Peter Maurin: Difference between revisions
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#Setting up [[Round table (discussion)|roundtable discussions]] in community centres in order to clarify thought and initiate action.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Revolution of the heart: essays on the Catholic worker |last= Coy |first=Patrick G. |authorlink= |year=1988 |publisher=Temple University Press |location= |page= |pages=16–23 |url= |quote=Peter Maurin }}</ref> |
#Setting up [[Round table (discussion)|roundtable discussions]] in community centres in order to clarify thought and initiate action.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Revolution of the heart: essays on the Catholic worker |last= Coy |first=Patrick G. |authorlink= |year=1988 |publisher=Temple University Press |location= |page= |pages=16–23 |url= |quote=Peter Maurin }}</ref> |
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Maurin expressed his ideas through short pieces of verse that became known as {{cite web |title=''Easy Essays'' |url=http://www.walsh.edu/pdf/CatholicRadicalism021607.pdf.<ref>accessdate=August 14, 2011 (.pdf, uncopyrighted) from www.walsh.edu}}; {{cite book |title=Loaves and Fishes: The inspiring story of the Catholic Worker Movement |last= Day |first=Dorothy |authorlink= |year=1963 |publisher=Orbis Books |location= |page=5 |pages= |url= |quote=A Knock at the Door }}</ref> |
Maurin expressed his ideas through short pieces of verse that became known as {{cite web |title=''Easy Essays'' |url=http://www.walsh.edu/pdf/CatholicRadicalism021607.pdf}}.<ref>accessdate=August 14, 2011 (.pdf, uncopyrighted) from www.walsh.edu}}; {{cite book |title=Loaves and Fishes: The inspiring story of the Catholic Worker Movement |last= Day |first=Dorothy |authorlink= |year=1963 |publisher=Orbis Books |location= |page=5 |pages= |url= |quote=A Knock at the Door }}</ref> |
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== Biography == |
== Biography == |
Revision as of 18:28, 14 August 2011
Peter Maurin | |
---|---|
Born | Aristode Pierre Maurin May 9, 1877 Oultet, France |
Died | May 15, 1949 near Newburgh, New York | (aged 72)
Known for | Co-Founder of the Catholic Worker |
Peter Maurin (May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a Roman Catholic social activist who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day.
Maurin's vision to transform the social order consisted of three main ideas:
- Establishing urban houses of hospitality to care for the destitute.
- Establishing rural farming communities to teach city dwellers agrarianism and encourage a movement back-to-the-land.
- Setting up roundtable discussions in community centres in order to clarify thought and initiate action.[1]
Maurin expressed his ideas through short pieces of verse that became known as "Easy Essays" (PDF)..[2]
Biography
He was born Aristide Pierre Maurin into a poor farming family in the village of Oultet in the Languedoc region of southern France, where he was one of 24 children. After spending time in the De La Salle Brothers, Maurin served in the Sillon movement of Marc Sangnier until he became discouraged by the Sillonist shift from personalist action towards political action.[3] He briefly moved to Saskatchewan to try his hand at homesteading, but was discouraged by the death of his partner in a hunting accident.[4] He then traveled throughout the American east for a few years, and eventually settled in New York.[5]
"Round-table Discussions, Houses of Hospitality and Farming Communes--those were the three planks in Peter Maurin's platform. There are still Houses of Hospitality, each autonomous but inspired by Peter, each trying to follow Peter's principles. And there are farms, all different but all starting with the idea of the personalist and communitarian revolution. . . Peter was not disappointed in his life's work. He had given everything he had and he asked for nothing, least of all for success."
