Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day, Obl.S.B.
Born	November 8, 1897(1897-11-08) Brooklyn, New York
Died	November 29, 1980(1980-11-29) (aged 83) New York City
Resting place	Cemetery of the Resurrection Staten Island, New York
Nationality	United States
Education	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Known for	co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
Title	Servant of God
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Berkeley Tobey, Forster Battingham (common-law, father of daughter Tamar)
Children	Tamar Hennessy (1926-2008)
Parents	John and Grace (née Satterlee) Day
Relatives	Three brothers (Donald, Sam, and John); one sister (Della)
Website
http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/index.cfm#
Notes The process to seek her canonization was approved by the Holy See in March 2000

Dorothy Day (8 November 1897 – 29 November 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf.

The cause for Day's canonization is open in the Catholic Church.

Life

Early life

Dorothy Day was born in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and raised in San Francisco and Chicago. She was born into a family described by one biographer as "solid, patriotic, and middle class". Her father, John Day, was a Tennessee native of Scotch-Irish heritage, while her mother, Grace Satterlee, a native of upstate New York, was of English ancestry. Her parents were married in an Episcopalian church located in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood where Day would spend much of her young adulthood.

In 1903 her father, who was a sports writer, had taken a position with a newspaper in San Francisco. They lived in Oakland, California, until the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 destroyed the newspaper's facilities and her father lost his job. The memory of the earthquake's devastation and how people were helping homeless victims became strongly ingrained in the young Dorothy's memory. The family then relocated to Chicago.

By 1913 Dorothy Day had read Peter Kropotkin, an advocate of anarchist communism, which influenced her ideas in how society could be organized. In 1914, Day attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a scholarship, but dropped out after two years and moved to New York City. Day was a reluctant scholar. Her reading was chiefly in a radical social direction. She avoided campus social life and insisted on supporting herself rather than live on money from her father, a characteristic she was to maintain for the rest of her life, to the point of buying all her clothing and shoes from discount stores to save money.

Settling on the Lower East Side, she worked on the staffs of Socialist publications (The Liberator, The Masses, The Call), though she "smilingly explained to impatient socialists that she was ‘a pacifist even in the class war.'" She also engaged in anti-war and women's suffrage protests, and spent several months in Greenwich Village, where she became close to Eugene O'Neill.

Spiritual awakening

Roots

Dorothy's parents were nominal Christians, rarely attending church. As a young child, she showed a marked religious streak, though, reading the Bible frequently. When she was ten she started to attend an Episcopalian church, after its rector had convinced their mother to let the Day brothers join the church choir; she became taken with the liturgy and its music. She studied the catechism, and was baptized and confirmed in the church. Despite this she saw herself as agnostic.

Initially Day lived a bohemian life, with one common-law marriages and two abortions, which she later described in her semi-autobiographical novel, The Eleventh Virgin (1924)—a book she later regretted writing. The sale of the movie rights to the novel enabled her to settle down, using the proceeds to buy a beach cottage on Staten Island, New York. She lived there with Forster Battingham, a biologist with whom she shared a deep interest in social activism. It was a time of idyllic peace for her, as she shared the company of good friends and enjoyed the beauty of nature about them, which Battingham helped her to appreciate.

During this period, however, Day began a period of spiritual awakening which would lead her to embrace Catholicism. She had picked up a rosary in New Orleans during the course of her many moves around the country, and would start to recite the canticles she had learned at her childhood church in Chicago. She began to attend Mass on Sundays at the nearby Catholic church.

This growing interest in religion, however, became a continuing source of conflict and division between Day and Battingham, who had a deep aversion to religion. Unexpectedly, Day found that she was pregnant. As her partner opposed having children, this become a further source of conflict. Despite his opposition, she resolved to have her child and to have it baptized, to give the child a sense of spiritual belonging she had never had. In all her travels, Day had identified with the people of the working class, and everywhere she went the majority had been Roman Catholics, thus she chose to give her allegiance to that faith.

After the birth of her daughter, Tamar Teresa (1926–2008), Day chanced to meet Sister Aloysius, S.C., a Roman Catholic Religious Sister, walking down her street. She asked the Sister how she could have the child baptized. Sister Aloysius helped her, requiring Day to memorize the Baltimore Catechism for this. Tamar's baptism provoked Battingham to leave Day and the child frequently, yet always returned. Day loved him deeply and respected him for his stand on social causes and she would always take him back, putting off any move on her part to join the Church because she did not want to lose him. This tension, however, led to illness as a result of a nervous condition.

