Catholic Workers arrested in nonviolent action at Pentagon
Plus: CWers on Gaza; Houston CW calls on city to issue work permits to migrants; Kay Lasante Clinic teams up with nonprofit; and Dorothy Day on seeing Christ everywhere.
Welcome to Roundtable!
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Roundtable! After nearly nine months of planning and testing, we’re finally ready to launch this thing. About 1,500 of you signed up for this newsletter during its long gestation, and we’re pleased to finally be sending it to you.
Here’s what to expect:
Roundtable will be delivered to your inbox every Friday evening. You can also read it in the Substack app if you like.
In our first few months, we’ll focus on sharing with you a curated selection of Catholic Worker news and articles. We’ll also share short summaries of selected third-party media featuring the Catholic Worker. Finally, every issue will conclude with a short reading from Dorothy Day or another prominent Catholic Worker.
We’ll also keep you updated about new content or features on CatholicWorker.org. This newsletter is an extension of the website.
We have ideas about expanding into some original reporting highlighting the work of individual Catholic Workers and CW communities that don’t have their own publication. However, we want to take things slowly, conscious that a weekly newsletter is a major time commitment. We’ll see how things evolve over the next few months and take it from there.
We fully expect Roundtable to evolve in the coming months; your feedback will help us navigate the ongoing process of making it better. You can reach us anytime at catholicworker@substack.com.
Warmly,
Jerry Windley-Daoust
P.S. By the way, if you’re wondering why we titled this newsletter Roundtable, check out the About page.
FEATURED
Featured reads on CatholicWorker.org.
CWers arrested in action at Pentagon marking Feast of the Holy Innocents
Two Catholic Workers were arrested at a nonviolent protest at the Pentagon on December 28 marking the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The action, which included a liturgy, was organized by members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker (Washington, D.C.) in collaboration with the Little Flower Catholic Worker Farm (Louisa, Virginia) and Norfolk Catholic Worker (Norfolk, Virginia).
According to an email from Art Laffin, one of the event’s organizers, the demonstration aimed to show prayerful solidarity with others in the U.S. and globally who are marking the feast day by publicly opposing war-making efforts. The event began with a procession led by Bill Frankel-Streit of the Little Flower Catholic Worker and Kim Williams of the Norfolk Catholic Worker. Starting from the Pentagon’s designated protest area, they moved to the main checkpoint gate, carrying a banner reading “Wounded Knee to GAZA-Stop the Massacre of Innocents!”
“In these perilous times, we need now, more than ever, to live and proclaim the Gospel of Nonviolence and resist the ongoing massacre of the Holy Innocents today,” Laffin said.
Read the full story at CatholicWorker.org.
CW communities call for ceasefire in Israel-Hamas conflict
This fall, from St. Louis to London, Catholic Workers have walked with Jewish groups and pacifist organizers to protest the United States’ blocking of U.N. resolutions for a ceasefire, to protest Boeing’s supply of weapons to Israel, and to stand in solidarity with Jewish and Palestinian groups advocating for peace and justice.
“We mourn and we yearn for the bodies and the rubble of Gaza,” Martha Hennessy said in a Nov. 8 statement from the kitchen of Maryhouse (New York). What will it look like 20 years from now?”
“I’ve been so wanting to know how to bilocate,” said Mary Anne Grady Flores, of the Ithaca Catholic Worker Community. “My spirit wants to be in Palestine and in Gaza right now.”
Read the whole report from Renee Roden at CatholicWorker.org.
Houston CW calls for city to issue migrants work permits
The Houston Catholic Worker reports in its December issue that Casa Juan Diego has been at capacity for the past eight months due to the recent surge in migrants.
“We can only give people 10 days in our house of hospitality because there are so many others arriving,” Louise Zwick, Houston Catholic Worker co-founder, wrote. “We have to refuse people who have been in the U. S. more than a month and sometimes cannot even accept the newest arrivals because of space.”
Other shelters in Houston no longer accept undocumented families, leaving them with no place to go.
