CWs Respond to Rising Anti-Migrant Rhetoric
Plus: The parallel lives of Dorothy Day and St. Maria Skobstova; European Catholic Workers meet; Pax Christi at USCCB meeting; and planting potatoes in Sweden.
‘How Have I Never Heard of This Before?’
“This is insane,” my dad called me the day after I told him I would be interning with Catholic Worker this summer. “How have I never heard of this before?”
Though he is Protestant, my dad has been my soundboard for all things Catholic my whole life. From entertaining my questions on transubstantiation vs consubstantiation in Catholic school to reading my overly lengthy thesis on Eastern Rite Catholicism in college, he has learned a lot about Catholicism by proxy, but the CW was news to him.
“I feel like I’m pretty in tune with the Catholic world,” he began, “but I was reading up on this movement and all the good they’re doing, and this Dorothy Day—Is that her name? She’s pretty cool. But, really, where is all of this on the news?”
Bingo.
This was the same question I asked myself last year when I first heard of Dorothy Day while taking a class on women in Orthodox Christianity. I didn’t learn about her during my Catholic schooling or while studying Catholicism in college but through the story of an Orthodox saint: St. Mary of Paris, also known as Mother Maria Skobstova or “the Orthodox Dorothy Day.”
As the only Catholic in the class, others turned to me to explain who this Dorothy Day was; admittedly, I knew nothing. As I began researching, I accidentally discovered one of my greatest inspirations and the movement she started, which I knew I wanted to be involved in.
Every other aspect of my vocation has appeared to be an accident. In my freshman year of college, I accidentally walked into a Catholic church for daily Mass while trying to escape the noise of the University of Alabama sorority rush — no part of me expected myself to devote even half an hour of my weekday to Catholicism, let alone the next four years to studying it. At the end of those four years, I accidentally took a class in journalism, unaware that “article writing” refers to magazines rather than academic articles. Yet it was there that I discovered my true vocation: Catholic journalism.
This summer, I’m combining this vocation with my love for the Catholic Worker Movement as a journalism intern for Roundtable and CatholicWorker.org. My goal is to highlight the CW work that tends to go unnoticed; I find that these “small” stories often have the biggest impact.
I’m grateful to Harvard Divinity School’s Religion and Public Life for funding this internship as part of my Certificate in Religion and Journalism. The program stresses the inner diversity of religions, how religion can be a force for good, and how we don’t need violence to achieve peace. These are all truths that I see in the CWM and hope to bring light to, all with the goal that I will never be asked again, “How have I never heard of this before?”
Scarlett
Call for artists
If you are a Catholic Worker artist, or an artist who appreciates the Catholic Worker, we’d love to showcase your art here and at CatholicWorker.org. Reach out to: jerry@catholicworker.org.
FEATURED
The Parallel Lives of Dorothy Day and St. Maria Skobstova
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For her debut article on CatholicWorker.org, here’s Scarlett Rose Ford’s fascinating story about the seemingly parallel lives of two of the twentieth century’s most influential religious leaders, Dorothy Day and Elizaveta Pilenko, now known as St. Maria of Paris. Here’s an excerpt:
Just before the turn of the 20th century, two women were born 4,200 miles apart who would become two of the most prominent figures of the century in their respective religions: one in the metropolitan hub of New York City and the other in the small city of Riga, Russian Empire (now Latvia).
The American Catholic Dorothy Day—now Servant of God Dorothy Day—and the Russian Orthodox Elizaveta Pilenko—now St. Maria of Paris, formerly Mother Maria Skobstova—never crossed paths, yet their stories seem to be not only crossed but braided, knotted, and tied together.
These two women were writers, anarchists, and activists for the poor. They were both fans of Russian literature, especially Dostoevsky. Day was baptized Episcopal but not raised religiously; she converted to Catholicism after her child was born in 1926. Skobstova was baptized Orthodox but became an atheist after her father died; she re-converted to Orthodoxy after her child died in 1926.