Conversion

In early 1927, after Battingham had once again left them, Day resolved to end the torment of the situation and did not take him back when he tried to return. She immediately went to Sister Aloysius to arrange for her own admission to the Catholic Church. This took place in December 1927, with conditional baptism (due to her prior baptism in the Episcopalian Church) at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish on Staten Island. In her 1952 autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Day recalled that immediately after her baptism, she made her first Confession, and she made her First Communion the following day.

In the Spring of 1929, Day decided to leave New York temporarily, partly to put the situation with Battingham behind her, and she moved with Tamar to Mexico. She returned to New York just as the effects of the Great Depression were beginning to be felt. Later Day began writing for Catholic publications, such as Commonweal and America on the events of that situation around the country. She began to feel separated from the protesters in the streets, feeling a lack of leadership from her new faith.

During that period, she became an Benedictine oblate, which gave her a spiritual practice and connection that sustained her throughout the rest of her life.

The Catholic Worker Movement

Peter Maurin

At this point in her life, Day met Peter Maurin, the man she would always credit as the founder of the movement with which she is identified. Maurin, a French immigrant and something of a vagabond, claimed to be from a family which had occupied the same farm which their distant ancestor had received as a bonus for service in the Roman army. He had entered the Brothers of the Christian Schools in his native France, before emigrating, first to Canada, then to the United States.

Despite his lack of formal credentials, Maurin was a man of deep intellect and decidedly strong views. He had a vision of social justice and its connection with the poor which was partly inspired by St. Francis of Assisi. He had a vision of action based on a sharing of ideas and subsequent action by the poor themselves. Maurin was deeply versed in the writings of the Church Fathers and the papal documents on social matters which had been issued by Pope Leo XIII and his successors. Through this knowledge, Maurin provided Day with the grounding in Catholic theology of the need for social action both felt.

The Catholic Worker

The Catholic Worker movement started with the Catholic Worker newspaper, first published 1 May 1933, created to promote Catholic social teaching in the depths of the Great Depression and to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the war-torn 1930s. (See The Catholic Worker: The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker.) 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. She lived for a time at the now demolished Spanish Camp community in the Annadale section of Staten Island. 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. She was also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World ('Wobblies').

Fame

By the 1960s, Day was embraced by a significant number of Catholics, while at the same time, she earned the praise of counterculture leaders such as Abbie Hoffman, who characterized her as the first hippie, a description of which Day approved, though there is some evidence which indicates Day might not always have taken a positive view of the hippie movement.

Although Day had written passionately about women’s rights, free love and birth control in the 1910s, she opposed the sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond, saying she had seen the ill-effects of a similar sexual revolution in the 1920s. Day had a progressive attitude toward social and economic rights, alloyed with a very orthodox and traditional sense of Catholic morality and piety.

Her devotion to her church was neither conventional nor unquestioning, however. She alienated many U.S. Catholics (including some clerical leaders) with her condemnation of Falangist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War; and, possibly in response to her criticism of Cardinal Francis Spellman, she came under pressure by the Archdiocese of New York in 1951 to change the name of her newspaper, "ostensibly because the word Catholic implies an official church connection when such was not the case". The newspaper's name was not changed.

Awards

In 1971, Day was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award of the Interracial Council of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa. It was named after the 1963 encyclical by Pope John XXIII which calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for "Peace on Earth." Day was accorded many other honors in her last decade of life, including the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame in 1972.

Later life and death

Despite suffering from poor health, Day traveled around the world to preach the power of God's love and and the way of pacifism. She went to India, where she met Mother Teresa and saw her work. She joined Cesar Chavez in his efforts to provide justice for farm laborers in the fields of California. There she was arrested with other protestors, at the age of 76, spending ten days in jail.

Day gave her final public appearance at the Eucharistic Congress held in the City of Philadelphia on the 6 August 1976, held there to honor the Bicentennial of the United States. She spoke on the love God has for us, and the need to spread that love throughout creation. Day characteristically tied in her message to the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on that day.

Shortly after this, Day suffered from a heart attack and was confined to bed for the rest of her life. She died on 29 November 1980 at Maryhouse in New York City.

Day was buried in the Cemetery of the Resurrection on Staten Island, just a few blocks from the location of the beachside cottage where she first became interested in Catholicism.

