75th Anniversary of the Catholic Worker Movement
April 28th, 2008
“We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world,” wrote Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement. On May 1, the Catholic Worker celebrates its 75th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Marquette University Press will publish Dorothy Day’s diaries, The Duty of Delight.
Meanwhile, a beautiful new DVD documentary, Don’t Call Me a Saint, has been released, offering rare interviews and footage of the heroic woman whose reach has indeed embraced the world.
Today there are more than 185 Catholic Worker houses around the world. A new one just opened in Albuquerque, named Trinity House, a name meant to undo Robert Oppenheimer’s larceny. He purloined “Trinity” to name the atomic test site. “Poverty is a strange and elusive thing,” Dorothy wrote. “I have tried to write about it, its joys and its sorrows, for 30 years now. I condemn poverty and I advocate it. Poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter.” (Excerpts from John Dear, NCR, April 15th).