Both women were married and divorced, leaving them both single mothers. Both lost children, Day to abortion and Skobstova to infant illness. Both had conversions that led them to radical service to their faiths. Ultimately, their shared life experiences led to a theology of emptying oneself for the sake of others, which led them to be candidates for sainthood.
These two women are not what you think about when you hear the word “saint.” In 1917, Day was arrested with the suffragettes, beaten, and sent to prison. She was arrested five more times after this, landing her on the FBI watchlist as a “dangerous American.” The New Yorker later wrote of her “onetime communism, sometime socialism, and all-the-time anarchism.”
Skobstova was not the average nun, let alone saint. Biographer Jim Forest wrote of her as “the cigarette-smoking beggar nun.” In her early adulthood, she was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party and became the deputy mayor of her town, Anapa, in 1918. She was likewise arrested several times for her politics and later developed a great devotion to “Holy Fools: people who behaved outrageously and yet revealed Christ in a remarkable way.”
Although their radical conversions led them from extreme secularism to extreme religiosity, Dorothy Day and Mother Maria did not abandon their socialist and anarchist beliefs — they adjusted them to advance the Gospel.
Read the entire essay at CatholicWorker.org.
The New Age of Mass Migration May Be the Perfect Chance to Rebuild the Social Order
While many Catholic Worker communities are addressing the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment, few communities operate in the teeth of the conflict as much as the Houston Catholic Worker. Texas leaders have launched a series of measures to deter asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants from entering the state across the southern border, including legislation that makes it a crime to aid migrants entering the state illegally.
In response, Louise Zwick and Noemí Flores recently published an essay on the Houston Catholic Worker website that calls out Christians who spout hateful and untrue anti-immigrant rhetoric as not Christians at all, but followers of a false god and practioners of a new religion “that promotes disparagement of others, encourages threats of violence and oppression, the identification of only one country with its religion, and the violation of other commandments.”
And yet, the largest mass migration of people in human history may present an opportunity to remake the social order, Zwick and Flores write. “The Church and the Catholic Worker Movement in its founders can show us a different way to respond. There is historical precedent.”
That precedent is the mass migration of peoples following the breakup of the Roman Empire (about 300 to 1000):
It is fascinating to read about the role of the Church in those centuries and especially that of the monasteries in bringing together peoples from different countries and different cultures, and actually reconstructing the social order. This happened especially from the example of the monks and monasteries who inspired the people.
There were heresies and divisions in the Church then as there are now, but goodness and the monastic ideal prevailed.
The authors examine how Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day Looked to the ancient monastic movements as a guide for how to reconstruct the social order. Their vision can help us unlock a truly Christian response to the new age of mass migration, the authors write, one grounded not in “what is being called Christian nationalism, but through the way of the Cross, through the Paschal Mystery.”
Read the entire essay at CatholicWorker.org.
European CWers Meet for Clarification, Community, and Fun
Roundtable’s Renée Roden recently caught up with a few European Catholic Workers following their May gathering; here’s an excerpt from her report:
The European Catholic Worker communities who attended the five-day gathering took turns providing dinner, leading morning prayers and meditations, and giving a report of their community’s activities to the others gathered. Brot und Rosen, the community from Hamburg, reported on the new solar panels their community installed with the help of several donors to provide more electricity for the house’s water heating. Gerstner said the 320 square meters of solar panels on the roof can produce 200 kilowatts of electricity on a sunny day during the long northern European summer.
Workshops–similar to Roundtable Discussions–were hosted on various provocative questions. One was on police violence. The question: “Are you still non-violent if you rely on police (violence) for protection?” guided the session.
An open letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Christians was featured in the autumn newsletter of the London Catholic Worker. This letter guided another workshop on Palestine, apartheid, and the Israeli military’s action in Gaza.
“Again and again they identified a double standard in Western attitudes: while Israeli Jews are humanized, Palestinians are dehumanized,” wrote Samson about the letter in the German magazine Contraste.
