The Life of Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century by John Loughery & Blythe Randolph

published 2020

 

 

Was Dorothy Day a saint or a troublemaker? Or both?

One of her biographers said:

If Dorothy Day is ever canonized, she will be the patron saint not only of homeless people and those who try to care for them, but also of people who lose their temper… Dorothy Day was certainly not without her rough edges.

She is little-known over here, but Dorothy Day was famous in the USA during the 20^th century – she was a pacifist, an activist, a devout Catholic, someone who was ready to go to jail for her principles. She was a co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, editing and publishing a newspaper of that name,  and also opening houses of hospitality to help down-and-outs, and out-of-town commune farms where people could go to live, and oversaw the creation of other such locations all over the world – some of them still exist.

Her story is extraordinary – she was born in 1897, and what she achieved in the next 83 years is astonishing. This book is by turns jaw-dropping, and horrifying, and inspiring, and heart-warming. It is an excellent biography: well-researched, even-handed and very readable. I thought it was a model of its kind. John Loughery and Blythe Randolph have done an incredible job.

The authors don’t shy away from uncomfortable truths. Dorothy Day’s Houses of Hospitality could be terrifying places. No-one was turned away, and what others would see as the dregs of humanity turned up there: she insisted that every individual was treated with love and respect. The houses could be noisy, dangerous, dirty places. Many many young people and religious came to spend time there to help. Some could only take it for a short time. But Dorothy Day lived there for 50 years, until she died. Her life was ascetic and lived in poverty.

Dorothy Day's funeral procession in New York

She was a very devout Catholic, going to Mass every day, but was forever falling out with senior clerics, who often disapproved of her leftwing views. At the same time, those who supported her for her political views could not understand how she could go along with the church’s rigid attitudes on sexuality and birth control.

She was uncompromising, and plainly could be difficult or even impossible to work with. But nobody could doubt her commitment, her passion and her essential goodness. She tried to embrace compassion, self-sacrifice, simplicity and prayerful community. When things were going badly – and they often did – she said they must always continue with their work, they must bring love and care to people. It didn’t matter if those people responded badly: like the woman who, at one of the farms, volunteered to do the shopping and took 200 dollars and the car, and she and the car and the money were never seen again. It didn’t matter, the organizers just kept on doing what they believed in. 

Dorothy Day had a quite bohemian youth – mixing with artists and writers in Greenwich Village in her 20s: she was a close friend of the playwright Eugene O’Neill. She had a marriage that didn’t last, and a child out of wedlock. But then she converted to Catholicism and from that time on never wavered in her belief and in her mission. She was a single mother, and unhappily her relation with her daughter was not great – Day was often too busy with her works of charity to think what was best for her daughter, Tamar.

She inspired great love in others, although she was always ready to tell people off, tell them what they should be doing. One of her great friends and supporters describes being severely scolded by Day when he was bringing her her dinner in bed (she was in poor health): she said a young man like him should’ve been in jail for occupying a nuclear power plant, not working household chores. She expected as much from her staff as she gave of herself.

In 1973, so she was 75, she was arrested for the final time, supporting striking grape pickers in California. This is her confronting the police.

She spent two weeks locked up as a result: the latest in a long line of challenges to authority. She was often accused of being a Communist.

There is a move to have her declared a saint. You expect she might have no time for that: her view was ‘That's the way people try to dismiss you. If you're a saint, then you must be impractical and utopian, and nobody has to pay any attention to you.’ The process is under way… It would make her better-known and remembered, and that has to be a good thing. She was a quite extraordinary person, and most people would be unable to follow in her footsteps to any degree. We might be pleased with ourselves for doing some volunteering, helping others. Reading about her life makes you realize that you could do more – though honestly, not as much as her…