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Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social activism. She was perhaps the best-known political radical among American Catholics.
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culture · American Catholic and social activist (1897–1980) · journalist · writer · social activist · editor · trade unionist · peace activist · autobiographer · suffragist · feminist · social reformer · also Dorothy Day, Day
Born 8 November 1897 · Died 29 November 1980 · Q150281
58 published statements · 0 followers
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The state had entered to solve [unemployment] by dole and work relief, by setting up so many bureaus that we were swamped with initials … Labor was aiding in the creation of the Welfare State, the Servile State, instead of aiming for the ownership of the means of production and acceptance of the responsibility that it entailed.
A Cardinal, ill-advised, exercised so overwhelming a show of force against the union of poor working men. There is a temptation of the devil to that most awful of all wars, the war between the clergy and the laity.
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“The state had entered to solve [unemployment] by dole and work relief, by setting up so many bureaus that we were swamped with initials … Labor was aiding in the creation of the Welfare State, the Servile State, instead of aiming for the ownership of the means of production and acceptance of the responsibility that it entailed.”
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“A Cardinal, ill-advised, exercised so overwhelming a show of force against the union of poor working men. There is a temptation of the devil to that most awful of all wars, the war between the clergy and the laity.”
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The American Prospect: Dorothy Day: Saint Radical
America Magazine: Pope Francis calls Dorothy Day a ‘great witness to faith’ in foreword for new memoir edition
National Catholic Reporter: Your thoughts on Dorothy Day's canonization cause
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the Archdiocese of New York celebrated the conclusion of the diocesan phase of the canonization cause for Dorothy Day
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America Magazine: Dorothy Day said we are all called to be saints. So why didn’t she want us to officially name her one?
National Catholic Register: Dorothy Day: Patron Saint of …. Holy Foolery?
National Catholic Reporter: The rumble in Dorothy Day's soul still quakes 40 years after her death
Following the Grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, DeSales University renamed its student union formerly named for Bishop Joseph McShea to the Dorothy Day Student Union
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Crux: Dorothy Day would be ideal American saint for Pope Francis
Pope Francis became the first pope to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress
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Pope Francis praised Day before a joint session of the U
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In the closing days of his papacy, cited Day as an example of conversion
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Of Day: "She understood that if small is not always beautiful, at least it is always human
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Awarded National Women's Hall of Fame (2001).
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Day was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York
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Day received the Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey
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Died 1980-11-29.
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At Maryhouse, 55 East 3rd Street in Manhattan
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“We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, for if we are not among its victims, its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.”
“Variant: A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.”
“Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.”
“Variant: [Practicing] the works of mercy … is our program, our rule of life.”
In Philadelphia at a service honoring the U
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Awarded Gandhi Peace Award (1975).
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Boston's Paulist Center Community named her the first recipient of their Isaac Hecker Award, given to a person or group "committed to building a more just and peaceful world
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Awarded Thomas Merton Award (1973).
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Won Laetare Medal (1972).
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The Jesuit magazine America marked her 75th birthday by devoting an entire issue to Day and the Catholic Worker Movement
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Awarded Eugene V. Debs Award (1971).
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Awarded Pacem in Terris Award (1971).
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Day was awarded the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award
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Day visited Poland, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Romania as part of a group of peace activists, with the financial support of Corliss Lamont, whom she described as a "'pinko' millionaire who lived modestly and helped t
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At the height of American participation in the Vietnam War, she described Ho Chi Minh as "a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders" while telling a story of a holiday gathering with relatives where
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In Minnesota: "They are marrying young – 17 and 18, and taking to the woods up by the Canadian border and building houses for themselves – becoming pioneers again
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Praised Fidel Castro's "promise of social justice"
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Instead of taking shelter, she joined a group picketing the offices of the U
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But the judge refused to send them to jail, saying, "I'm not making any martyrs
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Day joined a group of pacifists in refusing to participate in civil defense drills scheduled that day
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With illustrations by the Quaker Fritz Eichenberg
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The Archdiocese ordered Day to cease publication or remove the word Catholic from her publication name
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Unions representing workers at cemeteries managed by the Archdiocese of New York went on strike
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And urged noncooperation in a speech that day: "We must make a start
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Published an account of the transformation of her political activism into religiously motivated activism in From Union Square to Rome
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The Catholic Worker began publishing articles that articulated a rigorous and uncompromising pacifist position, instead of the traditional Catholic doctrine of just war theory
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Priced at one cent, and published continuously since then
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And served as its editor from 1933 until her death in 1980
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Inspired by conversations with Mike Gold's brother George, a leader of the upcoming Hunger March in Washington, D
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Day met Peter Maurin, the man she always credited as the founder of the movement with which she is identified
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Day encountered a local Sister of Charity, Aloysia Mary Mulhern, and with her help educated herself in the Catholic faith and had her baby baptized in July 1927
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After ending an unhappy love affair with Lionel Moise, and after having an abortion that was "the great tragedy of her life", she married Berkeley Tobey in a civil ceremony
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The overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of a reformist government
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Was imprisoned as a member of suffragist Alice Paul's nonviolent Silent Sentinels
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Day attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign on a scholarship
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Her father, a sportswriter devoted to horse racing, took a position with a newspaper in San Francisco
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In the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York
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Born 1897-11-08.
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