To alleviate the situation, Casa Juan Diego suggests the city of Houston establish a service to help eligible refugees apply for work permits, a simpler process than asylum applications. “The new refugees who receive work permits would be a great resource for employers in the community,” Zwick wrote.
Read the full story at CatholicWorker.org.
CW NEWS
Milwaukee CWers speak out on racism in child welfare system
Casa Maria (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) Catholic Worker Lincoln Rice has published a book about bias in the child welfare system. In The Ethics of Protection: Reimagining Child Welfare in an Anti-Black Society (Fortress, 2023), Rice draws on historical analysis, Catholic social teaching, Scripture, and the experience of the oppressed to reframe the ethical issues surrounding child welfare from the perspective of Black families.
Casa Maria has long worked with women involved in the child welfare system. Rice and fellow Catholic Worker Amada Morales-Zamudio, a family advocate, explored the topic of racial disparities in the child welfare system on The 411 Live podcast. Black children are two times more likely to be considered victims of maltreatment compared to white children, Rice said, and are three times more likely to be removed from the home even in similar situations.
Judith Samson of Bread and Roses CW on climate change activism
In episode 20 of the Coffee with Catholic Workers podcast, host Theo Kayser interviews Judith Samson from the Brot und Rosen (Bread and Roses) Catholic Worker community in Hamburg, Germany, about her involvement in Christian-oriented climate change activism.
Judith is involved with Christian Climate Action and Last Generation, groups committed to civil disobedience to address climate change. Last Generation employs direct methods like street blockades to disrupt daily life and draw attention to the climate crisis.
Peace House celebrates 5 years, mutual aid programs
Peace House, Ypsi (Ypsilanti, Michigan) celebrated its fifth anniversary with a backyard gathering in September. Mercy House (Ann Arbor, Michigan) celebrated ten years in its current house, while Hospitality House (also known as Solidarity House) celebrated its first anniversary, according to the Fall/Winter Peace House newsletter.
Peace House, Ypsi, continues to be involved in organizing mutual aid efforts such as the Southeast Michigan Pull Over Prevention car repair clinics (which helped repair more than 100 cars in 2023) and Pet Pals Mutual Aid. “Many of our friends make the difficult choice to stay outside, even in harsh weather rather than give up their animal family members,” Sheri Wander wrote in the Detroit Free Press.
Father and son bike from Vietnam to Cambodia to raise money for CW farm
Jack and Damian Biel cycled 350 km (217.5 miles) from Vietnam to Cambodia in late November to raise money for Catholic Worker Farm (Rickmansworth. England). The ride also commemorated the life of Patrik Biel, Jack’s son and Damian’s brother, who died in a car accident in 2014 at the age of 21. Patrik had volunteered at the Catholic Worker Farm before his death, and the family have remained “ardent supporters” of the farm, the pair wrote on their GoFundMe page.
Read a local magazine's coverage of their ride here.
Tampa CW teams up with drop-in center
Dorothy Day Tampa (Tampa, Florida) volunteers will begin assisting the Gracepoint Wellness drop-in center staff in early 2024. The Coffee Shop drop-in center provides unsheltered people with showers, laundry, a post office box, computer access, coffee, and community meals, as well as critical case management and wraparound support services.
Michael and Ann Doyle, Dorothy Day Tampa founders, have a long history with The Coffee Shop, helping it to re-open in 2014 and organizing volunteers to refurbish the space in 2022.
Separately, a Tampa CW initiative, Breadcoin, was featured in both the Tampa Bay Tribune and BayNews9, a local television station. Breadcoin is a national initiative that distributes tokens to people in need; the tokens can be redeemed for $2.50 at participating restaurants and food vendors.
House of Grace CW’s Kay Lasante Clinic teams up with What If Foundation
Kay Lasante Clinic in Port au Prince, Haiti, has joined with the What If Foundation, a California-based nonprofit organization serving Haitian children, according to the latest newsletter from House of Grace (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), which co-founded the clinic with a local parish and Bishop Tom Gumbleton in 2004. “This merger allows for tax deduction for supporters. It also allows for sustainability and the possibility of development of additional services,” the House of Grace newsletter noted. “This good news fill us with such joy and hope for the future.”
