"We believe Christ went beyond natural ethics
...
and taught nonviolence
as a way of life."
Dorothy Day's radicalism was determinedly Catholic, a conscious rejection
of secular activism. The communist and socialist movements were insufficiently
individual to her, and she went from cutting religion out of her life
to making it her core. Adamant opposition to all war and preperation
for war - "gospel nonviolence" - were a hallmark of her life. Her opposition
to the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the
codl war and the nuclear arms racealigned her with the early Church fathers,
who universally opposed Christian participation in war, but pitted her
against more recent prelates. Her views helped move the Church, leading
to the condemnation of indiscriminate warfare and nuclear weapons at
Vatican II in 1965. This fierce pacifism was linked to her voluntary
poverty by the common bond of her life: love. "The measure by which we
will be judged," love in action, was to her, as it was to Father Zossima
in The Brothers Karamazov, "a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love
in dreams." The "revolution of the heart" that Day invoked was a
life of loving sacrifice that was its own pained reward.
Chris and Wayne Barrett, The Nation
Find out more! Links:
- The Catholic Worker Movement
- Fool for Christ - a dramatization of the life of Dorothy Day
- A biography
- A personal remembrance
- A well-rounded page with many more links