Dorothy Day in the News

Pope Francis writes the preface to the Italian edition of Dorothy Day's autobiography, entitled, “I found God through His poor. rom atheism to faith: my inner journey" (Libreria Editrice Vaticana-LEV). Dorothy Day (1897-1980), founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, journalist, writer, pacifist and activist, is remembered for her commitment to the poor and social justice...

As the newest Staten Island ferry grumbled across New York Harbor the other day, you could easily imagine the woman for whom it is named in contemplation by a window. Her dress plain, her white hair in a braided crown, her eyes seeking the divine in the green-gray waters...

Three years before her death, speaking to a Chicago Tribune reporter, Dorothy Day allegedly said of canonization: “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.” After almost 50 years, her remarks seem to have been more foreboding than a mere example of her sharp wit.  But George Horton, the retiring Director of Social and Community Development of Catholic Charities New York, who has served as the Coordinator of the Dorothy Day...

Manhattan College has announced that it will be the home of the Dorothy Day Center for Study and Promotion of Social Catholicism. The new Center will be located in Kelly Commons, and an official opening will be held in early 2023. It will accommodate a collection of historical materials and archives related to Day, who was known as the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and a tireless fighter for labor justice, pacifism and nuclear disarmament. The Center will serve as a resource for the campus, the local community, and the...

The Dorothy Day Guild is the official association working for the canonization of Day (1897-1980), a peace activist, journalist, and the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Day is currently titled a “Servant of God” within the Catholic Church, indicating the first step in the process to sainthood. The group noted important developments in the effort to recognize Dorothy Day as a saint. After years of work, more than 50,000 pages of documents were compiled and sent to Rome earlier this year for the next stage of the canonization process...

A bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is not the sort of place I thought one would ordinarily join a canonization effort. Then again, the saint whose cause I joined was no ordinary woman. Born in 1897 to a newspaperman father and homemaker mother, Dorothy Day did not grow up particularly religious, but she always felt an attraction to the divine. She wrote that in childhood she had been “haunted by God.” That haunting led her, as her eulogist Geoffrey Gneuhs said at her funeral, “to a life of simplicity and poverty with the poor, to...

Archdiocese of New York sends the cause for Dorothy Day to Rome for next phase of canonization.

I grew up with Dorothy Day as a constant presence in my Catholic Worker family. My grandparents helped start a Catholic Worker house in Cleveland, and my parents met and married while living with Dorothy at the New York Catholic Worker. She died in 1980, but her influence on our lives did not wane. Instead, it grew: As my brother and I entered adulthood, Dorothy’s life became a measure with...

One cloudy November Saturday, Eric Krewson sits in the warmth of St. Joseph House of Hospitality in the East Village in New York City, where Dorothy Day lived from 1968 to 1975. Sharing a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and undercooked bacon, Eric listens to the stories of the community he has commemorated in song...

NEW YORK—Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced that a new Staten Island Ferry boat, which will hit the water for first time tomorrow and is expected to arrive in New York harbor in 2022, will be named to honor Dorothy Day, the revered social activist and journalist who spent decades on the Island’s South Shore. “Dorothy Day lived a life of tremendous selflessness and service. I can think of no greater way to honor her beloved legacy than by having her name on this new ferry boat connecting Manhattan and Staten Island,” said Mayor Bill...

As a lifelong Catholic, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that when Pope Francis mentioned Servant of God Dorothy Day in his remarks during a historic address to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 24, 2015, I did a double-take and thought to myself the names of three other women I wished he would have mentioned instead. Standing on the lawn with other invited guests assembled outside the Capitol that morning, I listened to the pope’s list of four people he held up as “great Americans.” Alongside President Abraham Lincoln, Dr...

Dr. Waldery Hilgeman, the Roman postulator for the cause of canonization of Servant of God Dorothy Day, visited New York Jan. 22-26. On Jan. 24, Dr. Hilgeman met with officials working on the inquiry and reviewed materials related to the cause. In New York, Dr. Hilgeman toured Catholic Worker sites on the Lower East Side of Manhattan including Maryhouse and St. Joseph House and visited Holy Redeemer Church, where Dorothy Day often prayed. He spoke with the steering committee of the Dorothy Day Guild and met with Msgr. Gregory...

We wondered as we wandered into the Sheen Center gallery in Manhattan how an art exhibit based on Dorothy Day’s vision of social justice came to be. So Catholic Arts Today spoke (via email) with the curator, the New York-based artist Anthony Santella, whose brother Dennis Santella is also a New York Catholic artist. The Sheen Center gallery is small. An hour of contemplation, or a half an hour if you have to hurry back to work, will give you ample time to take in an art break. One of the highlights of the exhibit was the exquisite embroidered portrait by Father Frank Sabbate of one of the girl-child victims of the Cambodian genocide. Another was the simple driftwood shrine to Dorothy Day constructed of wood gathered from the Staten Island beach she once called home. Inside, gallery visitors dropped notes to and about Dorothy Day...

The cause for Dorothy Day’s possible eventual beatification and canonization moved into a new phase on April 19 as Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, opened the canonical inquiry on the life of the Catholic Worker movement founder, gathering evidence to determine if Dorothy Day lived a life of “heroic virtue” in the eyes of the church. 

 The archdiocese, which is sponsoring her cause, will gather the evidence and present it to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Saints... 

He praised one as a man of prayer, the other for her "passion for justice." But many Americans might need a reminder about two of the people Pope Francis discussed in Congress on Thursday: philosopher Thomas Merton and activist Dorothy Day.

The two Catholics were mentioned alongside two other, more famous names: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

Calling them "four representatives of the American people," Pope Francis lauded Day, King, Lincoln and Merton for using their dreams...

The cause for the canonization of Dorothy Day has recently gained momentum as the archdiocese hired a coordinator to pull together her vast trove of writings and line up witnesses to be interviewed for the diocesan phase of the campaign.

Jeff Korgen, who has been involved in the social justice ministry of the Church for a long time at Catholic Charities and in other capacities, has been in place since Oct. 28. “He is an organizer, and right now most of what’s needed for the diocesan phase is organizing all of the materials...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Having a holy son or daughter formally recognized as a saint by the universal church could easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. But experts say the church isn’t selling halos; it’s compensating professionals doing serious research, so that a pope can solemnly declare his certainty a person is in heaven.

The costs involved in moving a cause from local fame to universal veneration as a saint depend on a variety of factors, such as whether the postulator — the official promoter — is volunteering his or her time, and how many potential miracles must be investigated before ...

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The anniversary of Dorothy Day, a co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, earlier this week prompted two well-attended events on Staten Island and further efforts towards sainthood for Miss Day.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan celebrated a mass honoring Miss Day that attracted a standing-room-only crowd on Sunday at Our Lady Help of Christians R.C. Church (OLHC), Tottenville...

CARDINAL JOHN J. O'CONNOR - A man can be as truly a saint in a factory as in a monastery, and there is much need of him in the one as in the other.  —Robert J. McCracken It is with great joy that I announce the approval of the Holy See for the Archdiocese of New York to open the Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Dorothy Day. With this approval comes the title Servant of God. What a gift to the Church in New York and to the Church Universal this is! Permit me to quote from my letter of 7 February to the Holy See. "I write to initiate the canonization...