reflect, at least equally, and perhaps in an even more compelling way, her deep, personal, and lifelong commitment to workers as human beings. Day's essays and columns in the Catholic Worker from 1933 until the immediate post-World War II period of the late 1940s best reflect her fused praxis and theory.

From its inception, the Catholic Worker focused upon the universal world of work. Remarking on the view of her co-founder, Day noted, "[I]n Peter's [Maurin] vision, work is a gift. Given for the common good,—And the reason why one works is to share gifts and talents, in common with others, to help create a better kind of society."[215] Emphasizing the "catholicity" of the paper, in both the religious and universal sense of that word, the Catholic Worker sought the unity of workers.[216] In a direct, working class language, the newspaper promulgated to workers the social teaching of the Catholic Church, a social justice language that is thoroughly integrative and truly universal. Only by working for social justice can a worker meet his duties toward himself and God.[217] The Catholic Worker unsparing criticized the aristocracy of organized labor, repudiated the influences of atheistic communism within labor, and thoroughly condemned the materialism of the capitalist ownership elites. Indeed, established organized labor was not shielded from her criticism as she condemned their inattention to the poor and unorganized in trades like textile and mining. She blames this “aristocracy of labor” for the organizing success of radical trade unions who benefited from the bias the poor workers felt against the established unions.[218]

Throughout the Catholic Worker essays is an ongoing call for pride and care in work on the part of each individual worker. Even poor workers were not free from Day’s critique as she acknowledged a “loss of pride in craftsmanship” on their part although she partly faults “the mechanization of industry” for this unacceptable worker attitude toward work.[219]

The organized labor union was a major focus of Day's attention throughout the years of her advocacy. The labor union is the greatest tool in a system of fallible alternatives and mediating social structures available to the working individual. The labor union is not an end in itself, but, rather, a means towards the achievement of human dignity, the central theme of the papal encyclicals on the rights of workers.[220] Wherever possible, Dorothy Day urged Catholic employees to strengthen the Catholic solidarity between one another by seeking each other out both within the union structure and outside of it, in the non-unionized workplace. She pointed to a third and better path, transcending both atheistic Marxism and capitalist materialism, for solution to the problems of society.

In her February, 1936 Catholic Worker column, she emphatically stated that unions, in their present American incarnation, were not ideally suited to solve “the social problem.”[221] Day did credit these imperfect unions of the time with the distinction of being “the only efficient weapon which workers have to defend their rights as individuals and Christians.”[222] Day selected unions as the vehicle by which Catholic workers could “heed the exhortations of the Popes to ‘de-proletarianize’ the workers” and thereby achieve a classless society.[223]

Unions must be autonomous and independent, with each individual constituent member contributing to the collective common good.[224] Day’s writing touched upon themes and issues that were often eerily prescient of contemporary debates in labor policy and law. For example, Day recognized that no benefit would be conferred upon workers represented by a company union.[225] In addition, Day understood the debilitating effects an “open shop” has on a union’s ability to collectively bargain.[226]

She particularly emphasized the critical importance of a collective consciousness, the “sacrifice of individual freedom for the common good.”[227] Union organizing was promoted for its advantages for “workers as a whole”, in full recognition of the fact that individual workers would be required to personally assume risks in order to fulfill “their duty of charity.”[228] The duty of each individual Catholic worker was seen as expansive and included a duty to “inform himself of the Church's teaching on labor, and to strive for the common good of himself and his fellow workers by applying them to labor situations in which he may be involved.”[229]

The Catholic Worker always focused on the international human rights dimension of unionization. In a September, 1937, page one article, the Catholic Worker proclaimed, “The Catholic Worker is not a local paper.”[230] It is their Catholicism, their first and foremost affiliation, that enables the paper’s readership to understand this proclamation and to embrace the paper’s goal of “bring[ing] Catholic social principles [internationally] to the workers in industry.”[231]

Beyond its standing as a natural right, the Catholic Worker elevated one’s “right to organize” to the level of “duty”. Citing Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 great letter to labor, the readers of the Catholic Worker were told “to organize into unions so that they could achieve better wages and hours of labor, better working conditions, and the right to be recognized as men, creatures of body and soul, temples of the Holy Ghost.”[232]

Beyond taking issue with the word “bargain” which was disfavored for its derogatory connotations of the buying and selling of human labor as a commodity, the Catholic Worker emphasized the imperative of collective bargaining/action. The enhancement of human dignity was the ultimate and imperative goal sought to be achieved by labor’s collective organization. This was a goal of such importance that the worker, who was judged as unable to make any gains on his own, was told, “He must join with others to form a union to better his condition.”[233]

Thus, the labor union is more than a means of organizing the workplace and benefiting those who return to the job site each day; it has the additional imperative of seeking broader social justice.[234] In fact, once unionization and its improved lifestyle were achieved in their town, workers were told to look beyond their own world and to help other towns reach the ideal. This broad-based approach was acknowledged as requiring the support of nationalized labor organizations.

