A Complicated Saint for Complicated Times
By Anna Laughery,
Saints and political rhetoric typically have very little in common. The former prioritizes charity and self-sacrifice while the latter thrives on division and strife. But one thing is true about both––it is risky business to oversimplify them. Saints often have colorful pasts and political issues are frequently more multifaceted than initially presented. Servant of God Dorothy Day is a saint who illustrates the complexities of both sainthood and political issues. Throughout her life, she did not let her past determine her sanctity and she lived outside of the political spectrum. She embodied the complexity of social and economic issues in a way few others have succeeded in doing.
Dorothy Day’s Life
Dorothy Day was born as the daughter of a journalist in New York on November 8, 1897. Her family moved around frequently, following her father as he pursued work. By the time she reached her teenage years, her family had settled in Chicago. She attempted college, but eventually dropped out to pursue a career as a reporter for a socialist newspaper in New York. She grew up loosely Episcopalian, but throughout her twenties the atmosphere of worship found within Catholic churches attracted her. She was also drawn to the Catholic Church because she saw it as the church of the immigrants and the poor. She had a heart for the underprivileged and throughout her twenties she attempted to pursue the common good through political activism.
In 1924, Dorothy civilly married Forster Batterham. With him she had her daughter who they named Tamar Theresa. During this time of her life, she began to engage more in the Catholic Church and eventually had her daughter baptized. She eventually left Forster, who was not supportive of her faith. She entered the Catholic Church herself in December 1927, and her lifelong love of the Catholic Church was born. In 1932 she met Peter Maurin, an itinerant French immigrant with whom she founded the Catholic Worker, a publication dedicated to promoting Catholic social teaching. The publication eventually grew into what is known today as the Catholic Worker Movement. This movement has established houses all around the world in which radical hospitality, the ancient Christian virtue, is practiced. Dorothy died in 1980 and is loved by many throughout the United States and the world.
Her Important Legacy
Like Dorothy herself, her legacy is a complicated one. Her cause for canonization was opened in 2012 but it was met with mixed responses. Some were excited to see this American hero enter the official number of the many holy men and women of the ages. But many were unhappy with the decision. Robert Ellsberg, a former Catholic Worker wrote that “people feel that Dorothy’s too good for the church, and are afraid of what will happen once the church gets its mitts on her.” Many use a quote that is often attributed to her to justify their anger at her cause for canonization. She supposedly said “Don’t call me a saint––I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” Those who support her sainthood say that this opposition to her canonization comes from a misunderstanding of what it means to be a saint.
This debate is far from settled, but it is an excellent example of the complexities of her life. She was an orthodox Catholic, but is often portrayed to be politically and socially opposed to the teachings of the Church. Two specific examples of the way she witnessed the complexities of both sainthood and political issues are through her engagement with the issues of abortion and economic systems.
The Complexity of Abortion
Though during her life Dorothy rarely publicly commented on the issue of abortion, it was a conversation that was near to her heart. In 1919, she got pregnant during her affair with newspaper worker Lionel Moise, who pressured her to have an abortion. Out of fear of losing him, she had an abortion which she later called “the great tragedy of her life.” The experience of her abortion can be found in her autobiographical novel The Eleventh Virgin. She writes about how her abortion made her feel unworthy of forgiveness. When she became pregnant again with her daughter Tamar, she wrote that she “saw this as a miracle from God because I thought that He had left me barren after the abortion.”
For a long time, she was incredibly ashamed of her abortion. After her abortion, she tried to commit suicide twice and she even tried to destroy all the copies of The Eleventh Virgin because of her shame. She only found healing through her relationship with Jesus through the Church. She wrote in The Eleventh Virgin “If you believe in the mission of Jesus Christ, then you’re bound to try to let go of your past, in the sense that you are entitled to His forgiveness. To keep regretting what was, is to deny God’s grace.” Cardinal John O’Connor, who championed her cause for canonization, echoed this sentiment, writing that “after becoming Catholic, she learned the love and mercy of the Lord, and knew she never had to worry about His forgiveness.” Her Catholic faith allowed her to find peace and forgiveness, while still seeing the moral evil of abortion.
Because Dorothy championed causes that are often associated with the political left, they think she also echoed the left’s support of abortion. but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Her opposition to abortion can be clearly seen in an anecdote from her life (the full story of this anecdote can be read here). While attending a meeting about the rights of women in South Dakota, one of the women leading the meeting posited that Dorothy “understood a woman’s right to choose, and that abortion was very much at the heart of empowering women.” At this, Dorothy immediately stood up and shook her finger at the woman and sternly but lovingly reproached her for the falseness of the belief. Dorothy believed the sexual revolution, and what it engendered, was detrimental to women rather than empowering.
In an autobiographical vignette she wrote:
The Sexual Revolution is a complete rebellion against authority, natural and supernatural, even against the body and its needs, its natural functions of childbearing. This is not reverence for life, it is a great denial and more resembles Nihilism than the revolution that they think they are furthering.
On the issue of abortion, she truly understood both sides of the issue. Dorothy is an example for post-abortive women as well as those of us who profess to be pro life. She simultaneously understood the pressure women may feel to get abortions while still upholding the dignity of both women and unborn babies. Through her life and witness, she embodied the complexities of the issue and is a witness of how to speak the truth in love.
The Complexity of Economic Systems
Dorothy is known as a champion of the poor, the immigrant, and the worker. She was known to take part in protests and picket lines to speak up for the underprivileged and those whom she saw society taking advantage of. Because of her work for the poor and her fight for equality, many people attribute ideologies to her that she herself would not advocate. On issues of economics and social issues, Dorothy cannot be boxed into one specific political party, whether that be right or left. Rather, as she writes in an article for the Catholic Worker, she believed in “the basic principles of personalism, personal responsibility and voluntary poverty.”
When it came to caring for the poor, she believed that it was done best when it was personal and voluntary, not systemic and obligatory. Like Catholic Social teaching, Dorothy does not espouse capitalism, socialism, or any other economic system, instead she believed in human dignity and fought for causes that valued the human person in his or her entirety. The encyclical Caritas in veritate by Pope Benedict XVI embodies her beliefs well. He writes that “the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity.” Both Dorothy and Benedict saw that the most important question Catholics should ask themselves in their economic engagement is not ‘Which economic system is best?’ but rather ‘How can I, through personal responsibility, uphold the dignity of my brothers and sisters?’
A Saint for our Times
In our current political conversation, it is not easy to see the best way forward. Every issue that faces our country and our world is multifaceted and cannot be oversimplified. Dorothy Day, through her embodiment of Catholic Social teaching, is a light for this particular darkness. Like Dorothy, we are all called to embody the principles of personalism, personal responsibility, and voluntary poverty. We are called to see social issues in their complexity and to engage with them, despite the challenges. Though we live in complex times and face complicated issues, we can base our political engagement and pursuit of holiness on one simple truth––“Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
