Dorothy Day

The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?

Dorothy Day (8 November 1897 – 29 November 1980) was an American journalist turned social activist. A pacifist and a devout member of the Catholic Church, she was a co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker movement. She authored several books and spoke often in public about faith and social justice.

Quotes

We stand at the present time with the Communists, who are also opposing war.... The Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.

We are not expecting Utopia here on this earth. But God meant things to be much easier than we have made them. … Eternal life begins now. The cross is there, of course, but "in the cross is joy of spirit." And love makes all things easy.

The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.

Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.

• It is only through religion that communism can be achieved, and has been achieved over and over.
  • From Union Square to Rome (1938)

• The great work which is to be done is to change public opinion, to indoctrinate, to set small groups to work here and there in different cities who will live a life of sacrifice, typifying the Catholic idea of personal responsibility. Numbers and organizations are not important. We are just beginning after all. But one person can do a tremendous amount of boring from within, in his office, factory, neighborhood, parish, and among his daily acquaintances and associates.
  • All the Way to Heaven:The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day (2010, p. 81)

• A Jewish convert said to me once, "The Communists hate God, and the Catholics love Him. But they are both facing Him, directing their attention to Him. They are not indifferent. Communists are not in so bad a case as those who are indifferent. It it the lukewarm that He will spew out of His mouth."
  • From Union Square to Rome (1938)

• "Thou art neither cold nor hot ... because thou art lukewarm ... I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth," our Lord says. Far better to revolt violently than to do nothing about the poor destitute.
  • "Letter to an Imprisoned Editor," Catholic Worker (January 1960)

• We stand at the present time with the Communists, who are also opposing war.... The Sermon on the Mount is our Christian manifesto.
  • "Our Stand," Catholic Worker (June 1940)

• There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.
  • Speech to Liberal-Socialist Alliance, New York City (8 December 1941), as quoted in From Megaphones to Microphones (2003) by Sandra J. Sarkela et al.

• We are not expecting Utopia here on this earth. But God meant things to be much easier than we have made them. A man has a natural right to food, clothing, and shelter. A certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life. A family needs work as well as bread. Property is proper to man. We must keep repeating these things. Eternal life begins now. "All the way to heaven is heaven, because He said, "I am the Way." The cross is there, of course, but "in the cross is joy of spirit." And love makes all things easy.
  • On Pilgrimage (1948)

• Of all the charges made against the Communists these days of congressional investigations, the charge of loose morals is seldom heard, so very loose have become those of "Christian" people.
  • On Pilgrimage (1948)

• Marx... Lenin... Mao Tse-Tung... These men were animated by the love of brother and this we must believe though their ends meant the seizure of power, and the building of mighty armies, the compulsion of concentration camps, the forced labor and torture and killing of tens of thousands, even millions.
  • "The Incompatibility of Love and Violence," Catholic Worker (May 1951)

• But I am sure that God did not intend that there be so many poor. The class structure is of our making and our consent, not His. It is the way we have arranged it, and it is up to us to change it. So we are urging revolutionary change.
  • "Poverty Is to Care and Not to Care," Catholic Worker (April 1953)

• We need to change the system. We need to overthrow, not the government, as the authorities are always accusing the Communists 'of conspiring to teach [us] to do,' but this rotten, decadent, putrid industrial capitalist system which breeds such suffering in the whited sepulcher of New York.
  • "On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (September 1956)

• We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.
  • "Month of the Dead," Catholic Worker (November 1959)

• The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
  • 'Loaves and Fishes (1963)

• As to the Church, where else shall we go, except to the Bride of Christ, one flesh with Christ? Though she is a harlot at times, she is our Mother.
  • "In Peace Is My Bitterness Most Bitter," Catholic Worker (January 1967)

• I was always much impressed, in reading prison memoirs of revolutionists, such as Lenin and Trotsky ... by the amount of reading they did, the languages they studied, the range of their plans for a better social order. (Or rather, for a new social order.) In the Acts of the Apostles there are constant references to the Way and the New Man.
  • "On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (December 1968)

