KATE HENNESSY: She didn’t know any Catholics, and she didn’t know that the church had teachings on social justice. She had not heard anything about this, no one had mentioned this to her. So here she was trying to figure out how to combine this newfound faith with her old thirst for social justice. How does she make sense of this?

SIMONE CAMPBELL Catholic Social Teaching comes out of the sense that the gospel is not a personal journey, the gospel is a communal journey, it’s a worldwide journey… the responsibility to care for the earth, the responsibility to care for those who are most left out in poverty and struggle, and the responsibility to build up a society where all can flourish and realize their own dignity.

MARK MASSA: May Day is the big celebration on May the first, of Communism and of the workers of the world uniting and throwing off their chains. So it was by no means an accident that she and Peter Maurin decided that the first . . . appearance of the Catholic Worker occurs on May Day in Union Square...

KATE HENNESSY: She wanted to call it “Catholic” because that was where she was fully…invested, fully feeling Catholic. So…and it was really important for her to say to people, to say to other Catholics, the church does have a program for social justice.

ROBERT ELLSBERG: The day would begin with the soup line, that was the kind of structure of life there. It began early in the morning with someone who was in charge of putting beans in the water and boiling them for soup. And then at a certain point, people would begin lining up outside the door. . . .

MARK MASSA: ….This idea that every Christian has a personal responsibility to get involved in taking care of our brothers and sisters.…when someone comes to us and asks for help, we can’t say, “The State office is down the street.” Or, “I can’t give you these coupons, but I can send you to the right office.” She said that was the wrong response. The response is that we ourselves have to do something for that person.. the profound theological truth she saw was that we should do something for the other because that changes us. It doesn’t just change the other person. We’re changed.

KATE HENNESSY: But she always said that when people came to the door, when people came in such need, to her that was a way that she most easily saw the face of God.

MARTIN SHEEN: Their clients were all referred to as guests…everybody was treated with the utmost respect…. she did not want people serving the poor as if they were doing them a favor. On the contrary you want to be welcome in their presence and you want them to feel human and equal… Nearly all of them were homeless and most of them were alcoholics.

ROBERT ELLSBERG: The goal of the Worker was not to fix all these people. It was not a social agency and some people could say well you’re not really helping them, this person really needs to be on medication. Well after a while, you didn’t even raise these kinds of questions, you just kind of accepted people as they were and made room for them as long as there was a modicum of peace.

JOAN CHITTISTER: treating the other as Christ. Everybody who comes in the door is a Christ figure… And that whole notion of hospitality – that you are at the ready to take people into your own life, whatever that might mean….it says we have ten dollars, and it would cost us each fifty cents to eat today, so bring in twenty people and we will all eat today.

MARK MASSA [on pacifist stance in 1940s] we know she lost a lot of Catholic support. Not only among the hierarchy, but among rank-and-file Catholics who lost sons, you know, fighting in Normandy and Europe. They could just not understand how someone who claimed to be a Catholic could be so critical of the last good war.

ROBERT ELLSBERG [on Worker involvement in anti-Vietnam War movement] The very first demonstration against the Vietnam War was organized out of the Catholic Worker in 1963. The very first draft card burner, who was arrested after it became illegal, was from the Catholic Worker.

The Catholic Worker Movement began on May 1st, 1933, when Dorothy Day and her close colleague Peter Maurin began selling the first edition of the Catholic Worker newspaper in Union Square in New York City. Addressing the exploitation of labor, the plight of the poor, racism and anti-Semitism, peacemaking, and other issues, the Catholic Worker was intended to affirm the Church’s concern for the marginalized. Within three years, over 150,000 copies of the paper – sold for a penny - were being distributed, and Catholic churches and seminaries were ordering it in bulk. Before long, the paper’s ideals were put into action when the first Catholic Worker soup kitchens and houses of hospitality were established, soon followed by communal farms. Eventually, the movement’s signature focus on hospitality and care for the marginalized would expand to include participation in public protests against war and nuclear weapons and demonstrations for workers’ rights.

1. What do you see as the primary legacy of the Catholic Worker movement today? To what extent has the movement impacted wider society?

2. What was the essential role of the Catholic Worker houses of hospitality? Do houses of hospitality change or serve different functions in different contexts? Do you think their role has changed or should change over time? Why or why not?