Samson, who has been living and working at the Brot und Rosen community for a year and a half, said that each national had a special connection to the conflict: British Catholic Workers because of the history of the Balfour Declaration and British colonial rule in Palestine from 1920 to 1948. Samson said the discussion about a hot topic was calm and meditative. “It’s a challenge to the Catholic Worker and also Christians in Germany,” Samson said. She said the discussions revolving around anti-Semitism and liberation theology within the Gaza conflict are very loaded discussions in Germany. “It’s really a challenge for us German Christians,” she said.
Another workshop tackled the question about the morality of national borders, global migration and immigration–“What would a Christian border look like?” was the opening question. “As long as there is such a grave disparity of wealth in the world, we have to deal with harsh borders,” Dietrich said. He said the discussion revolved around the definition of a border, capitalism and witnessing to one’s country that “the good life” is not defined only in wealth or economics.
Other round tables addressed neurodiversity in Catholic Worker communities, racism, sexism, and decolonizing Catholic Worker communities.
A cabaret performance closed out the weekend. A glow-in-the-dark statue of Fatima is the trophy for the winner, much like the Midwest Catholic Worker’s famous “football Mary” trophy. The Fatima trophy had been won by a community of Catholic Workers who had not attended in several years. Gerstner visited the community to bring the Fatima trophy back to make a glorious return appearance at this year’s gathering. Sometimes the “most pitiful” sketch wins, rather than the best one, Gerstner joked. The smaller, plug-in glow-in-the-dark Madonna that had been the replacement trophy went to the winning children’s skit.
Read the whole report here: European CWers Gather for Community, Clarification, and Fun
THE ROUNDUP
Climate change is “like nuclear war in slow motion,” Mike Miles, of Anathoth Catholic Worker Community Farm (Luck, Wisconsin), told AgUpdate in a recent article profiling Miles and Barb Kass, the farm’s founders. Entitled “Sacramental Agriculture Brings Peace,” the article shares the story of Kass and Miles’ introduction to the Catholic Worker Movement, their formation in non-violent resistance, and the increasing urgency felt in federal programs and Gen-Zers to have a more human (and humane) connection with the earth and food and farming systems. Read the full piece here.
An interview with two members of Combatants for Peace (CfP) is the lead article in the spring newsletter of Brot und Rosen Catholic Worker (Hamburg, Germany). CfP is a grassroots movement of former fighters from Israel and Palestine who have committed to nonviolent action for peace, equality, and freedom. Osama Iliwat and Rotem Levin discussed their personal journeys, motivations for laying down arms, and the challenges they face in promoting peace in a conflict-ridden region. In other news, the community recently installed solar panels, funded in part by a local church. The community has also participated in various demonstrations and protests, and the newsletter includes a speech by Dietrich Gerstner at a demonstration promoting a ceasefire and a negotiated peace in the Russia-Ukraine war. And on June 11, Reb Chris from the Philippines gave a talk about his human rights work and how it is possible to be a prophetic church amid the oppression of the current government. The newsletter, which is in German, is available for download from the community’s website.
Kana – Dortmunder Suppenküche Catholic Worker (Dortmund, Germany) was among the many groups who organized a demonstration on June 8 in Dortmund in reaction to government policies and societal trends marginalizing vulnerable populations, particularly homeless individuals and refugees. The groups, working together as United in Solidarity, issued a three-page statement outlining their concerns. Among the concerns raised in the statement are the forced removal of homeless people from city centers, especially in the context of major events like the European Football Championship; the outsourcing of emergency shelter operations to profit-oriented companies like European Homecare (EHC) and Serco; and the recently adopted Common European Asylum System (GEAS) reform, which organizers say enables chain deportations of asylum seekers and outsources asylum processing to third countries.
On Monday, the London Catholic Worker will be starting Refugee Week by praying and protesting outside the Home Office on Marsham Street. They will be praying for the end of lethal border policies put in place by European governments, including Britain. This and other event updates can be found on their Instagram.
“As long as you can chop onions and peel potatoes you'll be a valuable part of the community!” So goes the pitch from the London Catholic Worker for new community members; interested parties can contact the community at londoncatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk.
