Catholic Worker Movement

The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ." One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on the margin of society, based on the principles of communitarianism and personalism. To this end, the Catholic Worker Movement claims over 213 local Catholic Worker communities providing social services. Each house has a different mission, going about the work of social justice in their own ways, suited to their local region.

Catholic Worker houses are not official organs of the Roman Catholic Church and their activities, inspired by Day's example, may be more or less overtly religious in tone and inspiration depending on the particular institution. The movement campaigns for nonviolence and is active in opposing both war and the unequal distribution of wealth globally. Dorothy Day also founded The Catholic Worker newspaper, still published by the two Catholic Worker houses in New York City and sold for a penny a copy.

History

The 'Catholic Worker Movement' started with the Catholic Worker newspaper, created to advance Catholic social teaching and stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the war-torn 1930s. This grew into a "house of hospitality" in the slums of New York City and then a series of farms for people to live together communally.

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

Dorothy Day, who died in 1980, is currently under consideration for sainthood by the Catholic Church.

Beliefs of the Catholic Worker

"Our rule is the works of mercy," said Dorothy Day. "It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence."

According to co-founder Peter Maurin, the following are the beliefs of the Catholic Worker:

1. gentle personalism of traditional Catholicism.
2. personal obligation of looking after the needs of our brother.
3. daily practice of the Works of Mercy.
4. Houses of Hospitality for the immediate relief of those who are in need.
5. establishment of Farming Communes where each one works according to his ability and gets according to his need.
6. creating a new society within the shell of the old with the philosophy of the new.

The radical philosophy of the group can be described as Christian anarchism. Anne Klejment, a history lecturer at University of St. Thomas, wrote of the Catholic Worker Movement:

The Catholic Worker considered itself a Christian anarchist movement. All authority came from God; and the state, having by choice distanced itself from Christian perfectionism, forfeited its ultimate authority over the citizen...Catholic Worker anarchism followed Christ as a model of nonviolent revolutionary behavior...He respected individual conscience. But he also preached a prophetic message, difficult for many of his contemporaries to embrace.

See also

• Ammon Hennacy
• Ade Bethune
• James J. Braddock
• Catholic Radical Alliance
• Catholic trade unions
• Christian trade unions
• Fritz Eichenberg
• Bill Kauffman
• Ciaron O'Reilly
• Friendship House
• Catholic social teaching
• The Catholic Worker a newspaper produced by the Catholic Worker Movement
• Christian anarchism
• Distributism
• Industrial Workers of the World
• Saint Patrick's Day Four
• Utah Phillips
• James Loney
• Peter Maurin Co-Founder of the Catholic Worker
• Political Catholicism
• Catholicism
• Labour movement
• Trade unions

Similar Christian movements

• Servants to Asia's Urban Poor
• Madonna House Apostolate
• "New Monasticism" related communities.
• Anabaptism in particular the emerging peace church movement
• The Mormon Worker
• Peace Churches

• On the English CW, see: Olivier Rota, From a social question with religious echoes to a religious question with social echoes. The ‘Jewish Question’ and the English Catholic Worker (1939-1948) in Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXV n°3, May–June 2005, pp.4–5.

Further Reading

• Dorothy Day (1997) Loaves and Fishes: The inspiring story of the Catholic Worker Movement. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1963.

External links

• Main website of the Catholic Worker Movement
• Unofficial website about the Catholic Worker Movement
• Catholic Worker communities at the Open Directory Project
• Dorothy Day-Catholic Worker Collection at Marquette University
• The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right - by Bill Kauffman, Whole Earth (Summer 2000)
• Following Jesus in love and anarchy - The Times, February 29, 2008