• If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders.
  • "On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (January 1970)

• "What do you mean by anarchist-pacifist?" First, I would say that the two words should go together, especially ... when more and more people, even priests, are turning to violence, and are finding their heroes in Camillo Torres among the priests, and Che Guevara among laymen. The attraction is strong, because both men literally laid down their lives for their brothers. "Greater love hath no man than this." "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." Che Guevara wrote this, and he is quoted by Chicano youth in El Grito Del Norte.
  • "On Pilgrimage — Our Spring Appeal," Catholic Worker (May 1970)

• How many thousands, tens of thousands [of prisoners], are in for petty theft, while the 'robber barons' of our day get away with murder. Literally murder, accessories to murder. "Property is Theft." Proudhon wrote--The coat that hangs in your closet belongs to the poor. The early Fathers wrote--The house you don't live in, your empty buildings (novitiates, seminaries) belong to the poor. Property is Theft.
  • "On Pilgrimage," Catholic Worker (December 1971)

• The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
  • Interviewed in Time (29 December 1975)

• What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U.S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
  • As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103
  • Variant: A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.
    • As quoted in Singing the Living Tradition (1993) by the Unitarian Universalist Association, p. 560

• Our rule is the works of mercy… It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.
  • As quoted in The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History (1997)
  • Variant: [Practicing] the works of mercy ... is our program, our rule of life.
    • As quoted in The Catholic Worker after Dorothy : Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation (2008) by Dan McKanan

The Duty of Delight (2011)

The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day (2011)

• When people are standing up for our present rotten system, they are being worse than Communists, it seems to me.
  • 4 March 1945

• When Dr. Stern wanted to know whether I was an alcoholic, when Dwight Macdonald asked me seriously whether I drank longshoremen under the table — I can only confess that yes, I did "fling roses with the throng."
  • 22 April 1958

• The diocesan papers are full of stories about atrocities in China and the sufferings of the Church and I get a letter from Betty Chang from Tientsin about the communes and the full-employment, etc. When we see the migrant camps, and our factories in the fields, our system does not offer much.
  • 12 February 1959

• For some weeks now my problem is this: What to do about the open immorality (and of course I mean sexual morality) in our midst. It is like the last times--there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.... We have one young [prostitute], drunken, promiscuous, pretty as a picture, college educated, mischievous, able to talk her way out of any situation--so far. She comes to us when she is drunk and beaten and hungry and cold and when she is taken in, she is liable to crawl into the bed of any man on the place. We do not know how many she has slept with on the farm. What to do? What to do?
  • 26 June 1971

• I too complain ceaselessly in my heart and in my words too. My very life is a protest. Against government, for instance.
  • 8 August 1974

Misattributed

• When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist.
  • Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop, as quoted in Peace Behind Bars : A Peacemaking Priest's Journal from Jail (1995) by John Dear, p. 65; this is a translation of "Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista."
  • Variant translations:
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist.
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.

Quotes about Day

• No force could sway her. No fear could stop her.
  • Promotional tagline for Entertaining Angels : The Dorothy Day Story (1996); the title refers to the practice endorsed in the early Christian teachings of Paul of Tarsus, of treating strangers as angels or visiting emissaries of royalty or divinity, as in Hebrews 13:2 : Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

• Dorothy, the oldest girl, is the nut of the family. When she came out of the university she was a Communist. Now she's a Catholic crusader. She owns and runs a Catholic paper and skyhoots all over the country, delivering lectures. She has one girl in a Catholic school and is separated from her husband.
  • John Day, Sr., describing his daughter Dorothy, as quoted in Dorothy Day: A Biography, (1982) by William D. Miller.

External links

• The Catholic Worker Movement
• Industrial Workers of the World
• Whole Earth: The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right
• Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Dorothy Day: Church Was Everything to Her
• Dorothy Day’s 109th Birthday!
• "Dorothy Day Another Way" [1]