Dorothy Day on Peter Maurin, in her article commemorating the centenary of his birth [6]
In the mid-1920s, Maurin was working as a French tutor in the New York suburbs. It was at this time Maurin was inspired by the life of Francis of Assisi.[7] He ceased charging for his lessons and asked only that students give any sum they thought appropriate. This was likely prompted by reading about St. Francis, who viewed labor as a gift to the greater community, not a mode of self promotion.[8]
Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker
Maurin initially proposed the name Catholic Radical for the paper that was distributed as the Catholic Worker beginning May 1, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression. Maurin began to see it as not quite radical enough, as it had an emphasis on political and union activity. Maurin believed the Catholic Worker should stress life in small agricultural communities. As he liked to say, “there is no unemployment on the land.” Likewise convinced that protest would not bring about real social change, he withdrew from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania, where he worked on the first Catholic Worker-owned farming commune, Mary Farm.[citation needed]
Later Years
Following a stroke in 1944, Maurin began to lose his memory and his condition deteriorated until he died in 1949 at the Catholic Worker's Maryfarm near Newburgh, New York. The Staten Island Catholic Worker farm was named after Maurin following his death;[9] it currently operates in Marlboro, New York.[citation needed]
Intellectual Influences
According to Dorothy Day, some of the books he had her read were the works of "Fr. Vincent McNabb and Eric Gill, Jacques Maritain, Leon Bloy, Charles Peguy of France, Don Sturzo of Italy, (Romano) Guardini and Karl Adam of Germany, and (Nicholas) Berdyaev of Russia."[10] Among the writers who gave substance to Maurin's ideas were Peter Kropotkin, Léon Bloy and Emmanuel Mounier.[11][12]
The following books were recommended repeatedly by Peter Maurin In reading lists appended to his essays.[13]
- Art in a Changing Civilization, Eric Gill
- Bourgeois Mind, The, Nicholas Berdyaev
- Brotherhood Economics, Toyohiko Kagawa
- Charles V, Wyndham Lewis
- Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, Amintore Fanfani
- Christianity and Class War, Nicholas Berdyaev
- Church and the Land, The, Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.
- Discourse on Usury, Thomas Wilson
- Emancipation of a Free Thinker, The, Herbert E. Cory
- Enquiries Into Religion and Culture, Christopher Dawson
- Fields, Factories and Workshops, Peter Kropotkin
- Fire on the Earth, Paul Hanly Furfey
- Flight From the City, The, Ralph Borsodi
- Franciscan Message to the World, The, Father Agostino Gemelli, F.M.
- Freedom in the Modern World, Jacques Maritain
- Future of Bolshevism, The, Waldemar Gurian
- Guildsman's Interpretation of History, A, Arthur Penty
- Great Commandment of the Gospel, The, His Excellency A. G. Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the U. S.
- Ireland and the Foundation of Europe, Benedict Fitzpatrick
- I Take My Stand, by Twelve Southern Agrarians
- Land of the Free, The, Herbert Agar
- Lord of the World, Robert Hugh Benson
- Making of Europe, The, Christopher Dawson
- Man the Unknown, Dr. Alexis Carrel
- Nations Can Stay at Home, B. O. Wilcox
- Nazareth or Social Chaos, Father Vincent McNabb, O.P.
- Our Enemy the State, Albert Jay Nock
- Outline of Sanity, G. K. Chesterton
- Personalist Manifesto, Emmanuel Mounier
- Philosophy of Work, A, Etienne Borne
- Post-Industrialism, Arthur Penty
- Progress and Religion, Christopher Dawson
- Religion and the Modern State, Christopher Dawson
- Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, R. H. Tawney
- Revolution Personnaliste et Communautaire (La), Emmanuel Mounier
- Saint Francis of Assist, G. K. Chesterton
- Social Principles of the Gospel, Alphonse Lugan
- Soviet Man Now, Helen Iswolsky
- Temporal Regime and Liberty, Jacques Maritain
- Theory of the Leisure Class, The, Thorstein Veblen
- Thomistic Doctrine of the Common Good, The, Seraphine Michel
- Things That Are Not Caesar's, Jacques Maritain
- Toward a Christian Sociology, Arthur Penty
- True Humanism, Jacques Maritain
- Two Nations, The, Christopher Hollis
- Unfinished Universe, The, T. S. Gregory
- Valerian Persecution, The, Father Patrick Healy
- What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer Adler
- Work and Leisure, Eric Gill
Legacy
Maurin was played by Martin Sheen in Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story[14]. His contributions to the Catholic Worker Movement, while apparently often eclipsed in the collective memory of the movement by those of Dorothy Day,[15] remain foundational, as evidenced by Day's insistence in The Long Loneliness and elsewhere that she would never have begun the Catholic Worker without him.
