The Catholic Worker Turns 76

Today in 1933 saw the first issue of The Catholic Worker. The newspaper was one part of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s Catholic Worker movement, which was an unparalleled attempt in American Catholicism whereby laypeople attempted to live out a radically evangelical form of poverty in solidarity with the poor. The other parts of the movement were the soup kitchens and houses of hospitality situated in the major urban centers. In 1948, the paper published “A Letter to Our Readers,” in which it announced that its goals were “the same now as when we first met back in 1933”:

o To reach the people in the street with the Church’s social teachings
o To reach the masses by practicing the corporal works of mercy and voluntary poverty
o To build up a lay apostolate through round table discussions
o To found houses of hospitality for the practices of the works of mercy
o To found farming communes for the cure of unemployment

Today, the Worker continues to pursue these goals (although the farming part isn’t as big as Dorothy would have liked.)