Saturday, March 28, 2020

Was Dorothy Day a Saint or a Subversive? - The New York Times

For John Loughery and Blythe Randolph, Dorothy Day’s wholehearted approach to life explains her religious conservatism — her desire to experience the entire Catholic package, warts and all.
I remember Tom Cornell standing at a table with leaflets by the Catholic Peace Fellowship - a desk he shared with Jim Forrest in the office of the War Resisters League on Lafayette Street near what is now the Public Theater.
Cornell was preaching pacifism to us in the mail room - a gathering place in those days before Area Codes and cell phones - at Holy Cross College.  On the table was a stack of newspapers - The Catholic Worker - price 1 Cent.  On the left side was a column titled On Pilgrimage by Dorothy Day.  She was the godmother of what we came to call the Catholic Left.  She is on her way, I hope to canonization.  A far better candidate than some recent pontifical figures who I won't name out of charity.
Karen Armstrong reviews John Loughery and Blythe Randolph's new biography:
Dorothy Day
Dissenting Voice of the American Century
Was Dorothy Day a Saint or a Subversive? - The New York Times
In March 2000, 20 years after her death, the Vatican began a stringent examination of Dorothy Day’s life to prove that she had demonstrated the “heroic virtue” that qualifies a Catholic for sainthood; this process is ongoing. More recently, in September 2015, Pope Francis cited Day — alongside Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Merton — as an American who exemplified principles that were desperately needed in our inequitable world. Day was a tireless advocate for the poor and homeless, but what exactly is a saint and was she one?

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