See also
- Agrarian
- Catholicism
- Catholic Social Teaching
- Catholic Worker Movement
- Christian anarchism
- Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools
- Christian radicalism
- Distributism
- Localism
- Personalism
- Social Justice
References
- ^ Coy, Patrick G. (1988). A Revolution of the heart: essays on the Catholic worker. Temple University Press. pp. 16–23.
Peter Maurin
- ^ accessdate=August 14, 2011 (.pdf, uncopyrighted) from www.walsh.edu}}; Day, Dorothy (1963). Loaves and Fishes: The inspiring story of the Catholic Worker Movement. Orbis Books. p. 5.
A Knock at the Door
- ^ Sheehan, Arthur. Peter Maurin: Gay Believer. Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1959. pg. 52-69; 205.
- ^ Day, Dorothy. "Peter Maurin, 1877-1977," The Catholic Worker, May 1977, 1,9. Article available online at Catholicworker.org, http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/daytext.cfm?TextID=256&SearchTerm=peter%20maurin%201877-1977, and Catholicworker.com, http://www.catholicworker.com/cwo003.htm Retrieved 7 Jan 2009
- ^ Forest, Jim. "Peter Maurin". Retrieved April 27, 2008 (biographical essay) from catholicworker.com.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|accessdate=
(help) - ^ Day, Dorothy. "Peter Maurin 1877-1977," The Catholic Worker, May 1977, p. 1, 9. Article available online at Catholicworker.org, http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/daytext.cfm?TextID=256&SearchTerm=peter%20maurin%201877-1977, and Catholicworker.com, http://www.catholicworker.com/cwo003.htm Retrieved 7 Jan 2009
- ^ Coy, Patrick G. (1988). A Revolution of the heart: essays on the Catholic worker. Temple University Press. pp. 19–21.
The influence of Francis of Assisi in Maurin's life was considerable.
- ^ Ellis, Marc H. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century. New York: Paulist Press, 1981. p. 34-35
- ^ Miller, William D. Dorothy Day: A Biography. San Francisco: Harper & Rowe, 1982. p. 413-417
- ^ Miller, William D. Dorothy Day: A Biography. San Francisco: Harper & Rowe, 1982. p. 234
- ^ {{cite book|title=Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World|author=Dorothy Day|page=33|date=2004|quote=Among the writers who gave substance to Maurin's ideas were Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, the French novelist Léon Bloy, and the personalist philosopher Emmanuel Mounier
- ^ Zwick, Mark, and Louise Zwick. "Roots of the Catholic Worker Movement: Emmanuel Mounier, Personalism, and the Catholic Worker movement".from Casa Juan Diego, i.e., The Houston Catholic Worker, July/August 1999
- ^ Maurin, Peter. "Catholic Radicalism: Phrased Essays For The Green Revolution" (PDF). Retrieved August 14, 2011 (.pdf of book; book includes explicit repudiation of copyright) from www.walsh.edu.
{{cite web}}
: Check date values in:|accessdate=
(help). New York: Catholic Worker Books. 1949. pg. 207. - ^ "Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996)".
- ^ Paul Magno, ""Why Peter Maurin Matters"".
Bibliography
- Ellis, Marc H. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century. New York: Paulist Press, 1981
- Day, Dorothy. “Maurin, Aristide Peter.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. 2003.
- Day, Dorothy and Sicius, Francis J. (ed), Peter Maurin: Apostle to the World. Marynoll: Orbis Books, 2004.
- Maurin, Peter. Catholic Radicalism: Phrased Essays For The Green Revolution. New York: Catholic Worker Books. 1949.
- Maurin, Peter. Easy Essays. Catholic Worker Reprint Series. Wipf & Stock Publishers. 2010.
- Maurin, Peter. The Green Revolution: Easy Essays on Catholic Radicalism. Academy Guild Press. 1961.
- Peter Maurin Biography and Photos
- Template:Worldcat id
- Sheehan, Arthur. Peter Maurin: Gay Believer. Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1959.
External links
- Peter Maurin Papers
- Peter Maurin Biography by Jim Forest
- Easy Essays by Peter Maurin