Yes! A Halo for Dorothy Day

Colman McCarthy’s commitment to peace and justice is unquestionable. His writings have often shaken me from my complacency. Now, his argument against the canonization of Dorothy Day, Putting a halo on Dorothy Day shows her no love, has shaken me to write a reply.

McCarthy is concerned that her radical adoption of Jesus’s message – her pacifism, her objection to the “system,” her criticism of hypocritical clergy – will be defanged, transformed into a placid plaster statue; her legacy reduced to a bowl of soup. Emotion reigns. God is made small.

The long-term ramifications of Dorothy Day’s canonization will be a tremendous boost for Catholicism in the United States, lifting millions out of lethargy and lukewarmness, encouraging millions to re-examine pacifism, our industrial society and the formation of the clergy. Dorothy Day teaches us that these objectives will not be achieved through the personal efforts of even great numbers of people if these efforts are not done in union with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

Last month, Archbishop José Gomez referred to Dorothy Day as one of the finest spiritual writers. Her canonization will make her writings more widely read; and who can read her writings without being drawn into her worldview which comes down to a radical acceptance of the entire gospel message. Profoundly needed today is her emphasis on the virtue of Christian poverty.

Archbishop Gomez added “She makes me want to be a saint.” She needs to be held up on a pedestal so that young Catholics and non-Catholics can see what she did not see in her young and non-Catholic years: a person fully-committed to Jesus and the gospel values.

Most of us are not called by God to activism and jail time. Suffice the ordinary things of life to provide fodder for our constant contact with God and our ordering human affairs according to His will.

Dorothy Day should not be locked up in a closet. That would make God small. We need her to shake up Catholics in our country, now and permanently.

Canonization? Bring it on! 

A Philosophy of Work

“The root of our evil is the lack of a philosophy of work.” Peter Maurin

St. John Paul II has left us a philosophy of work within the framework of his Christian Anthropology: the human person is made in the image of the Trinitarian God. An important element of this anthropology is WORK, particularly the “subjective dimension” of work. “Through work the worker becomes more a human being."

Human work is the fundamental and decisive key to solving – gradually solving - the social question which is ultimately a matter of “making life more human,” or, in the language of Peter Maurin, making it “easier to be good.”

Jesus, God and man, “devoted most of the years of His life on earth to manual work at the carpenter’s bench” demonstrating that “the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person.” (Laborem Exercens, n.6).