Central to Catholicism is the membership of each individual believer to a larger unifier, the Mystical Body of Christ. As such, workers were meant to “realize the necessity to work as a body.” [235] It was Dorothy Day who so powerfully re-invoked the Communion of Saints and the Mystical Body of Christ. Again, this larger group affiliation assures that no individual worker will be content “while his brother is in misery.” [236]

Throughout, the Catholic Worker continually emphasized the example of Christ as worker and his solidarity with, and position as liaison to, the poor.[237] In order to exemplify the brotherly love required from the Commandments, one must help their neighbor. In fact, God cannot be loved “unless we love our neighbor.”[238] Christ, the worker, set the example which all should emulate, love the worker. Of course, no individual can achieve the improved conditions sought alone and as such, workers must band together. To not work collectively would be to deny “Christ and His poor.”[239]

Perhaps Dorothy Day's greatest synthesis of her labor theory was set forth in the June 1939 issue of the Catholic Worker, in an essay entitled The Catholic Worker and Labor. The emphasis throughout was on the example of Christ, and the teaching of the Church through the great social and labor encyclicals of 1891 and 1931. Again, dignity of the individual person, a being formed in the likeness of God, was stressed. De-proletarianizing the worker through a shared ownership, and not widespread government ownership, was the social change sought. The greater goal, the “dignity of man”, transcended things like mere wages and hours.[240]

The immediate post-World War II era saw an increasing sophistication and awareness of the corroding effects of industrial production on the human psyche. These trends became increasingly evident to the Catholic Worker as did the themes which drove them. However, no attempt to commercialize the newspaper was made. The Catholic Worker continued to be sold for a penny and Dorothy Day's theory of labor never became idealized or romanticized beyond the hard lessons of the Christian gospel. In fact, Day took great pains to expose the false romanticism, fostered by a lost concept of work, that upper middleclass intellectuals often attached to organized labor.[241]

Dorothy Day shattered romanticism; she urged reality, and professed that, in reforming reality, ideals can be envisioned and perhaps even achieved. Dorothy saw her lessons as enduring ones. In an analysis eerily prescient of the high technology computer age, Dorothy concludes her September 1946 article on labor by pondering whether God will judge the machine, “which has turned man into a hand”, and where thereby “he who lives by the machine will fall by the machine.”[242]

Mass production de-emphasized the role of the individual, and compelled one to submit oneself to a dehumanizing work process of " 'work without end,' which chains workers to machines and especially to the authority of those who own and control them—capital and its managerial retainers."[243] This was the reality of the industrial assembly line era and the newspaper worked to warn its readers against the growing false consciousness. The great sin of which to be mindful was the dehumanization that comes from “submitting oneself to a process.”[244] This submission takes the form of becoming a mere extension of a machine, an unthinking, but efficient, hand. The true danger of a factory is not in its threat of a lost physical hand “but the loss of one's soul” from the relinquishment of oneself to the devil and to machine-like behavior.[245]

These continuing themes powerfully resonate in the express mission of the Catholic Worker, as set forth in the annual mission statement, which notes that as the purpose of work moves from human need to capitalist greed, workers are trapped in producing disposable goods for the consumer society and without work that contributes to human welfare.[246]

Conclusion

Dorothy’s ideas on social justice and peace reverberate today. Corporate scandals have drawn the curtain back revealing the mighty and powerful Oz to be his true self, a mere scam artist running a Ponzi scheme in an Armani suit. Dorothy would have viewed the scandals at Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing, etc., as mere byproducts of a defective system. Her argument that capitalism is “Godless” because it defies Divine Providence, which has given good things for the use of all men,[247] would most likely resonate with the many employees who lost their life savings over the past three years.

Dorothy’s mistrust of corporate America has gone mainstream in this new millennium. Prior to the scandals, our nation of shareholders allowed the concerns of workers to become secondary as long as our portfolios grew. Questions of corporate responsibility have injected, for the first time in a long time, issues of morality into the business world. The free market has lost some of its Darwinian sting, and concern for the “little guy” has grown. The employee who lost his entire retirement package may now feel the full weight of the exploitative forces of transnational corporations, and empathize with the third world factory worker. The Catholic Worker’s emphasis on the individual may resonate among a betrayed middle class. As Dorothy had observed, those who know poverty are often the most generous.[248]

In the midst of corporate greed, the spirit of Dorothy Day was conjured by a frail, Jewish business owner named Aaron Fuerstein. Fuerstein is the CEO of Malden Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts.[249] In 1995, a fire destroyed the entire Malden Mills factory, basically putting the entire town out of work.[250] Rather than collecting the insurance money and running, Fuerstein gave each of his 3,000 employees their $275 Christmas bonus and then paid the unemployed workers their full salary for three months.[251] Fuerstein believed in the community and thought it to be unconscionable to leave.[252] His refusal to treat his employees as commodities is the epitome of the Catholic Worker’s call to respect the rights of the individual and treat money as a mere exchange.[253] He truly led by example. The fact that Mr. Fuerstein’s actions cost him $25 million[254] only provided evidence of his personal sacrifice.[255] It was also the supreme repudiation of the bottom line. Dorothy Day extolled the award of virtue over profit, preferring to rely on Divine Intervention.[256]

The Catholic Worker’s focus on the self-sufficient family and rural collectivism may be too far removed from our modernized society. However, Fuerstein provides the example that the idea of collective businesses or small factories may not be beyond the rationality of the American businessman. Morality may now become a required course in business school. If we have a “compassionate conservative,” could a “caring capitalist” be too far behind. Fuerstein suggests no, and that would be one of Dorothy Day’s greatest legacies.

In Dorothy’s view, the terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, would no more justify violent retaliation, than the millions of Jews killed during the Holocaust. Descendants of Day’s philosophy, Pax Christi and the Plowshares, have called for restraint in response to the horrific attack.[257] However, similar to the fervor following Pearl Harbor, these cries are currently falling on deaf ears. The lustful calls for revenge have drown out the calls for justice.