Cause for sainthood

She was proposed for sainthood by the Claretian Missionaries in 1983. Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open Day's "cause" for sainthood in March 2000, thereby officially making her a "Servant of God" in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Stages of canonization in the Catholic Church
Servant of God   →   Venerable   →   Blessed   →   Saint

Legacy

Her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, was published in 1952. Day's account of the Catholic Worker movement, Loaves and Fishes, was published in 1963. A popular movie called Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story was produced in 1996. Day was portrayed by Moira Kelly and Peter Maurin was portrayed by Martin Sheen, actors later known for their roles on The West Wing television series in the United States. Fool for Christ: The Story of Dorothy Day was a one-woman play performed by Sarah Melici, which premiered in 1998 and performed until 2011. A DVD of the play has been produced and Melici continues to do live performances in the United States and Canada.

The first full-length documentary about Day, Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint, by filmmaker Claudia Larson, premiered on November 29, 2005 at Marquette University, where Day's papers are housed. The documentary was also shown at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival and is now available on DVD. Day's diaries, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg, were published by the Marquette University Press in 2008. A companion volume, All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day, also edited by Ellsberg, was published by the Marquette University Press in 2010. Bill Kauffman of The American Conservative has written of Day:

“

The Little Way. That is what we seek. That—contrary to the ethic of personal parking spaces, of the dollar-sign god—is the American way. Dorothy Day kept to that little way, and that is why we honor her. She understood that if small is not always beautiful, at least it is always human.

”

Day has been the recipient of numerous posthumous honors and awards. Among them: in 1992, she received the Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey, and in 2001, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Memorialization

Day's accomplishments have been memorialized in many ways. Dormitories at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois, University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Loyola College in Maryland are named in her honor. A named professorship at St. John's University School of Law is currently held by labor law scholar David L. Gregory. At Marquette University, a floor bearing Day's name has been reserved for those drawn to social justice issues. The Office of Service and Justice at Fordham University bears her name, at both of the university's campuses in the city: the one at Lincoln Center in Manhattan and its main campus in the Bronx. Saint Peter's College of Jersey City, New Jersey, named their Political Science Office the Dorothy Day House.

Broadway Housing Communities, a supportive housing project in New York City, opened the Dorothy Day Apartment Building in 2003. Several Catholic Worker communities are named after Day.

See also

• Ammon Hennacy
• Catherine Doherty
• Christian anarchism
• Christian pacifism
• Christian radicalism
• Christian socialism
• Distributism
• Catholic social teaching
• Christian democracy
• Christian politics

References

• Coles, Robert (1987). Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion. Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-201-07974-6.
• Day, Dorothy (1952/1980). The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Lengendary Catholic Social Activist. New York: HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-061751-6.

Further reading

• Dorothy Day (1924) The Eleventh Virgin (semi-autobiographical novel)
• Dorothy Day (1940) From Union Square to Rome
• Dorothy Day (1948) On Pilgrimage (Diaries) Reprinted 1999.
• Dorothy Day (1952) The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day (autobiography)
• Dorothy Day (1979) Therese: A Life of Therese of Lisieux
• Dorothy Day (1997) Loaves and Fishes
• Dorothy Day, ed. Phyllis Zagano (2002) Dorothy Day: In My Own Words
• Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg (2005) Dorothy Day, Selected Writings
• Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg, (2008) The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day
• Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg, (2010) All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day
• William Miller (1982) Dorothy Day: A Biography
• Nancy Roberts (1984) Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker (scholarly work)
• Robert Coles (1987) Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion (conversations with Dorothy Day)
• Jim Forest (2011) All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day (a revised, expanded edition of “Love is the Measure”)
• Brigid O'Shea Merriman (1997) Searching for Christ: The Spirituality of Dorothy Day
• William Thorn, Runkel, Mountin, ed.(2001) Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: Centenary Essays
• Rosalie G. Riegel (2003) Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her. Orbis Books ISBN 1-57075-467-5
• Michael Ray Rhodes (director), "Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story" (1996 movie)
• Sarah Melici, Fool for Christ, (play, premiered 1998)
• Claudia Larson, Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint film documentary 2006.

External links

• Dorothy Day, Union Square Speech at Voices of Democracy
• "Dorothy Day Library" Includes biographies, photos, and an indexed, searchable collection of most of her writings. From the main website for the Catholic Worker movement, catholicworker.org
• Whole Earth: The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right
• Dorothy Day quotations, on PBS.
• The academic archive of Day's papers: her correspondence, journals, diaries, etc., at Marquette University
• A collection of rare video interviews with Day, i.e., she explores her own socio-political praxis.
• Works by or about Dorothy Day in libraries (WorldCat catalog)