This July, Becky and I traveled to Worcester, MA to attend the 75th Anniversary celebration of the Catholic Worker movement. It was a chance to reflect on the history and present of the movement that inspires our work here in Winona. It was also a great time to meet and connect with Catholic Worker friends from far and wide.
In its early years, the Catholic Worker began in New York City by publishing a small newspaper advocating the idea of care for the poor, and justice for the worker. Soon, the Catholic Worker newspaper office was inundated by those same poor, seeking food and shelter from those who wrote so movingly about the responsibility to provide for one’s neighbor. Houses of hospitality soon sprang up around the country to meet those needs. But while the needs must have been overwhelming at times, Dorothy Day always commended fellow Catholic Workers to stay small. She knew that large, institutional shelters might provide the basic needs of food and shelter, while the needs of the person, the needs of the soul, could not be well attended. Catholic Worker co-founder, Peter Maurin encouraged a house of hospitality in every parish, a Christ room in every Christian home. In this way, we could all take responsibility for the needs of our brothers and sisters, and welcome Christ into our homes.
In keeping with this Benedictine tradition of seeing Christ in the stranger, the Catholic Worker movement has developed a global vision of justice, where all people around the world are acknowledged as our own brothers and sisters. Over the years, many Catholic Workers have gone to places like Iraq, Sudan, Palestine and Afghanistan to stand with those directly affected by war. Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, of the Ss. Francis and Therese community in Worcester, sees the Catholic Worker involvement in such overseas peacemaking efforts as united with the work of hospitality in our own home communities. Just as we open our homes to those society often does not value, we also open our hearts to those the world sees only as collateral damage. In her remarks opening a roundtable discussion, Schaeffer-Duffy encouraged us all to “persevere in knowing the outcast, embracing them, keeping the doors unlocked, the gates open, crossing the borders that are cropping up so fast now, making holes in the walls, embracing those we are told are enemies.”
As part of this anniversary gathering, the assembled Catholic Workers drafted a statement that reaffirmed our commitment to pacifism and solidarity with victims of violence and torture and condemning in no uncertain terms the continuing US war and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this statement, the Catholic Worker movement of today echoed the voice of the movement from sixty years ago, when as the US declared war and with Japan and Germany, the front-page of the Catholic Worker newspaper proclaimed, “WE ARE STILL PACIFISTS”.
It is an amazing thing to see this movement, in all its facets, still flourishing after 75 years. There are still small groups of people, all over this country and the world, committed to seeing Christ in the stranger. Even nearly twenty-eight years after the death of Dorothy Day, when many predicted a decline and even death of the movement, Catholic Worker communities continue to prosper. In a recent book, The Catholic Worker Movement after Dorothy, Harvard Professor Dan McKanan argues that the movement is healthier now than ever.
The vibrancy of the current Catholic Worker movement was evident in the roundtable discussions during the weekend. Topics like, “Green Revolution - Sustainability and Farming in the CW Movement”, “Campaign to Stop Torture”, “Confronting Racism”, “Offering Hospitality to the Undocumented” and “The Miraculous Insanity of CW Finances” were all well attended and lively discussions.
It was also wonderful to see how this wide-spread and motley community celebrates with such joy. Catholic Workers share a basic commitment to solidarity with the poor, often living and working in the most distressed and impoverished places. And yet, there is great joy in the movement. Life is not a drudgery. Children are present in many communities; Catholic Worker families are no longer exceptional in the movement. Catholic Worker kids bring vitality and joy to any gathering as they run and play with one another as their parents sit in roundtables discussing the urgent (often depressing) issues of the day. But, as the dance party and hilarious evening talent show attest, even grown-up Catholic Workers know how to have fun. (Even if Dorothy Day appeared in one skit, scolding “no fun allowed!”)
But, we know that Dorothy Day did find great joy in life. “The duty of delight” is a frequent refrain in Dorothy’s diaries, available in a newly released book of the same name, edited by former Catholic Worker editor Robert Ellsberg. Ellsberg opened the gathering by sharing some of his reflections from Dorothy Day’s nearly fifty years of journaling. In her diaries, Dorothy comments on many of the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a life of hospitality and community. Always, she finds a way to give thanks to God and find some source of hope or joy. She often wrote of her daughter Tamar, and in later years of the joy she found with her ten grandchildren.
The 75th Anniversary celebration was a wonderful time to reconnect with old friends and fellow travelers in the movement. We are grateful to the Worcester, MA Catholic Worker communities, The Mustard Seed and Ss. Francis and Therese, for all their hard work in organizing the gathering. We are grateful too for the opportunity to see how each community lives out the vision, each in their own circumstance. A gathering like this one serves to fertilize and nourish the whole movement, in the sharing of experiences and insights among the varied communities. Becky and I came back to Winona rejuvenated by the time we had to celebrate and reflect with the wider community of the Catholic Worker.