Since September 11th, it might seem easy to dismiss Dorothy Day’s strict adherence to pacifism as mere sentimentality and not relevant in this complex world. Similar criticisms were launched against Day while she was alive, in which she responded, “let those who talk of softness, of sentimentality, come to live with us in cold, unheated houses in the slums. Let them come to live with the criminal, the unbalanced, the drunken, the degraded, the pervert…. Let them live with rats, with vermin, bedbugs, roaches, lice.”[258] Day did not live in an ivory tower theorizing, rather her views were grounded in the harsh realities of life.

Are Day’s calls for peace any more delusional than the government’s belief that military might is capable of destroying hatred. Day deplored the idea of peace being achieved through arms on a moral basis. Today, the idea seems equally deplorable on a logistical basis. We no longer face another nation state made vulnerable by its predictability. It is no longer the enemy we know. The men who perpetrated the acts of September 11th are dead, and so is possibly their leader, it is the hatred that lives on and which is our new enemy. Arbitrary violent retaliation may only serve to breed more hatred. In this case, Day would argue that spiritual weapons are our greatest defense against the hatred that now threatens our nation. For it is the hatred we need to remove not the individual.

Her words conjure sentimentality, but her overall philosophy of understanding others shows a nuance that is mandatory in creating a sensible foreign policy. The Catholic Worker currently asks why we are not reevaluating some of the policies that led to such blind hatred.[259] It is not a sign of weakness to evaluate, but rather a sign of intelligence. As the Catholic Worker has indicated, do we really want to go blow for blow with a group so immoral it would perpetrate such hellacious acts.[260] And if so, what does that say about our own morality? We must stop the cycle of hatred. Dorothy’s ardent belief in the Mystical Body of Christ is much more relevant today than fifty years ago. If we can use the Church’s teaching to guide us in the quest for social justice for downtrodden people’s across the globe, we will be afforded the moral high ground, usurping support from the terrorist’s support base. Without grassroot support, terrorists are finished. Terrorism will only be defeated when the sea is removed from which the fish can swim.

As the President prepares a weary nation for an invasion of Iraq, the lustful cries for revenge may dissipate. We already see a few questioning the righteousness and even the advisability of an invasion.[261] The progeny of Day’s activism stands vigil as the public begins to slowly join the debate on the merits of such an invasion. Dorothy’s legacy remains the strength of these organizations even in the current face of such nationalism. Dorothy Day would find it morbidly ironic to hear the U.S. government justifying an invasion with the need to halt nuclear proliferation.

The current president invoked Dorothy’s name in a commencement speech at The University of Notre Dame.[262] President Bush advocated the use of the “weapons of spirit,” although he limited their use to the war on poverty.[263] The President’s distinction makes one pause, if he believes that prayers are not powerful enough to stop aggression, how are such prayers suppose to feed the millions of hungry. Who is being sentimental now?

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[1] According to the Book of Matthew in the New Testament, Jesus concedes that citizens should “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s…”, however he adds that citizens also must also give “…unto God what is God’s.” Matthew 22:21.

[2] See William D. Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography 36 (1982).

[3] See id. at 147; Dorothy Day, The Long Lonliness 52 (1959).

[4] See Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origins of Catholic Radicalism in America 63 (1982).

[5] See Miller, supra note 2, at 192-201 (1982).

[6] Matthew 22:40.

[7] Luke 10:25-37.

[8] “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19:21.

[9] See Voices From the Catholic Worker 10 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993).

[10] See Miller, supra note 2, at 254 (1982).

[11] See id., at 259-60.

[12] See id., at 259-60.

[13] See Frank J. Macchiarola, Reflections on Thomas Merton on the 25th Anniversary of his Death, Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 265 (1993) Merton's primary works include: The Ascent to Truth (1951); The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1973); The Behavior of Titans (1961); Cables to the Ace: Or, Familiar Liturgies of Misunderstanding (1968); The Climate of Monastic Prayer (1969); The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (1977); The Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966); Contemplative Prayer (1971); Contemplation in a World of Action (1973); The Courage for Truth: The Letters of Thomas Merton to Writers (1993); Developing a Conscience (1992); Disputed Questions (1960); Does God Hear Our Prayer? (1988); Elected Silence: The Autobiography of Thomas Merton (1954); Emblems of a Season of Fury (1963); Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice (1968); Faith and Prayer (1988); Geography of Holiness: The Photography of Thomas Merton (1980); Honorable Reader: Reflections on My Work (1981); Introductions East and West: The Foreign Prefaces of Thomas Merton (1989); The Last of the Fathers: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and the Encyclical Letter, Doctor Mellifluus (1954); Life and Holiness (1963); The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton (1981); The Living Bread (1956); Love and Living (1979); A Man in the Divided Sea (1946); The Monastic Journey (1977); My Argument with the Gestapo: A Macaronic Journal (1969); Mystics and Zen Masters (1967); New Seeds of Contemplation (1961); No Man Is an Island (1955); The New Man (1961); The Nonviolent Alternative (1980); Original Child Bomb: Points for Meditation to Be Scratched on the Walls of a Cave (1962); Our Father: Perfect Prayer (1988); Raids on the Unspeakable (1966); Renunciation of Desire and Will (1988); The Road to Joy: The Letters of Thomas Merton to New and Old Friends (1989); The School of Charity: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Renewal and Spiritual Direction (1990); Seasons of Celebration (1965); Seeds of Contemplation (1949); The Seven Storey Mountain (1948); The Sign of Jonas (1953); The Silent Life (1957); The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns (1985); Thomas Merton on Peace (1971); A Thomas Merton Reader (1962); Thomas Merton on St. Bernard (1980); Thomas Merton: A Preview of the Asian Journey (1989); Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master, The Essential Writings (1992); Thoughts in Solitude (1958); A Vow of Conversation: Journals 1964-1965 (1988); The Waters of Siloe (1949); What Are These Wounds?: The Life of a Cistercian Mystic, Saint Lutgarde of Aywieres (1950); Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis (1994); Woods, Shore, Desert: A Notebook, May 1968 (1982); Zen and the Birds of Appetite (1968).

