A Short Biography Of Dorothy Day And The Catholic Worker Movement

Born on November 8th, 1897, in New York City, Dorothy Day was a writer, editor and social reformer. She was born into a family of seven to her parents, Grace and John, who were both journalists. For the job of her parents, the Day family moved to California when she was only six years old, and later lived in Chicago. Dorothy worked for such social causes as pacifism and women’s suffrage, as a radical of her time. Day was intrigued by the Catholic faith for years, and converted in 1927. She co-founded The Catholic Worker, a newspaper that promoted Catholic teachings. This newspaper became quite successful and triggered the Catholic Worker Movement, which undertook issues of social justice directed by its religious principles.

Dorothy Day was a brilliant student, and she was accepted to the University of Illinois; however, she only stayed for two years and deserted her studies to move to New York City. In New York City, Day became drawn in a literary and liberal crowd in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. She also got involved with journalism in which she wrote for several socialist and progressive publications in the 1910s and ‘20s. She also helped to establish special homes to help those in need. As she began to socially and politically protest for women’s rights, she ended up arrested and in jail several times. As an effort to get the right for women to be able to vote, she protested in front of the White House in 1917. As a result, she was arrested, put in jail, and then preceded to go on a hunger strike for that.

In Dorothy’s personal life, she experienced some chaos due to the fact that she believed in God and everyone around her was non-Catholic. She involved herself with a writer, Lionel Moise, who ended up getti...

... middle of paper ...

...ust perform works of mercy instead of turning someone away to the state or any particular charity. Day also refused to set up foundations because she feared the risk of killing personal contact. This became a struggle because she often didn’t know where the money came from to do the things she needed to do such as put out the paper, make soup, or even pay the rent/heat. The Catholic Worker lived hand to mouth on donations. A group of Catholic historians and scholars recently named Dorothy Day the most important lay Catholic of the 20th century, and Day is currently in the process of being named a saint by the church. She has been called “the most significant, interesting and influential person in the history of American Catholicism” by the Catholic magazine Commonweal. Dorothy Day ultimately left a noble legacy by living out the principles and ethics of Catholicism.