Last Saturday was “planting day” at The Mustard Seed Community (Lulea, Sweden) last Saturday, according to a post on the community’s Facebook page: “It was a special planting day this year even though most of the workers were children! But it was no forced labor of course! They were completely volunteer and curious workers. It was a wonderful day together. We (set) potatoes and onions, ate lunch together, prayed and sang for the garden and ended with coffee and some football of course!” View pictures at the post.
Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement were the subject of a recent talk by Adrien Louandre at Le Dorothy Catholic Worker (Paris, France); Louandre is author of a new book documenting how Scholl and other young German Christians united to resist the German government during World War II.
Pax Christi USA received the inaugural Dorothy Day Peacemaker Award from the Dorothy Day Guild on Tuesday at at a breakfast before the annual spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Louisville, Kentucky. The award was entrusted to Bishop John E. Stowe of Lexington, Ky., bishop president of Pax Christi’s national council, who had accepted the award on behalf of the organization. Read about the event at Catholic Review.
Members of Pax Christi USA demonstrated across the street from the annual bishops’ meeting on Wednesday, holding signs urging the bishops to urging the bishops to fund the work of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, reports The Pillar. CCHD is the bishops’ anti-poverty initiative; its expenses have outpaced its revenue every year since 2014, The Pillar reports. The bishops were planning to discuss “ways to renew the mandate and mission of CCHD” during their meeting, and pledged to continue “helping the poor and disenfranchised emerge from the cycle of poverty,” according to a USCCB press release. Read the story at The Pillar for details.
The British High Court will hear Julian Assange's appeal against extradition to the U.S. on July 9th and 10th. In response, Catholic Worker Ciaron O'Reilly will strike camp outside Belmarsh Prison, where Assange is held, to protest his persecution for exposing U.S. war crimes. O'Reilly views Assange as a fellow anti-war activist and believes maintaining a visible presence outside the prison is crucial for both Assange and those who would rather ignore his plight. He urges everyone to support Assange's release and resist the escalating war. You can follow O'Reilly's efforts on his Facebook group and contribute financially through his GoFundMe campaign.
What does it mean to be a Catholic Worker? What’s the nature and structure of the movement, and what does a person have to do, if they want to join up? And does the institutional Catholic Church have any jurisdiction over the movement, the newspaper, or the Catholic Worker communities? Catch Roundtable regular Renée Roden riffing on these questions and more on U.S. Catholic’s latest Glad You Asked podcast.
CALENDAR
June 24 | Virtual event, Maurin Academy
Eating Up Easter Film Screening
July 19 | National Eucharistic Congress, Indianapolis
Martha Hennessy: “Dorothy Day’s Radical Devotion to the Eucharist”
August 10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California
CW Memorial & Action at Vandenberg Space Force Base
September 6-7 | Chicago
Peter Maurin Conference
September 12-15 | Sugar Creek, Iowa
Midwest Catholic Worker Gathering
A FEW GOOD WORDS
Two Easy Essays
By Peter Maurin
What Saint Francis Desired
According to Johannes Jorgensen, a Danish convert, living in Assisi: 1. Saint Francis desired
that men should give up
superfluous possessions.
2. Saint Francis desired
that men should work
with their hands.
3. Saint Francis desired
that men should offer their services
as a gift.
4. Saint Francis desired
that men should ask other people for help
when work failed them.
5. Saint Francis desired
that men should live
as free as birds.
6. Saint Francis desired
that men should go through life
giving thanks to God
for His gifts.
Right Or Wrong
1. Some people say:
"My country
is always right."
2. Some people say:
"My country
is always wrong."
3. Some people say:
"My country
is sometimes right
and sometimes wrong,
but my country
right or wrong."
4. To stick up for one's country
when one's country is wrong
does not make
the country right.
5. To stick up for the right
even when the world is wrong
is the only way we know
to make everything right.
Find more of Peter Maurin’s Easy Essays on CatholicWorker.org.
Roundtable covers the Catholic Worker Movement. This week’s Roundtable was produced by Renée Roden, Rosalie Riegle, Scarlett Rose Ford, Joan Bromberek, Monica Welch, and Jerry Windley-Daoust.
Roundtable is an independent publication not associated with the New York Catholic Worker or The Catholic Worker newspaper.