[14] Robert Coles, the Harvard College and Medical School professor and writer, recounts poignantly his first meeting with Dorothy Day.

She and another woman were sitting at a table together with what one could call a "one-sided" conversation taking place. The woman sitting with Dorothy was speaking of things indiscernible to most of us of this world. Yet if Dorothy hadn't a clue as to what this woman was saying...she sat there patiently listening. When Dorothy noticed [Coles] standing before them, she simply asked, "Did you wish to speak with one of us?"

Mary Anczarski, Small and Daily Miracles, Cath. Worker, Sept. 1993, at 7.

Michael Harrington graduated at the age of nineteen from the College of the Holy Cross in 1947. See Voices from the Catholic Worker 120-22 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993). After one year of very successful study at the Yale University Law School, where he was invited to become a student editor of the Yale Law Journal upon the basis of his first year law school grades, he withdrew from the Law School and went on to earn a graduate degree in literature from the University of Chicago, in 1949. See id. Thereafter, he moved to New York City, where, for the period from 1951-1954, he lived as a Catholic Worker. See id. Until his death from cancer in 1989 at the age of 61, he taught political science at Queens College of the City University of New York from 1972. See Michael Harrington Memorial Service Set, Boston Globe, Oct. 3, 1989, at 79; Robert Kuttner, Harrington's Democratic Socialism Helped Give Capitalism a Humane Face, Atlanta J. & Const., Aug. 8, 1989, at A21.

Throughout his life, he was a prolific author and social commentator. See Voices from the Catholic Worker 120-33 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993). Michael Harrington poignantly reflected upon his deep intellectual debt to Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker in an interview just before his death. See id. His works include: The Accidental Century (1965); Decade of Decision (1980); Fragments of the Century (1973); The Long-Distance Runner: An Autobiography (1988); The New American Poverty (1984); The Next America: The Decline and Rise of the United States (1981); The Next Left: The History of a Future (1986); The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1971); The Politics at God's Funeral: The Spiritual Crisis of Western Civilization (1983); Socialism: Past and Future (1989); Taking Sides: The Education of a Militant Mind (1985); Toward a Democratic Left: A Radical Program for a New Majority (1968); The Twilight of Capitalism (1976); The Vast Majority: A Journey to the World's Poor (1977).

[15] Voices From the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 120

[16] See Miller, supra note 2, at 1.

[17] See id. at 516-17.

[18] St. Augustine of Hippo was a great Bishop and Doctor of the early Christian Church. Much of his early adult life was spent in dissolute, wasteful living. His major works were The Confessions (R.S. Pine-Coffin trans., 1966) and The City of God Against the Pagans (Philip Levine trans., 1966). For an excellent biography of Augustine, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1969).

[19] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 8.

[20] See Robert Coles, Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion 3 (1987) (stating that Eugene O’Neill, the famous and troubled playwright, was among the many men with whom Dorothy Day had an affair at this time).

[21] See id., at 3.

[22] See Voices from The Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 79. Jim Forest commented on Dorothy Day, saying, "[O]ne of the most important parts of her intercession was praying for people who had committed suicide. She had a great deal of sympathy for them. Now probably that was partly connected to her apparent attempt at suicide when she was a young woman." Id.

[23] See Coles, supra note 21, at 7-8 (stating Day was married to Barkley Tobey and claimed a "common law" marriage with Forster Batterham, the father of her daughter).

[24] See id., at 9.

[25] See Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness 24 (1959).

[26] See Miller, supra note 2, at 5.

[27] See id., at 9, 14.

[28] Only after Dorothy Day and her father were able to put aside some of their differences and begin a casual friendship, were they able to repair their relationship. See Day, supra note 26, at 24.

[29] See Miller, supra note 2, at 5-6.

[30] See Day, supra note 26, at 48.

[31] See Miller, supra note 2, at 9.

[32] See id.

[33] See id. at 21.

[34] See id. at 31.

[35] See id. at 33.

[36] Dorothy Day summarized her feelings at this time, stating that she felt as if “religion was something that I must ruthlessly cut out of my life.” Disenchanted, Dorothy believed “[Religion] had nothing to do with everyday life: it was a matter of Sunday praying.” See id. at 34.

[37] See id. at 35.

[38] See id. at 47.

[39] See Jim O'Grady, Dorothy Day: With Love for the Poor 35-39 (1993).

[40] See Miller, supra note 2, at 55. The Masses was a “magazine that began in 1911 as an insignificant socialist publication emphasizing cooperatives.” Id. at 77.

[41] See id. at 57.

[42] See id. at 71.

[43] Dorothy had been rebuked by Mike Gold, a co-worker she had been spending much time with, for repelling a drunken anarchist’s sexual advances. She resigned the next day. Id. at 77.

[44] See id.

[45] See id. at 81.

[46] See id. at 105.

