Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and its newspaper, has been called many things: an activist, a journalist, a radical, a bohemian, a mother, a convert, a mystic, a prophet, a faithful daughter of the Church. After her death in 1980, historian David O’Brien famously called her “the most important, interesting, and influential figure in the history of American Catholicism.”
What can we learn today from this woman who worked to align the economic structures and the teachings of the church to the gospel, through small acts of mercy and love? Who set up the Catholic Worker newspaper to reveal to us the reality of what we had created, who set up houses of hospitality during the Great Depression, who publicly protested and went to jail for the sake of jobs, just wages, anti-discrimination, who advocated for peace and non-violence during the Spanish Civil War, WWII, the Vietnam war and against the arms race, who adopted voluntary poverty so that she would live in the same manner as the poor as Jesus did. This woman who prayed and went to Mass every day to gain the nourishment to do what she did.
Get to know more about this fascinating woman with Clare McArdle on Wednesday 6 October, 10.30-12 midday on Zoom.
Reading material & bookings here.
