The perennial unpopularity of Dorothy Day.
“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?”
I often get the impression that the cause for the canonization of the Servant of God, Dorothy Day does not exactly include a great many conservative/traditional Catholics among her devotees. When I managed a Catholic bookstore, we carried no books written by her or about her. Just as we carried very little of Thomas Merton’s work. Perhaps they were too liberal for the company.
The big turn off seems to have been her former communist views, which a few critics suspect to be more or less incorporated into the Catholic Worker Movement. (I doubt that is true.) Dorothy Day was one tough lady by the time she became a Catholic, a no nonsense intellectual, modern woman - I suppose one could say ‘liberated’. However, she was very much a traditional Catholic, a woman who traveled to Rome in order to fast and pray for the success of Vatican II, deeply devoted to the Mass, and a bit pious in her devotion to the saints. I believe she is a saint, not unlike St. Catherine of Genoa was to her day - both were tough and often a thorn in the side of conservatives.
Her pacifism is another thing which gets in the way of many conservative Catholics’ appreciation of Dorothy. I can’t say I’m in agreement with the type of pacifism Dorothy Day espoused, yet I deeply respect her radical committment to peace and justice nonetheless. It seems to me Catholics such as she stand out as a prophetic witness for Chrstians to examine themselves on issues of war and peace; wars of aggression versus wars of defense, and so on. Policraticus has an informative post on Day and her pacifism which merits looking at:
“An important component of Dorothy Day’s exemplary faith was pacifism. But her pacifism was not the result of sentimentality or liberalism. It was the product of vivacious faith, strong intellectual formation and experience in hospitality to the poor and forsaken.” - Vox Nova
October 29th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
I love the picture–no nonsense–real.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
The problem is far more simple. A lot of folks still think she was a near-Communist.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
The problem is, we live in a world where the only games in town are Capitlaist and Communist, and no one tolerates an inbetween.
Dorothy Day was a Distributist. She believed not merely in the rights of the worker, but the right of the worker to be an owner, to have private productive property. Chesterton and Belloc often get criticized for having “communist residue” in their thought on economics. The reality is they didn’t any more than Dorothy Day. The difference between these three is that Belloc and Chesterton wrote on other issues for which they are revered by Traditional Catholics, so the fact that Chesterton blamed Capitalism for the destruction of the family more than Socialism or Communism can be conveniently ignored. Dorothy Day only wrote on the worker and economics, which means she is only loved by Traditionalists like me who are also Distributists.
That is really what it comes down to. Traditional Catholics as a whole have refused to embrace the social teaching of the Church, much as they did before the council, because when they hear social teaching they think of the “Che-suits” and liberation theology, not the re-ordering of society along the models of medieval economics, which centers around the Family and private productive property.
We can link this to the close association of Catholics (particularly Trads) with the republican party in our country, because of its apparent pro-life stance. So it tends to happen that they embrace atheistic material Free market capitalism (also called Economic Liberalism) and reject the Church’s social encyclicals on labor. As such Dorothy Day, who supported the same social teaching, doesn’t hold appeal.
Me on the other hand (and you know I’m full rad trad, I won’t go to the Novus Ordo for any reason) I am 100% behind Dorothy Day’s canonization.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:06 am
Athanasius - Thank you very much for explaining Dorothy Day’s politics/economics so well - my post is incomplete without your input.
You are the best rad-trad ever!
And thanks for visiting my blog.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Does it really matter if Catholics are “behind” her canonization?? Our Church is not a democracy. Whether we are “behind” any canonization, beatification, dogmatic issue, etc. is irrelevent truly. The obedient Catholic will watch and pray and accept the official Church teaching. If she is in Heaven and the Church says shes in Heaven, then she will be declared a saint and all our pratter on the matter will more useless noise.
BTW - I suspect her unpopularity with Traditionalists is primarily due to her popularity with more liberal thinking Catholics. You could say the same with St. Hildegard of Bingen.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Sanctus - Thank you for that wonderful comment. Yours is the correct perspective, to be sure!
October 31st, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Does it really matter if Catholics are “behind” her canonization?? Our Church is not a democracy. Whether we are “behind” any canonization, beatification, dogmatic issue, etc. is irrelevent truly. ….and all our pratter on the matter will more useless noise.
I disagree entirely. The history of canonizations reveals that the current form is not very old, and on top of that the removal of the office of devil’s advocate raises serious questions about the infallibility of certain canonizations. This doesn’t mean that a person is not a saint unless the Pope says so. Far to the contrary, God makes that determination. However, raising someone to the altars is not something that occurs independent of the feeling of the Church militant necessarily, though it can. Consider St. Therese, the only reason she was canonized is because such a movement arose from the faithful, so much so that those who advised caution couldn’t help but notice the continued fervor not only of days but of years. The same was true of St. Francis. Then there are saints whose following is located in a specific place rather than universally, such as in one’s own order like St. Thomas, who was unknown outside the Dominicans, and is today the Universal Doctor of the Church.
Now suppose there were a lot of faithful opposed to the said canonizations for whatever reason. You don’t think those voices matter? Raising someone to the altars is a public act, that affects the faithful, and consequently affects their piety. If there are a lot of faithful who will be scandalized it is important for the case to be made, and to be behind the saint’s cause simply to show the Church authorities there are some who consider her venerable. That doesn’t mean the faithful should “sit down and shut up” as you say in effect. In fact that is contrary to Canon 212 of the 83 Code.
That is why it is important for us to get behind Dorothy Day, and say we want the real Dorothy Day raised to the altars, the one who not only fought for worker’s rights, but also brought monks from Solesmes to teach choirs in America Gregorian chant and supported the Traditional Latin Liturgy.