[47] See id. at 105. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) was a playwright born in New York City. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, and, in 1936, the Nobel Prize for literature. Many consider O'Neill the greatest playwright in the history of the United States. His plays include: Ah Wilderness! (1932); Anna Christie (1921) (Pulitzer Prize); Beyond East for Cardiff (1916); Beyond The Horizon (1920) (Pulitzer Prize); Desire Under The Elms (1924); The Emperor Jones (1920); The Hairy Ape (1922); Hughie (1941); The Iceman Cometh (1946); Long Day's Journey Into Night (produced 1956); A Moon For The Misbegotten (1956); Mourning Becomes Electra (1931); Strange Interlude (1927) (Pulitzer Prize). See Biography of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, Microsoft Encarta (1993).

Dorothy Day and Eugene O'Neill probably had a sexual love affair. See Voices from the Catholic Worker 75 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993). "[T]o hear Dorothy talk, she and Eugene O'Neill were simply good friends. My impression of O'Neill was that if he were good friends with a woman, it tended to go beyond friendship." Id.

[48]See Miller, supra note 2, at 119.

[49] See id.

[50] Id. at 123.

[51] See id. at 125.

[52] See id. at 136-7.

[53] See id. at 137-8.

[54] See id. at 140; Voices from the Catholic Worker 95 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993).

[55] Miller, supra note 2, at 143.

[56] See Voices from The Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 95 (Rosalie Riegle Troester ed., 1993).

She said when she was twenty-two, she was exhausted, so she married this sugar daddy, just to go to Europe to take a rest. What I remember about Europe is falling asleep on a yacht off Capri and having a drink in the Eiffel Tower. When I got back, we were staying in the Hotel New Yorker. One morning I got up before he did and took all the jewelry he had given me and put it on the counter and went home to my mother. Id.

[57] See Miller, supra note 2, at 147.

[58] See id. at 150.

[59] See id. at 166.

[60] See id.

[61] See id. at 166.

[62] See id. at 170-1.

[63] See William D. Miller, A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement 55 (1973).

[64] See Miller, supra note 2, at 178.

[65] See id. at 179.

[66] See id. at 180.

[67] See id. at 182-84.

[68] Id. at 192.

[69] See id. at 195.

[70] See id. at 228.

[71] Dorothy Day, Introduction to Peter Maurin, Green Revolution (1949).

[72] Peter Maurin moved to Canada as a homesteader in order to avoid military service in France. After a couple of hard years in Canada, Peter moved to the United States, where he worked at various jobs. He was an undocumented immigrant in both countries. See Arthur Sheehan Peter Maurin: Gay Believer 88 (1959).

[73] See Miller, supra note 2, at 243.

[74] Personalism, according to Maurin, was based on the subjective ideal. See id. at 244. He often stated in explaining his design, “Be what you want the other fellow to be.” Id.

[75] Matthew 22:34-40.

[76] See Miller, supra note 2, at 244-47.

[77] See id. at 252.

[78] See id. at 259.

[79] See id.

[80] See id. at 265-66.

[81] See id. at 254.

[82] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 3.

[83] See id. at 60-61.

[84] See id. at 69.

[85] See id. at 78.

[86] See id. at 118.

[87] Day was familiar with the like of Philip Murray, John Lewis, John Brophy, Harry Bridges, and Joseph Curran. See id. at 78.

[88] See Nancy L. Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker 73, 166 (1984).

[89] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 79.

[90] See id. at 91.

[91] See id. at 95.

[92] Id. at 96.

[93] See Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 569-76.

[94] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 68.

[95] See Miller, supra note 64, at 106.

[96] See Miller, supra note 2, at 500. In her support of Chavez and the Mexican interant workers, Day, “along with a thousand-or-so others, was arrested and briefly jailed.” Id.

[97] See id. at 517.

[98] See id., at 71.

[99] See Espionage Act, ch. 30, tit. I, 40 Stat. 217 (1917).

[100] See Bob Guilis, The Masses: Where Are They When We Need Them?, Greenwich Village Gazette, September 28, 2002. The government revoked the Masses mailing permit and also pressured newsstands not to carry the publication.

[101] See Mark & Louise Zwick, Dorothy Day, Prophet of Pacifism for the Catholic Church, Houston Catholic Worker, Sept.-Oct. 1997.

[102] Dorothy Day, Our Stand, The Catholic Worker, June 1940, 1.

[103] See id.

[104] See Rosalie G. Riegle, Mystery and Myth: Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker, and the Peace Movement, Fellowship Magazine, Nov-Dec. 1997.

[105] Dorothy Day, The Use of Force, The Catholic Worker, November 1936, at 4.

[106] Day, supra note 103.

[107] See Michael Sherry, In The Shadow of War 36-44 (1995) Prior to a formal declaration of war, President Roosevelt intensified his rhetoric and began to mobilize the military for, as he saw it, the “business of carrying out a war without declaring a war.” See id.at 36.

[108] See Day, supra note 103, at 4.

[109] Id.

[110] See Zwick, supra note 102. Msgr. John A. Ryan, founder of the Catholic Association for International Peace, argued that the nation state should be the “authority on issues of war”, and used the just war doctrine to support the Roosevelt administration’s decision to enter the World War II. See id.

[111] See Miller, supra note 2, at 344-45.

[112] See Dorothy Day, Work’s of Mercy Oppose Violence In Labor’s War, Catholic Worker, April 1941, 4.

[113] See Dorothy Day, Why Do Members of Christ Tear At One Another, Catholic worker, February 1942, 4.

[114] See Miller, supra note 2, at 180.

[115] See id., at 174.

[116] Dorothy Day, We Go On Record the CW Response to Hiroshima, Catholic Worker, September 1945.

[117] Id.

[118] Riegle, supra note 105 at 3.

[119] See Miller, supra note 2, at 283.

[120] See id. at 266.

[121] See Jim Forest, A Biography of Dorothy Day, The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History (Liturgical Press).

[122] Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage, Catholic Worker, July-August 1957, 3.

[123] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 214-15.

[124] See id.

[125] See Sherry, supra note 108, at 246.

[126] See id.

[127] See Riegle, supra note 105, at 3.

[128] See Dorothy Day, On Pilgramage In Cuba: Part III, The Catholic Worker, November 1962, 4, 6.

[129] Dorothy Day, More About Cuba, Catholic Worker, February 1963, 4.

[130] See id., at 4.

[131] See Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage, Catholic Worker, June 1963, 1.

[132] See Encyclical Letter of John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963.

[133] See Day supra note 132, at 6.

[134] See id.

[135] See Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage, Catholic Worker, October 1965, 1.

[136] See Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage, Catholic Worker, December 1965, 2.

[137] See id.

[138] Id.

[139] Id.

[140] Day, supra note 136, at 8.

[141] See id.

[142] Id.

[143] Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, at 80.

[144] Id. at 79.

[145] Id. at 83.

[146] Id. at 80.

[147] See Day, supra note 137, at 1.

[148] Dorothy Day, Theophane Venard and Ho Chi Minh, Catholic Worker, May 1954, at 6.

[149] See Day, supra note 137, at 8.

[150] See Charles Catfield, Dorothy Day, the Catholic worker, and American Pacifism, Fellowship Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1997, 4; see also Dorothy Day, On Pilgramage, Catholic Worker, February 1967, at 2. 23 young Catholic workers entered St. Patrick’s with signs under their overcoats and during the offertory marched down the center aisle with signs that read “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” The incident made the front page of the NY Times. See id.

[151] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 214-15.

[152] See Geoffrey Gneuhs, Dorothy Day: AContemporary Saint? Culture front Online, (Fall 1998) available at http.//. Day influence Joan Baez, Norman Mailer named his daughter after her, and at her wake in 1980, Abbie Hoffman called her “the first hippie.” See id.

[153] See Tom Cornell, Catholic Worker Pacifism: An Eyewitness to History, Catholic Worker Homepage, available at .

[154] See id.

[155] See Catfield, supra note 150, at 4.

[156] See id.

[157] See Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage, Catholic Worker, June 1970, at 1. Day empathized with the disenchantment of many of the young protesters in the face of such little progress. Id.

[158] See Dorothy Day, Dan Berrigan In Rochester, Catholic Worker, Dec. 1970, at 6.

[159] Catholic Worker Movement Homepage, (October 2002) available at .

[160] See Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation, Catholic Worker, Dec. 1995, at 2.

[161] See The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker, Catholic Worker, May 2002.

The aim of the Catholic Worker movement is to live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ. This aim requires us to live in a different way. We recall the words of our founders, Dorothy Day who said, "God meant things to be much easier than we have made them," and Peter Maurin who wanted to build a society "[w]here it is easier for people to be good."

[162] Riegle, supra note 105, at 4.

[163] The fundamental goal of public policy is the enhancement of human dignity. See generally Harold D. Lasswell & Myres S. McDougal, Jurisprudence for a Free Society: Studies in Law, Science and Policy (1992). This is the core insight of the Yale policy sciences jurisprudence, founded by Myres McDougal and Harold Lasswell more than fifty years ago. See generally id. For discussion of hominocentric politics, see Harold D. Lasswell & Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society: A Framework for Political Inquiry XXIV (1950).

[164] See Miller, supra note 2, at 244-45.

[165] See Edward J. O'Boyle, Homo Socio-Economicus: Foundational to Social Economics and the Social Economy, 52 Rev. Soc. Econ. 292 (1994).

[166] Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 578.

[167] See Miller, supra note 64, at 6.

[168] See O’Boyle, supra note 166, at 299.

[169] See id. at 299-300.

[170] See Joseph Amato, Mounier and Martain: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World 125 (1975).

[171] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 168-80.

[172] See Miller, supra note 64, at 100.

[173] See Stanley Elkins & Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism 195 (1993). In discussing the emergence of the Jeffersonian Republican Party in the 1790s, in their Pulitzer prize winning book, Elkins and McKitrick describe the essays by the Jeffersonian Republicans, heralding the virtues of the agrarian citizen:

"The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy. They are more: they are the best basis of public liberty and the strongest bulwark of public safety." They are exempt from the "distresses and vice of overgrown cities," and it follows "that the greater the proportion of this class to the whole society, the more free, the more independent, and the more happy must be the society itself." Id. at 269.

[174] See Thomas C. Kohler, Lessons from the Social Charter: State, Corporation, and the Meaning of Subsidiarity, 43 U. Toronto L.J. 607, 614-21 (1993).

[175] See id. at 620.

[176] See O’Boyle, supra note 166, at 295 n.5. There is an impressive body of scholarship on subsidiarity, both in theory and in its applications. See, e.g., George A. Bermann, Taking Subsidiarity Seriously: Federalism in the European Community and the United States, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 331 (1994); Deborah Z. Cass, The Word that Saves Maastricht? The Principle of Subsidiarity and the Division of Powers Within the European Community, 29 Common Mkt. L. Rev. 1107 (1992); Thomas C. Kohler, Lessons from the Social Charter: State, Corporation, and the Meaning of Subsidiarity, 43 U. Toronto L.J. 607 (1993); W. Gary Vause, The Subsidiarity Principle in European Union Law-American Federalism Compared, 27 Case W. Res. J. Int’l L. 61 (1995).

