Dorothy Day was a social reformer in the United States. She was declared Servant of God when a cause for sainthood was opened for her by Pope John Paul II.Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 - November 29, 1980) was a journalist turned social activist and devout member of the Catholic Church. She became known for her social justice campaigns in defense of the poor, forsaken, hungry and homeless. Alongside Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933, espousing nonviolence, and hospitality for the impoverished and downtrodden.

The movement started with the Catholic Worker newspaper that she and Peter Maurin founded to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in the increasingly war-torn 1930s.

Day later opened a "house of hospitality" in the slums of New York City. The movement quickly spread to other cities in the US, and to Canada and England; more than 30 independent but affiliated CW communities had been founded by 1941. (Well over 100 communities exist today, including several in Australia, Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden.)

By the 1960s Day was embraced by left-wing Catholics —although Day was opposed to the sexual revolution of that decade, saying she had seen the ill effects of a similar sexual revolution in the 1920s, when she had a then-illegal abortion.

Day was proposed for sainthood by the Claretian Missionaries in 1983. Some opponents have found her unworthy because of the "sins of her youth"--pre-marital sex and an abortion. (Others, Catholic Workers among them, found the process unworthy of her.) Nevertheless, the Vatican granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open Day's "cause" in March of 2000, officially bestowing upon her the title of Servant of God.

Her autobiography The Long Loneliness was published in 1952. Day's account of the Catholic Worker movement, Loaves and Fishes, was published in 1963. A popular movie called Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story was produced in 1996 about the life and struggles that Day endured. Day was portrayed by Moira Kelly and Maurin was portrayed by Martin Sheen, both known for their roles on The West Wing television series in the United States. The first full-length documentary about her, "Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint," will premiere at Marquette University on November 29, 2005 [1].

Awards and Recognition

1978: Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award [2]

Links

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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