Art by Marcy Hall

Art by Marcy Hall WOMEN Resource WITNESSES OF MERCY CELEBRATING THE EXTRAORDINARY WITNESS OF WOMEN DURING THE YEAR OF MERCY EDUCATION Dorothy Day Conscience of American Catholicism by Stephen Krupa, SJ On May Day 1933 Dorothy Day and the tapestry of Day’s life, the unique Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic combination of social activism and Worker movement and newspaper in deep religious feeling. The dual New York City. Since then Day’s life passion of social justice and intimacy of voluntary poverty, direct action on with God was present in Day’s life behalf of the worker and the poor and from her early years. Art by Marcy Hall absolute nonviolence and pacifism Early Years and Young Woman “The greatest has been a constant inspiration for both Christians and non-Christians. Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn challenge of the day Without dismissing the importance Heights, New York, on November 8, is: how to bring about of other leaders in the history of the 1897 to Christian parents who did not Roman Catholic Church in the United a revolution of the practice their faith. The most religious States, it is fair to say that Dorothy of the seven member Day family (one heart, a revolution Day remains, at the dawn of the new sister and three brothers), young millennium, the radical conscience of which has to start with Dorothy typically went to church by American Catholicism. herself. Day’s religious involvement each one of us? When Popular interest in Dorothy Day has did not last beyond her Episcopalian we begin to take the grown since her death in 1980. Such baptism at age twelve, however. The teen-aged Day, an inveterate lowest place, to wash interest only increased when the Vatican announced on March 17, reader, turned her attention away the feet of others, to 2000, that it had approved starting from religion to the social writings of anarchists and revolutionaries like love our brothers with the process for Day’s canonization as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Pytor Kropotkin and Pierre Proudon, that burning love, that Scholars, too, have taken an interest and the socially conscious novels of passion, which led to in Dorothy Day. In addition to her Charles Dickens, Jack London, and own writings (eight books and several Upton Sinclair. While at the University the cross, then we can hundred articles), there are numerous of Illinois at Urbana, the young leftist truly say, ‘Now I have critical studies of her life and of the rejected religion outright and joined the Socialist Party. begun.’” Catholic Worker movement. (See references) These studies all point Dorothy Day Returning to New York City after to a conspicuous entwined thread in just two years of college, Day joined the profession of her father and entrance into the Catholic Church in brothers. She wrote for the socialist December 1927, led to the demise publications the Call and the Masses of her relationship with Batterham, a and enjoyed the bohemian nightlife confirmed atheist. of Greenwich Village wither journalist friends. In 1917 Day journeyed to A Catholic Radical Washington, D.C., with a group of The next five years of Day’s life women to picket the White House represent a transition and preparation with the suffragists. Enduring her for the work she would begin with first arrest for civil disobedience, she Peter Maurin at the end of 1932. survived the indignities of Occoquan On her own as a single mother, Day prison in Virginia and a 10-day worked at various jobs all the while hunger strike. Though as a radical living with the poor. On assignment and lifelong anarchist she never in Washington, D.C., in December voted, and so was not a suffragist 1932 for the Catholic publications herself, Day joined the demonstration Commonweal and America, Day “to uphold the rights of political ached to join the Communist- prisoners” (LL 72). organized Hunger March and Dorothy Day in 1934. With the suppression of the Masses Farmer’s Convention, not just to New York World-Telegram & Sun by the government in 1917, Day report on them. The dual passion Collection. of her life, social concern and deep via Wikimedia Commons began work as a nurses’ aid during World War I. After an obsessive love for God, could not, it seemed, love affair with a womanizing be reconciled through Catholicism. newspaperman, Lionel Moise, and Only the Communists and Socialists, “[Dorothy Day’s] the abortion of their child, Day atheists though they were, were social activism, her married literary promoter, Barkeley doing anything about the plight of Tobey, “on the rebound” (Miller, 143). the poor. passion for justice The mature love of Day’s life was Before leaving the capital, Day and for the cause of Forster Batterham, a biologist