[177] See Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 577.

[178] See Kohler supra note 175, at 303.

[179] See id. at 304.

[180] O’Boyle, supra note 166, at 295.

[181] See Kohler supra note 175, at 230. Professor Kohler proffers that deterioration of the “middle,” specifically family structure, religious organizations, grass roots, political clubs, unions, and like institutions which normally provides for us a key opportunity to teach and practice the idea of self rule, has led to the inevitable collapse of individual autonomy. See id.

[182] See Thomas C. Kohler, Individualism and Communitarianism at Work, 1993 BYU L. Rev. 727 (1993).

[183] See Jenny Scott, A Big Leap in the Pursuit of Smallness, N.Y. Times, Jan. 30, 1995, at B5. The leading book of the "smallness" movement is E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973). There recently has been the reemergence of an amalgam subset of subsidiarity and personalism, in the manifestation of the desirability of "smallness." Id.

Their movement encompasses both ends of the political spectrum--from John McClaughry, a libertarian and former advisor to President Ronald Reagan now living in rural Vermont, to Mr. Sale, who describes himself as not an anarchist but an "anarcho-communalist." They find common ground in Mr. Schumacher's ideas about decentralization, local control and community strength. Id.

[184] See Amato supra note 171, at 5.

[185] See Thomas C. Kohler, the Overlooked Middle, 69 Chi-Kent. L. Rev. 229, 230 (1993).

[186] Day, supra note 3, at 44-45.

[187] See id. at 60-61.

[188] See id. at 158-60.

[189] See id. at 160-61.

[190] See id. at 161-62.

[191] See Miller, supra note 2, at 254.

[192] Day, supra note 3, at 199-200. Day described the solidarity of the Catholic Worker as follows: " The Catholic Worker, as the name implied, was directed to the worker, but we used the word in its broadest sense, meaning those who worked with hand or brain, those who did physical, mental or spiritual work. But we thought primarily of the poor, the dispossessed, the exploited." See id.

[193] See id. at 201.

[194] See id.

[195] See id. at 203.

[196] See id. at 213.

[197] See Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 12-13.

[198] See id. at 13.

[199] See Miller, supra note 2, at 404.

[200] See id. at 223.

[201] Id. at 404.

[202] Id.

[203] See Id.

[204] Letter from Dorothy Day to Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York (Mar. 4, 1949) (on file with author, courtesy of the Marquette University Library's Catholic Worker Archives) [hereinafter Spellman letter].

[205] See Miller, supra note 2, at 405.

[206] For example, the Catholic Worker has never concentrated significant attention to issues of abortion or homosexuality. See Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 63. "That was a very funny thing about Dorothy. For all her radicalism politically, Dorothy had a profoundly conservative streak in her makeup. She was a very conservative Catholic, theologically ...." Id. at 75. "Dorothy was an extremely orthodox Catholic, not at all theologically a dissident. She certainly would not at all favor abortion. She would, I think take a very dim view of homosexual behavior." Id. at 80; see also Alden Whitman, Dorothy Day Outspoken Catholic Activist, Dies at 83, N.Y. Times, Nov. 30, 1980, at 45.

[207] See Coles, supra note 21, at 85.

[208] See Miller, supra note 2, at 500.

[209] Day, supra note 3, at 210-11.

[210] Id.

[211] Id.

[212] See id. at 212.

[213] Spellman letter, supra note 139.

[214] Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 104.

[215] See id. at 104-05.

[216] See Dorothy Day, The Dignity of Labor, Catholic Worker, Nov. 1934, at 4. Dorothy wrote, “we try to stress the duty of the workers towards God and himself first of all. And the Catholic neglects those duties when he does not work for social justice.” Id.

[217] Id. Dorothy notes the existence of graft in organized labor.

[218] Id.

[219] See Gregory Baum, The Priority of Labor (1982); Co-Creation and Capitalism: John Paul II's Laborem Exercens (John W. Houck & Oliver F. Williams eds., 1983) ; George G. Higgins, Organized Labor and the Church: Reflections of a 'Labor Priest' (1993); Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (1981); Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, in Proclaiming Justice & Peace 15 (Michael Walsh & Brian Davies eds., 1991); Pope Pius XI, Quadregesimo Anno, in Proclaiming Justice & Peace 41 (Michael Walsh & Brian Davies eds., 1991). Catholic social teaching is an evolving body of ecclesiastical documents and a rich tradition of particular, heterogeneous applications. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII commended workers' associations. See Pope Leo XIII, supra. Forty years later, Pope Pius XI recommended associations of workers, managers, and owners, which via the corporatism of national councils, would direct national economies. See Pope Pius XI, supra. Critics of this corporatism regard it as ultra-conservative. Pope John Paul II was a powerful champion of the Solidarity movement, a labor union political initiative which brought down the Communist government of Poland. See Pope John Paul II, supra.

The Canadian and United States Bishops also have been eloquent spokepersons for the rights of workers. Perhaps the most influential early work on Catholic social teaching on labor in the United States was that of Monsignor John A. Ryan, one of Father Higgins' intellectual mentors at the Catholic University of America. See John A. Ryan, A Living Wage (1906); John A. Ryan, Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of our Present Distribution of Wealth (1916) (discussing the moral aspects of the distribution of wealth).

