Patrick Jordan - Dorothy Day: Writings from Commonweal

Cover design by David Manahan, O.S.B. Photo of Dorothy Day courtesy of Marquette University Special Collections and Archives, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Pages 3525 from The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day, copyright 1952 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Copyright renewed 1980 by Tamar Teresa Hennessy. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

2002 by Commonweal, New York, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any retrieval system, without the written permission of Commonweal, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 405, New York, NY 10115. Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-0-8146-3999-3 (e-book)

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Day, Dorothy, 18971980.
[Selections. 2002]
Dorothy Day : writings from Commonweal / Patrick Jordan, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8146-2875-3 (alk. paper)
1. Day, Dorothy, 18971980. I. Jordan, Patrick. II. Commonweal. III. Title.
BX4668.D3 A3 2002
267.182092dc21

2002069480

For Tamar Hennessy and her family,
and in memory of
Edward S. Skillin and Thomas J. Sullivan

Peter Maurin always says that it is the duty of the journalist to make history as well as record it.

Dorothy Day
Commonweal, November 3, 1939

W HEN DOROTHY DAY DIED on November 29, 1980, at the age of eighty-three, historian David J. OBrien described her as the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism. It was a bold evaluation for a historian so close to the events and to the death of the person in question. Yet it remains perhaps the most perceptive, succinct, and often-quoted summation of Days long and eventful life.

That OBriens appraisal appeared in the pages of Commonweal was fitting. Considered one of North Americas premier Catholic publications since its founding in 1924, the independent lay Catholic journal of opinion played a pivotal role not only in the history of twentieth-century American Catholicism but in Days personal and professional lives. Commonweal printed a broad range of her work over a span of nearly half a century (from the time of her conversion in the late 1920s through the mid-1970s). More significant, it was Commonweals managing editor, George N. Shuster, who first introduced Day to French-born social philosopher Peter Maurin (18771949) in late 1932. The following year, Day and Maurin launched the Catholic Worker movement, one of the most inventive and enduring lay experiments in American Catholicism.

The radical (that is, back to the roots) Catholic Worker movement tapped into the core of the Christian gospel with a remarkable zest, applying the spirit of the New Testament to the social issues of the time, as well as to the quotidian concerns of family, work, prayer, and community. The movement and its monthly paper, The Catholic Worker, which Day edited, inspired scores of like-minded groups and publications in the United States and abroad. At Catholic Worker houses, the hungry were fed and the lost were welcomed. And so it continues today. Maurin and Day presented a profound critique of post-Christian societys materialism and militarism, and offered an alternative, not only in the movements various publications and urban houses of hospitality, but at its rural communes and retreat centers. The effects are still being felt.

Commonweal (the common good) had been inaugurated just a decade earlier as a weekly review of politics, religion, and culture. Modeled on the New Republic and the Nation, Commonweal signaled a novel undertaking in American Catholic publishing. It exemplified a new confidence among American Catholics, particularly the laity, that they could sustain a high-quality journal of opinion, independent of hierarchical control yet faithful to Catholic tradition. Embracing the American principles of freedom of inquiry and expression, The Commonweal (as it was known until 1965) became a forum for exploring controversial issues in a respectful, even ecumenical, manner that, then as now, was marked by its civility, vigorous thinking, and engaged writing.

When Day began her freelance career with Commonweal in 1929, she was already a seasoned journalist and editor. She had served on the staff of a number of leftist journals and was a published novelist. During and immediately following World War I, she had been a member of the Greenwich Village literary scene and a sometime political activist, having been arrested with both the suffragists and the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1926following a broken love affair, an abortion, a rebound marriage that ended in divorce, and a common-law unionDay gave birth to a daughter, Tamar Teresa. Later that year, Day had her baby baptized a Catholic, and the following year she entered the Church herself. These decisions severed Day from Tamars father, from her radical friends, and from professional associates, many of whom questioned Catholicisms dogmatic beliefs and its historic alliances with repressive regimes. By the time Days writing began appearing in Commonweal, she had worked as a student nurse, a part-time cook, a Hollywood screenwriter, and had moved to Mexico with her young daughter.

Despite her personal upheavals, Days early Commonweal articles demonstrate her journalistic self-assurance and her gift for narrative. Her eye for detail and social setting were matched by an astute sense of self-understanding. Days first Commonweal pieces, written several years before her introduction to Maurinwhom she later called her teacher in matters of the spirit and of Catholicismnonetheless reflect a personal and spiritual depth that foreshadowed her mature views and style, including a vivid love of Scripture and familiarity with the lives of the saints. During her later Catholic Worker period, Day fused these qualities with passionate criticisms of the state, racism, social inequity, and war, all of which subjects she addresses in this volume.

Reviewing Days 1939 book House of Hospitality for Commonweal, Chicago priest Reynold Hillenbrand noted that four things emerged from reading Day: the authors love of the poor; her struggle to get on with herself; her dedicated response to the beauties around her; [and] the unforgettable picture of [Manhattans] Lower East Side. Hillenbrand concluded that Days volume was not only a practical commentary on social doctrine, but that it was good spiritual reading. The present volume has the same strengths.

Days language was seldom pietistic. On the contrary, her words could be provocative and intentionally unsettling. In reviewing her 1952 autobiography The Long Loneliness for Commonweal, H. A. Reinhold observed that Day loved the inflamed and the inflaming word. Although Reinhold did not make note of it, Day could also be mistaken. In The Long Loneliness (a selection of which appears here; see The Story of Steve Hergenhan, ), while writing about the unemployed for the Jesuit weekly.