Arizona nonprofit for pregnant women had Catholic Worker roots
Maggie’s Place, an Arizona nonprofit that provides shelter and long-term support to homeless pregnant women, got its start as a Catholic Worker community called Magdalene House in May, 2000. Back in 1999, five young women who were “inspired by their Catholic faith and the Catholic Worker tradition” decided to start a house of hospitality serving pregnant women, Maggie’s Place CEO Laura Magruder told Fox News Digital. The effort evolved into the nonprofit, which now runs five houses and provides long-term case management, therapy, and workforce development services.
APPEALS
St. Louis Catholic Worker is working to raise $50,000 to purchase a house; get details at their GoFundMe.
The newly formed Little Platte Catholic Worker Farm is seeking gifts and loans to help them purchase a 37-acre farm near Platteville, Wisconsin.
Tombstone Quaker CW (Tombstone, Arizona) is seeking a live-in volunteer.
Bloomington Christian Radical / Catholic Worker (Bloomington, Indiana) seeks new live-in volunteers.
CALENDAR
Feb 2 | Virtual event
Committed Together: Raising Kids in Community
February 16 – February 18 | Platteville, Wisconsin
National Biennial Catholic Worker Farmer Gathering
Mar 3 – Mar 24 | Virtual event
Dorothy Day Guild Book Study
April 12 - April 15 | Kansas City, Missouri
Midwest Catholic Worker Faith & Resistance Retreat
A FEW GOOD WORDS
We Are Not Too Late
From Dorothy Day, “We Are Not Too Late to Give Room to Christ” in The Catholic Worker, December, 1945:
It is no use to say that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.
But now it is with the voice of our contemporaries that he speaks, with the eyes of store clerks, factory workers and children that he gazes; with the hands of office workers, slum dwellers and suburban housewives that he gives. It is with the feet of soldiers and tramps that he walks, and with the heart of anyone in need that he longs for shelter. And giving shelter or food to anyone who asks for it, or needs it, is giving it to Christ.
. . .
It would be foolish to pretend that it is easy always to remember this. If everyone were holy and handsome, with “alter Christus” shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone. If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as St. John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God’s way for her nor is it Christ’s way for Himself now when He is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth.
To see how far one realizes this, it is a good thing to ask honestly what you would do, or have done, when a beggar asked at your house for food. Would you–or did you–give it on an old cracked plate, thinking that was good enough? Do you think that Martha and Mary thought that the old and chipped dish was good for their guest?
In Christ’s human life there were always a few who made up for the neglect of the crowd.
The shepherds did it, their hurrying to the crib atoned for the people who would flee from Christ.
The wise men did it; their journey across the world made up for those who refused to stir one hand’s breadth from the routine of their lives to go to Christ. Even the gifts that the wise men brought have in themselves an obscure recompense and atonement for what would follow later in this Child’s life. For they brought gold, the king’s emblem, to make up for the crown of thorns that He would wear; they offered incense, the symbol of praise, to make up for the mockery and the spitting; they gave Him myrrh, to heal and soothe, and He was wounded from head to foot and no one bathed his wounds. The women at the foot of the cross did it too, making up for the crowd who stood by and sneered.
We can do it too, exactly as they did. We are not born too late. We do it by seeing Christ and serving Christ in friends and strangers, in everyone we come in contact with. While almost no one is unable to give some hospitality or help to others, those for whom it is really impossible are not debarred from giving room to Christ, because, to take the simplest of examples, in those they live with or work with is Christ disguised. All our life is bound up with other people; for almost all of us happiness and unhappiness are conditioned by our relationship with other people. What a simplification of life it would be if we forced ourselves to see that everywhere we go is Christ, wearing out socks we have to darn, eating the food we have to cook, laughing with us, silent with us, sleeping with us.