I extensively discuss Catholic social teaching on labor in David L. Gregory, Catholic Labor Theory and the Transformation of Work, 45 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 119 (1988); David L. Gregory, The Right to Unionize as a Fundamental Human and Civil Right, 9 Miss. C. L. Rev. 135 (1988). Catholic social teaching on the rights of workers became popularized in the Academy-Award winning film, On the Waterfront (1953), inspired by Jesuit priest John "Pete" Corridan's work against labor racketeering on the New York City shipping docks.

[220] See Dorothy Day, Catholics in Unions, Catholic worker, Feb. 1936, at 4.

[221] See Day, supra note 155, at 4.

[222] See id.

[223] See id. at 7.

[224] See id.

[225] See id.

[226] Id.

[227] Id.

[228] Id.

[229] Join The Union! Natural And Supernatural Duty, Cath. Worker, Sept. 1937, at 1.

[230] Join the Union!, supra note 164, at 1.

[231] See Day, supra note 155, at 4.

[232] Join the Union!, supra note 164, at 1.

[233] See id.

[234] Id. at 2

[235] Id. at 2

[236] See id. Solidarity with, liaisons to, and preferential options for the poor have long been essential elements of Catholic social teaching. Jesus Christ is the source of these teachings, through His life and many parables on themes of wealth and poverty, for example: the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 5:3 (Revised Standard); the blessed widow giving her last coins to the Temple:

And [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living." Mark 12:41-44 (Revised Standard); see also Matthew 21:12 (Revised Standard) (driving the money-changers from the Temple); Matthew 19:24 (Revised Standard) ("[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.").

In the social justice encyclicals of the modern Papacy, the fetishisms and pathologies of gross materialism are uniformly and severely criticized, and solidarity with the poor is powerfully urged. Pope John Paul II's consistent exhortations against materialism and for the poor are grounded in the first great social encyclical of Pope Leo XIII in 1891, Rerum Novarum, who wrote, "the poor and unfortunate seem to be especially favored by God." Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, in Proclaiming Justice & Peace 16 (Michael Walsh & Brian Davies eds., 1991). The 1971 Synod of Bishops echoed this theme in their document, Justice In The World: "Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of preaching the Gospel." Id. at 270. A theme repeatedly articulated and affirmed by the Catholic Bishops of the United States in 1986 in their pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All. See National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice For All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy (1986). Pope John Paul II powerfully continues to articulate these themes in his social encyclicals, Laborem Exercens (1981) and Centesimus Annus (1991). I examine these themes in an earlier law review article. See David L. Gregory, Catholic Labor Theory and the Transformation of Work, 45 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 119 (1988). In addition to Papal encyclicals and Bishops' Pastoral Letters, there is a huge body of supporting commentary and analysis of these social justice themes of poverty. See, e.g., Jean-Yves Calvez & Jacques Perrin, The Church and Social Justice: The Social Teachings of the Popes from Leo XIII to Pius XII (1878-1958) (J.R. Kirwin trans., 1961); Richard L. Camp, The Papal Ideology of Social Reform: A Study in Historical Development, 1878-1967 (1969); John F. Cronin, Catholic Social Principles: The Social Teaching of the Catholic Church Applied to American Economic Life (1950); Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching (1983); Paul Misner, Social Catholicism in Europe: From the Onset of Industrialization to the First World War (1991); Franz H. Mueller, The Church and the Social Question (1984); Michael Novak, The Catholic Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism (1993); Catholic Social Thought and The New World Order: Building on One Hundred Years (Oliver F. Williams & John W. Houck eds., 1993).

[237] Join the Union!, supra note 164, at 2.

[238] Id.

[239] See The Catholic Worker and Labor, Catholic Worker, June 1939, at 1.

[240] See Dorothy Day, The Church And Work, Catholic Worker, Sept. 1946, at 1.

[241] Day, supra note 175, at 1.

[242] Id.

[243] Id.

[244] Id.

[245] See Voices from the Catholic Worker, supra note 9, at 577-78.

[246] Dorothy Day, Distributism v. Capitalism, Catholic Worker,October 1954, at 1.

[247] Dorothy Day, Generosity of the Poor, Catholic Worker, May 1955, 2.

[248] See Mark Shields, Two Extremes of Corporate Leadership, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, (December 3, 2001) at 1.

[249] See id.

[250] See id.

[251] See id.

[252] See The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker, Catholic Worker, May 2002. The Catholic Worker advocates: “management of small factories, homesteading projects, food, housing and other cooperatives--any effort in which money can once more become merely a medium of exchange, and human beings are no longer commodities.” See id.

[253] See Shield, supra note 247, at 1.

[254] See Miller, supra note 2, at 255. Day explained that in order to fully exemplify the personalist philosophy, “you yourself must perform the works of mercy.” See id.

[255] See Piehl, supra note 4, at 59-60.

[256] See Pax Christi/News, Pax Christi Responds to September 11th, Fall 2001, available at ; Robert A. Evans, Reflections on a Glbal Crisis, Plowshares Institute, available at .

[257] Day, supra note 114, at 1.

[258] See Bill Thomson, Combating Terrorism, Catholic Worker, September 12, 2001, at 1.

[259] See id. The article argues that there is no way to stop people who are willing give up their lives to kill.

[260] See Chuck Noe, Kennedy, Clinton, Gore Target Bush on Iraq, , September 28, 2002, available at .

[261] See Remarks by the President in Commencement Address University of Notre Dame, available at .

[262] See id.

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