and went to the National Shrine of the the oppressed, were anarchist with whom Day entered into Immaculate Conception at The a common-law marriage in 1924 after inspired by the Gospel, Catholic University of America and her divorce from Tobey. implored God that some way might her faith and the On Staten Island, where they shared open up for her to use what talents example of the saints.” life in an ocean cottage, Batterham she possessed for her fellow workers opened up the beauties of nature and for the poor. Returning to her to Day. He also fathered their child, New York apartment, she was greeted Pope Francis Tamar Teresa, who was born in March by Peter Maurin, a wandering and learned French peasant, who had before the U.S. Congress, 1926. Unlike many people, including many saints who experience a learned about her from the editor of September 24, 2015 conversion to God out of a sense of Commonweal. Day always believed guilt or sorrow, Day turned to God that Maurin had come to her in the in joy. “No human creature could last month of 1932 as an answer to receive or contain so vast a flood of her anguished prayer. love and joy as I often felt after the Maurin immediately proceeded to birth of my child. With this came the indoctrinate Day in the history and need to worship, to adore.... It was teachings of the Roman Catholic because through a whole love, both Church. He also shared with her his physical and spiritual, I came to know ideas for a radical form of Catholic life God” (LL 139 and 140). During these based on a “three-point program:” happy years Day began to pray daily houses of hospitality where the and to attend Mass. Day’s decision works of mercy could be practiced to have Tamar baptized, and her own daily; roundtable discussions for the clarification of thought; and, leftist years supporting a violent farming communes, where workers overthrow of the capitalist owners of and scholars would live and work industry (FUSR, 144). Day’s absolute together on the land (LF, 21-22). nonviolence was grounded in her Maurin also encouraged Day to personal relationship with Jesus. “It is publish a newspaper that would better to obey God than men,” Day instruct readers in Roman Catholic asserted, quoting St. Peter (Acts 5:29; social teaching and the rights of OPS, 289). The origin and strength wokers. Maurin’s ideas provided Day of Day’s deep conviction about “The Works of Mercy with a model for radical Christian nonviolence ultimately came from her are a wonderful living and direct action. A synthesis of spirituality; that is, from her own lived social justice and intimacy with God experience of Jesus Christ. stimulus to our growth from within Catholicism now seemed in faith as well as in possible. When thousands of Roman Catholics demonstrated against the war in love. Our faith is taxed Day’s Absolute Nonviolence and Vietnam in the 1960’s and 70’s, they to the utmost and so Pacifism stood on the shoulders of Dorothy Day, who had begun using nonviolent grows through this Almost immediately Day and the tactics in the 1930’s. Out of her leftist strain put upon it. It writers of the Catholic Worker begain past, Day brought into modern to live in voluntary poverty and to Catholicism such tactics of nonviolent is pruned again and take in the hungry and homeless. resistance and direct action like the again, and springs up The charity, voluntary poverty, strike, the picket, the boycott, the and communal life of the Catholic nonpayment of federal taxes that bearing much fruit.” Worker community soon became support war, refusal to register for admired by the wide readership of the draft, civil disobedience and Dorothy Day the Newspaper. When Day declared giving witness to Christ’s commands in 1936 that she and the Catholic from jail (the last of Day’s six or Worker were “pacifist” in response to seven jail terms was in 1973 with the Spanish Civil War, however, she Cesar Chavez and the United Farm drew opposition from a majority of Workers). Her mature adult Roman Catholics. Catholic spirituality, thus, was shaped Her pacifist stand during World in important ways by the convictions War II resulted in a steep drop in and commitments of her early years subscriptions to the Catholic Worker. as a leftist radical. But Day would not be moved from Day as Woman the unshakable conviction that the followers of Christ could not kill their Day’s strong sense of herself as brothers and sisters. a woman and mother begs the question of Day’s relation to Day’s uncompromising stand on contemporary feminist concerns. pacifism (“anti-warism”) and absolute Day never became a public advocate nonviolence (opposition to any of the women’s movements of the use of force) through the wars of twentieth century.

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