3. What was the purpose of the Catholic Worker farm communities, such as Mary Farm? Was it a workable vision or a very naive one? Do the Worker farms have anything to teach us today about economy, self-sufficiency, or ecology?

4. A fundamental idea behind the Worker movement in all its manifestations is that “we are our brother’s keeper”---that, in essence, we are responsible to and for each other. Do you agree with this sort of thinking? Do you think it is reflected in much of contemporary American culture? Why or why not?

5. In the film, scholar Mark Massa asserts that “the profound theological truth [Dorothy] saw was that we should do something for the ‘other’ because that changes us.” Do you agree that one of the central effects of helping others is that we are changed in the process? Does that shift the focus away from the person being helped? Have you experienced this sort of transformation in your own work on behalf of others? If so, when and where?

6. Why was Dorothy Day so opposed to an institutionalized approach to charity? Do you agree with her? Is there a distinction to be made between charity and service, or charity and justice?

7. What role did Peter Maurin play in the founding of the Catholic Worker movement? In Dorothy Day’s life? Is there someone in your life who has played a similar role for you--- offering spiritual guidance and direction and suggesting an outlet for your talents? If so, how have they influenced you? How important is it to have a spiritual role model or guide?

8. Review the major tenets of Roman Catholic Social Teaching. (You can do so at the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-andteachings/ what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/seven-themes-of-catholic-socialteaching. com) How did the Catholic Worker movement come to embody these principles? In what ways did Dorothy Day’s own life and work embody them? Are there aspects of these teachings that she or the movement did or do not embody? How might Day be a good model for a person attempting to live out these tenets?

9. In her memoirs and in interviews, Day suggested that many of the services the movement came to provide, such as the houses of hospitality, were the result of an almost spontaneous response to represented need. What is the advantage of this sort of flexibility and openness- --of responding to need when you see it? And what are the disadvantages in terms of planning, support, and sustainability?

10. From its origins, the Catholic Worker movement has always been staunchly pacifist. Day and Worker colleagues were involved in many anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons protests and acts of civil disobedience from the 1940s to the 1970s (Day’s death). Do you consider demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience appropriate? What sort of parameters would you draw around what acts of civil disobedience are or are not appropriate? Do you agree with those Catholics who accused Day and her fellow Workers of undermining war efforts and of not being patriotic (particularly during World War II)?

In the first issue of the paper we dealt with Negro labor, exploited as cheap labor by the War Department, We wrote of women and children in industry and the spread of unemployment.... The next issues were stories of textile strikes, farmer’s strike in the Midwest, child labor and combating anti-Semitism… (The Long Loneliness, 205)

Many times we have been asked why we spoke of Catholic workers, and so named the paper. Of course it was not only because we who were in charge of the work, who edited the paper, were all Catholics but also because we wished to influence Catholics. They were our own, and we reacted sharply to the accusation that when it came to private morality the Catholics shone but when it came to social and political morality, they were often conscienceless. Also Catholics were the poor, and most of them had little ambition or hope of bettering their condition to the extent of achieving ownership of home or business, or further education for their children. They accepted things as they were with humility and looked for a better life to come. . . . (The Long Loneliness, 210)

[On Peter Maurin’s influence, central to founding the Catholic Worker movement.] Peter made you feel a sense of mission as soon as you met him…. He always reminded me that we are our brother’s keeper… that we must have a sense of personal responsibility to take care of our neighbor at a personal sacrifice. It is not the function of the state to enter into these realms. (The Long Loneliness, 171)

He stressed the need for building a new society within the shell of the old – a society in which it was easier for people to be good. (The Long Loneliness, 179)

But we are living in these times of tremendous failure…of man’s sense of responsibility to what he is doing. He relinquishes it to the state. He is not obedient to his own promptings of conscience… (from Bill Moyers film).

If your brother is hungry you feed him. You don’t meet him at the door and say “go be thou filled” or wait for a few weeks and you will get a welfare check. You sit him down and feed him. And that is how the soup kitchen started. (from The Christophers program).

One day writing about hospitality in the paper…and this girl came in, it was during the Depression and she had nothing but a shopping bag with clothes in it. And she came and said “I understand you have a House of Hospitality. And I said “No, we have been writing about it. And she said, “Well, why do you write about it if you don’t have one?” …We went right out…we rented a seven-room apartment. We had our first house of Hospitality. (from RTE interview).