Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Dorothy Day and the US Bishops’ Conference 2012
Dorothy Day and the US Bishops’ Conference 2012
Jun 4, 2025 2:37 PM

I will not indulge in any sort of “what would Dorothy Day do” when es to thinking about the current US Catholic Bishops’ Conference taking place in Baltimore. However, it is interesting to ponder this woman who exemplifies so much of 20th century Catholicism and the bishops’ agenda, especially as the bishops discuss cause for her canonization, while on the same day failing to pass a pastoral message on economics.

Their last pastoral letter on economics was in 1986, “Economic Justice for All”. Certainly, many things have changed since then, but as Dorothy Day knew, “the poor you will always have with you”. Her life tells much of the story of the 20th century: socialism, suffrage, labor unions, a failed live-in relationship and abortion. But it also tells the story of redemption: a love of Christ and His Church, Scripture and prayer, the Rosary and Psalms.

In 1960, Dorothy Day returned money sent to the Catholic Worker house by the city of New York – interest on the house owned by the Catholic Worker Movement. In her letter to the city, she said, “We do not believe in the profit system, and so we cannot take profit or interest on our money. People who take a materialistic view of human service wish to make a profit but we are trying to do our duty by our service without wages to our brothers as mended in the Gospel (Matthew 25.)”

She was chided for this. Some thought the money should have been kept and used for the poor. A benefactor told Dorothy that it was interest from the benefactor’s estate that was donated; what was wrong with interest? Dorothy acknowledged she was only doing the best she knew how, and that,

[o]f course we are involved, the same as everyone else, in living off interest. We are all caught up in this same money economy. Just as “God writes straight with crooked lines,” so we too waver, struggle on our devious path – always aiming at God, even though we are conditioned by habits and ancestry, etc. We have free will, which is our greatest gift. We are free to choose, and as we see more clearly, our choice is more direct and easier to make. Be we all see through a glass darkly. It would be heaven to see Truth face to face…There is no simple solution. Let the priests and the economists get to work on it. It is a moral and an ethical problem.

Dorothy Day would be the first to say her poverty was voluntary. She did not expect everyone to live as she did. She felt profound allegiance with the poor, and chose the most personal approach of all to serving them: she became one of them, lived with them, ate with them, served them.

“Let the priests and the economists get to work on it.” That sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea, from a perfectly radical follower of Christ.

(image of Dorothy Day: copyright by Vivian Cherry)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The ‘end’ of work
In the Q&A part of a session I led at last month’s Acton University on Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII(based on this recent volume), I was asked about specific areas where the two figures have something concrete to contribute today. One theme I highlighted was to their shared emphasis on the centrality and dignity of human work. Today there is a great deal of anxiety over the future of work in an age of increasing globalization, automation, and structural changes...
Macron’s African statement ignores human ingenuity
A French media outlet has captured an otherwise ment from French President Emmanuel Macron that Africa is overpopulated. When asked about a possible “Marshall Plan for Africa,” Macron listed among the continent’s current problems the need for “demographic transition,” lamenting the fact that some African “countries still haveseven to eight children per woman.” His concerns seem particularly worth examining today on World Population Day. During a July 8 press conference about the G20 summit, Macron began by naming truly concerning...
Pulling out of Paris agreement is a ‘market distortion’: European leader
The G20 summit in Hamburg e to an end, and the dominant story remains America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. It’s been less reported that some European leaders have implied that the EU should take economic revenge on the U.S. because – in their words – limiting government intervention in the economy is a “market distortion.” Germany currently holds the presidency of the G20 summit, with Chancellor Angela Merkel overseeing the violence-plagued event. The final declaration notes the U.S....
Can health care be left to the free market?
In one of the worst opinion pieces published in the New York Times in recent memory, Farzon A. Nahvi, an emergency medicine physician, argues the free market cannot provide health care because some patients arrive at the hospital unconscious: As an emergency medicine physician in a busy urban hospital, I have patients brought to me unconscious several times a day. Often, they are found down in the street by a good Samaritan who called 911 on their behalf. We are...
How ordinary economic thinking helps constrain political chaos
In an age where chaos and cronyism seem to be the defining characteristics of our politics, and where the political system is increasingly decried as being “rigged” by populists from both the left and right, the time seems ripe for a renewed focus on political constraints. When such concerns arise, we are quick to point back to the U.S. Constitution, and rightly so. Yet economist Peter Boettke sees another guide that can also offer some value. For Boetkke, our politics...
American students: Raw material or individual persons?
Catherine Pakaluk The quality of K-12 education in America is a major concern. This is largely because, despite marginally high spending per student, the United States does pete very well against other countries on standardized tests. The economics of education particularly interested Catherine Pakaluk, who holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard and is an assistant professor of economics at Catholic University of America. Pakaluk gave a lecture, “Economics of Education,” on June 23 at Acton University. In this talk,...
Is it cleaner to trade pollution?
Note: This is post #40 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. In an effort to reduce pollution, the government tried two policy prescriptions under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, notes Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution University. The mand and control—mandated that each power plant lower its pollution by a determined amount. However, different firms face different cost curves and, because information is dispersed, policymakers don’t always know those costs. The second policy prescription—tradable pollution permits—empowered firms...
Dorothy Sayers, school choice, and long run student success
Today’s Wall Street Journal article on education choice, “New Evidence on School Vouchers,” might look oddly familiar for those of us who have read Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning. The WSJ piece refers to two new studies that investigated student performance in states with voucher programs: Louisiana and Indiana. In Louisiana, a state with a program that allows for vouchers for private schools, 7,100 students attend private or religious schools. Meanwhile, over 34,000 students utilize Indiana’s statewide voucher...
Reading ‘Democracy in America’ (Part 2): What did Tocqueville mean by ‘equality of condition’?
This is the second part in a series on how to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.” Read Part 1 and follow the entire series here. As we begin our study of Democracy in America, we bear in mind that the work’s distinguished author, Alexis de Tocqueville, blessed us with a clear, concise introduction to the two-volume work. The introduction is the most important chapter of the work in terms ing to grips with Tocqueville’s overall argument and purpose...
Would school choice help conservatives recover from the ‘cultural massacre’?
The Spectator Australia published an article Monday claiming that the “culture war” between conservative and liberal values is, in reality, a “cultural massacre.” The carnage is evident in the numbers, specifically in education: in the United Kingdom, conservatives make up only seven percent of primary school teachers and only eight percent of secondary school teachers. In the United States, conservatives often focus on the lack of intellectual diversity on university campuses. They are not wrong to worry. In September, the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved