SOCIAL SPIRITUALITY
Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence,
violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social
situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. “Structures of sin” are the expression and effect of personal sins.
They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they
constitute a “social sin.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1869)
It is a worthy practice to reflect on the social evils around us and
our participation in them, rising beyond the individualistic focus of
traditional morality. We will probably find opportunities to do our own small
part in addressing pervasive social evils.
An example of a Christian (Roman Catholic) with a highly developed social spirituality is Dorothy Day.
An example of a Christian (Roman Catholic) with a highly developed social spirituality is Dorothy Day.
Article concerning controversies surrounding Dorothy Day’s cause for
canonization:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/is-dorothy-day-suitable-for-canonization
—Fr. Brandon O'Brien, “Is Dorothy Day Suitable for Canonization?” Crisis Magazine, April 19, 2016
Day’s struggle to make sense of leftist ideologies from a Christian
standpoint tells us that education in the many ideologies interpenetrating
society today is now a necessary part of Christian education.
Image courtesy of Jim Forest
ReplyDeleteImage link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/4816344768/in/photostream/
Gonzalinho
“Among older Catholics and Americans in general, Day is among the most famous modern-day Catholic religious figures. During the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s she was best-known as a radical and best-loved by the Catholic left for focusing not on clashes with cardinals about sex and marriage but instead on workers’ rights, food and housing for the poor, and war protests — butting heads with church hierarchs who took a more nuanced view of military conflict. She wouldn’t even vote because she saw it as participating in a system she was trying to upend, her family says.
ReplyDelete“…Day’s popularity can rise in a time when religion isn’t defined by religious institutions. In fact, he noted, people are highly skeptical of officialdom. While Day didn’t focus on bucking the church, she wasn’t hesitant to criticize the hierarchy for not doing enough, in her view, on justice causes — nonviolence and workers’ rights in particular. Her fight on behalf of striking New York City archdiocesan gravediggers against the archdiocese made news in the 1950s. In general, he said, her faith was about serving the less fortunate, rather than an entanglement or search for approval by clerics.
“…Day had an abortion before becoming Catholic, which to some would automatically disqualify her, the filmmaker said. She also challenged Catholic teaching on war, arguing against the idea of ‘just’ wars, another issue that could affect her chances.”
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/28/being-communist-socialist-anarchist-sympathizer-once-made-dorothy-day-radical-now-many-want-vatican-make-her-saint/
A lay woman who found holiness in political action—she is a gift for the entire Church.
Gonzalinho
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/28/being-communist-socialist-anarchist-sympathizer-once-made-dorothy-day-radical-now-many-want-vatican-make-her-saint/
Delete—Michelle Boorstein, “Dorothy Day was a radical. Now many want the Vatican to make her a saint.” The Washington Post (January 28, 2020)
Gonzalinho
WHAT WAS DOROTHY DAY’S POLITICS?
ReplyDeleteHer politics were basically founded on Christian principles—political activism to advance justice and equality and a lifelong commitment to serve the poor—so, justice, equality, service to the poor.
“Dorothy Day combined her political passion for justice and equality with her religious commitment for serving the destitute. She wanted her words to match precisely with her deeds. She took a vow of poverty and lived a life of service to the poor in the hospitality houses (an extension of the work that Jane Addams did in Hull House) that she helped to establish in cities across the U.S. She worked tirelessly and was arrested often in the struggles for womens rights, birth control, workers rights, and against war.”
https://charterforcompassion.org/truth-political-and-social-activists/truth-dorothy-day
—“Truth: Dorothy Day,” Charter for Compassion, 2022
Her basic ideologies were anarchism and distributism.
“Dorothy Day was fundamentally an anarchist, not a socialist. She never registered with any party and, while she was not a Communist, refused to repudiate those Marxist governments that displayed any genuine concern for the poor. ‘Distributism,’ on the other hand, spoke to her because it was less about electoral politics and party affiliation and more a philosophy concerned with individual empowerment and initiative.
