Friends of Dorothy Day Commend Important Step To Sainthood

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The recent update in the sainthood cause for American Catholic icon Dorothy Day is welcome news to many of her friends and associates who believe her understanding of Catholic social teaching should be held up as a church value.

The Archdiocese of New York announced April 19 an important next step in the canonization process for Day: a canonical inquiry into the life of the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and famed peace activist.

“For those who knew her, there is no question about Dorothy’s holiness and her prophetic witness,” said Patrick Jordan, a former managing editor of The Catholic Worker newspaper that Day helped launch in 1933 and one of her longtime companions.

americamagazine.org/issue/friends-dorothy-day-commend-important-step-sainthood?utm_content=bufferab9e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 
I’m happy to hear her cause is moving forward. I know some aspects of her life are controversial and some people have reservations about her being declared a saint, but I am one of those who, God willing, hopes it happens.
 
christofirst said:
I’m happy to hear her cause is moving forward. I know some aspects of her life are controversial and some people have reservations about her being declared a saint, but I am one of those who, God willing, hopes it happens.
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👍
Me too!
 
I’m a fan.
To all the people I know who have struggled so much with their past, and thought they were not worthy of salvation… Dorothy Day is the saint that can lead them to Jesus.
To all the people who found themselves in poverty, but sitting in a fine church, with the stares of the wealthy around them … Dorothy Day is the saint that reminds them, that they are loved by Christ.
To all the people (like me) who saw the Church for the first time from the outside, and saw people who really cared about justice for the poor and peace in the world… Dorothy Day opened a door so I could see Christ in the people who sat in the pews and the people who lived in the street and saw that serving the poor was another form of prayer.
 
Another me too! 👍

Too many of the saints’ stories I read as a convert were too saccharin and difficult to imitate. Dorothy made sense to me, just as St. Francis did. Another down-to-earth role model was Catherine Doherty, founder of Madonna House. I wonder when she’ll be up for sainthood?
 
Do her good works outweigh the fact that she was a socialist?
 
anon67074017 said:
Do her good works outweigh the fact that she was a socialist?
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She fully lived and embraced the entirety of Catholic Social Teaching.

If that looks like socialism, then that’s because socialism shares some aspects of the Gospel message.
 
Jeanne_S said:
DorothyDay was for social justice.That’s different than being a socialist.
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In fact, IIRC, Dorothy Day was very skeptical about government social programs. She started the Catholic Worker movement to give a truly Catholic response to Communism, and made sure that the people that came into her Houses understand the dignity they received from God.

And she, like St. Augustine, is a great conversion story. She started out as an atheist, even had an abortion before she converted and was baptised.
 
powerofk said:
In fact, IIRC, Dorothy Day was very skeptical about government social programs. She started the Catholic Worker movement to give a truly Catholic response to Communism, and made sure that the people that came into her Houses understand the dignity they received from God.

And she, like St. Augustine, is a great conversion story. She started out as an atheist, even had an abortion before she converted and was baptised.
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I was under the false impression that she was a socialist. I absolutely think she deserves to be a saint now.
 
anon67074017 said:
I was under the false impression that she was a socialist. I absolutely think she deserves to be a saint now.
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Semantics perhaps. People I know who worked with her called her a socialist. And from what I understand, she identified as a pacifist and Marxist. (The Catholic Worker pays homage to that). And of course, after her conversation, a Catholic.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
Semantics perhaps. People I know who worked with her called her a socialist. And from what I understand, she identified as a pacifist and Marxist. (The Catholic Worker pays homage to that). And of course, after her conversation, a Catholic.
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She must have stopped being a Marxist after her conversion.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
Semantics perhaps. People I know who worked with her called her a socialist. And from what I understand, she identified as a pacifist and Marxist. (The Catholic Worker pays homage to that). And of course, after her conversation, a Catholic.
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She identified more as an anarchist than Marxist. After her conversion she did indeed still cite some teachings by radicals whose full ideologies can’t be reconciled with Church teaching. But many of their teachings could and can be. She kept the good stuff. 👍
 
anon67074017 said:
I was under the false impression that she was a socialist. I absolutely think she deserves to be a saint now.
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Lots of people had that impression of her during her lifetime on Earth, just as many people have that impression of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. But standing up for the poor and wanting to do everything in your power to change their circumstances - even to the point of trying to change a system that crushes them beneath its feet is not socialism in and of itself, even though the words and phrasings may be similar. See, socialism and Catholic social teaching sound extremely similar, but their focus is different.

Socialism (especially when taken to its extreme form, known as Marxism or Communism) rejects God fully. The duty to take care of the poor in a socialist society is squarely that of the State. The State determines your worth, etc. Catholic social teaching puts the focus on God. Taking care of the poor is not just the function of the State - it is everyone’s responsibility. And we are to do so because every person is made in the image and likeness of God. Now, of course, there are times when government help is appreciated or needed, but the fact that the government might help is not to be a hindrance to each of our individual responsibilities to help.

Now, both socialism and Catholic social teaching use similar terminology, such as “Social justice” or “preferential treatment of the poor”. But Catholic social teaching explicitly mentions “Dignity of the person”, while socialism usually preaches “quality of life”. There’s a huge gulf between the two: dignity of the person means that the most important Catholic social teaching is that all human life is precious, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

“Quality of life”, on the other hand, opens the door to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex “marriage”, etc. But because people who are proclaiming Catholic social teaching often use similar phrasologies as people who are proclaiming socialism, they often get labelled as socialists.
 
marlap2 said:
I’m a fan.
To all the people I know who have struggled so much with their past, and thought they were not worthy of salvation… Dorothy Day is the saint that can lead them to Jesus.
To all the people who found themselves in poverty, but sitting in a fine church, with the stares of the wealthy around them … Dorothy Day is the saint that reminds them, that they are loved by Christ.
To all the people (like me) who saw the Church for the first time from the outside, and saw people who really cared about justice for the poor and peace in the world… Dorothy Day opened a door so I could see Christ in the people who sat in the pews and the people who lived in the street and saw that serving the poor was another form of prayer.
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This is a really lovely post.👍 I’m also a big fan.
 
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