“The distributists, a group of British social theorists, were foes of big government and believed in the right to private property; they were as skeptical of socialism as they were of capitalism. They just wanted to see the goods and opportunities of a functioning society distributed more equitably. This, to them, meant that monopolies needed to be eliminated, mass production phased out, local ownership of factories encouraged, the pace of growth and urbanization slowed, and our absolute faith in science and technology rethought. Bigger was never better from the distributist perspective, and the more a man was master of his time and labor, the better. It was a wake-up call to a society that was becoming less personal and more corporate and dehumanized all the time. Some people thought this was a naively idealistic position for anyone to hold in the mid-20th century. Like G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, Dorothy Day was a true believer.”
https://lithub.com/great-american-radicals-how-would-dorothy-day-vote-in-2020/
—Jonny Diamond, “Great American Radicals: How Would Dorothy Day Vote
in 2020?” Literary Hub, March 17, 2020
She basically advocated for positions on the political left.
“The Catholic Worker Movement that Day inspired took radical positions on many issues as it grew, and Day, a professed anarchist, became widely regarded as one of the great Catholic lay leaders of the 20th century. A staunch adherent to the church’s ‘preferential option for the poor,’ Day advocated and practiced a Catholic socioeconomic teaching known as distributism, which she saw as a third option between socialism and capitalism. During World War II the Catholic Worker was an organ for pacifism and supported Catholic conscientious objectors. Day protested the Vietnam War and was arrested in 1973 while demonstrating in California in support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Day
—The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Dorothy Day: American Journalist,” Britannica.com, May 30, 2022
Gonzalinho
DON’T CALL ME A SAINT
ReplyDelete“Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed that easily.”—Dorothy Day
Our purpose in life is to love God and neighbor and in doing so to attain our final destination in heaven. It's not to become a saint, that is to say, to play to the institution, with all its idiosyncrasies, foibles, and faults.
“To thine own self be true” (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3)—if you are true to yourself and it happens that the institution sees fit to canonize you, well and good, I suppose.
However, if you sacrifice your integrity to play to the institution, it's your loss, with ramifications in eternity.
Doubtlessly, playing to the institution jeopardizes our personal and moral integrity. Our most basic guiding principle should be to follow our conscience, understanding that ultimately we are accountable to God and his perfect judgment—not to the institution, which is to say, to the Roman Catholic Church.
Gonzalinho
“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” This line comes up all too frequently in discussions of Day’s canonization, with the usual implication being: Can’t you let the poor woman rest in peace?
DeleteI bear a burden of responsibility for publicizing that line, which I quoted in the introduction to an anthology of her writings almost thirty years ago. Where did it come from? I can’t honestly say. I do remember one time sitting at the kitchen table with her at St. Joseph’s house, looking at an issue of Time magazine in which she was included in a list of “living saints.” “When they call you a saint,” she said, “it means basically that you are not to be taken seriously.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/dont-call-me-saint
—James Martin, S.J., “Don’t Call Me a Saint?” America (November 14, 2012)
Gonzalinho
Dorothy Day didn’t play to the institution and criticized it roundly:
Delete“While Day didn't focus on bucking the church, she wasn't hesitant to criticize the hierarchy for not doing enough, in her view, on justice causes — nonviolence and workers' rights in particular. Her fight on behalf of striking New York City archdiocesan gravediggers against the archdiocese made news in the 1950s.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/28/being-communist-socialist-anarchist-sympathizer-once-made-dorothy-day-radical-now-many-want-vatican-make-her-saint/
—Michelle Boorstin, “Dorothy Day was a radical. Now many want the Vatican to make her a saint,” The Washington Post (January 28, 2020)
Gonzalinho
The risk exists that some in the Roman Catholic Church will want to remake Dorothy Day in their own image:
Delete“The ‘unruly saint’ that [D. L.] Mayfield celebrates is hard to swallow for some who champion Day’s cause for canonization. Some try to rein her in to be the ‘ruly’ saint they would have her be.
“…Whether one thinks that Day’s canonization would be helpful or not, some forces have put her in a box and replaced her with a pious and tamed likeness. The rule-obsessed, nitpicky ‘St. Dorothy’—who preferred the old liturgical rites to the new, who abandoned her radical friends when she joined the church, who would obediently shut down the Catholic Worker if her bishop ordered her to—did not exist and has nothing to offer the present generation. Day who lived in history, on the other hand—who went to jail with striking workers, who resisted segregation, who called young men to ‘fill the jails’ rather than fight in Vietnam, who demanded the overthrow of capitalism, and who counseled ‘one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church’—is a prophet for our time.”
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202211/the-real-dorothy-day-was-not-a-tame-saint/
—Brian Terrell, “The real Dorothy Day was not a tame saint,” U.S. Catholic, November 8, 2022
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