Catholic Workers Movement

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

what is the Catholic Workers movement? is it communistic? orthodox? i heard it had some connection to Catholic Anarchy? anyone know?

[Socrates]

[quote name='Extra ecclesiam nulla salus' post='1092631' date='Oct 15 2006, 08:53 PM']
what is the Catholic Workers movement? is it communistic? orthodox? i heard it had some connection to Catholic Anarchy? anyone know?
[/quote]
From my understanding they're kind of Communist/socialist. I wouldn't waste time with them.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I know of the priest-worker movement, by which priests tried to go undercover among communist workers to convert them, but often got converted themselves.

[iKonstantin]

On a related note, what do you think about the thousands of ex-Soviet KGB priests that were implanted into the Roman church throughout the Cold War?





bpat Konstantin

[shortnun]

[quote name='Extra ecclesiam nulla salus' post='1092631' date='Oct 15 2006, 09:53 PM']
what is the Catholic Workers movement? is it communistic? orthodox? i heard it had some connection to Catholic Anarchy? anyone know?
[/quote]
Have you tried reading the info directly on their website? [b][url="http://www.catholicworker.org/"]Catholic Worker Movement[/url][/b] (It's down at the moment, but you can google it and read off the cached version.) It's founders were Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. And I'm not a total fan of Wikipedia, but that'll give you more info, if you're interested.

[Era Might]

Pope John Paul II gave the Archdiocese of New York permission to open Dorthy Day's cause for canonization (she founded the Catholic Workers movement). I don't know much about the group today, but I believe it was once an orthodox organization dedicated to the corporal works of mercy.

Edited October 16, 2006 by Era Might

[Cam42]

[quote name='Extra ecclesiam nulla salus' post='1092631' date='Oct 15 2006, 08:53 PM']
what is the Catholic Workers movement? is it communistic? orthodox? i heard it had some connection to Catholic Anarchy? anyone know?
[/quote]

It is a form of Christian Anarchism. Basically, it's is the belief that the only source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable is God, embodied in the teachings of Jesus. Those who adhere believe freedom is justified spiritually through the teachings of Jesus, some of whom are critical of the Church. We should note that both Maurin and Day were both baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church and believed in the institution. However, they also were very critical some established norms of the Church. Dorothy Day was embraced by left-wing Catholics. She had written passionately about women’s rights, free love and birth control in the 1910s, she opposed the sexual revolution of the sixties, saying she had seen the ill effects of a similar sexual revolution in the 1920s, when she had an abortion.

Peter Maurin, outside being a founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, is most known for embracing the Personalist philosophy. In short, he ascribed to three principles, only persons are real (in the ontological sense), only persons have value, and only persons have free will. In declaring the absolute value of personhood, personalism stands firmly against certain forms of philosophical naturalism (including the social darwinism of Herbert Spencer) which sought to reduce the value of persons.

Several people influenced by personalism are Immanuel Kant, Pierre Trudeau, F.C.S. Schiller, and Martin Luther King, Jr. There were also several notable Catholics; Dorothy Day, Pope John Paul II and St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein).

As with most philosophies, when shown in the right thinking light of the Catholic Church, it can be rightly applied, however, it does not take a quick move to make a fatal mistake in the philosophy and go astray.

MLK, Jr. solidified his understanding of God as a personal God through this philosophy. It also gave him a metaphysical basis for his belief that all human personality has dignity and worth. However, there are several mistakes from a Catholic point of view in his work [url="http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/papers/vol4/580901-002-My_Pilgrimage_to_Nonviolence.htm"]My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence[/url].

I hope this helps a little in understanding the roots Sam.

[Lil Red]

thank you Cam, i was wondering as well.

[Era Might]

Cam,

What proof do you have that Dorothy Day was "very critical of some established norms of the Church"? Just because she was embraced by "left-wing Catholics" doesn't make her or her organization suspect. From what I know of her, she was a very orthodox woman. Do you have anything specific to bring against that perception?

Here's some of what John Cardinal O'Connor had to say about Dorothy Day:

[quote]"....[Dorothy] was anything but saintly in her early years: a statement that could be made with equal validity, for example, about St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Camillus de Lellis, and the saint who anointed the feet of the Savior with perfume and wiped them with her hair.

When she passed away in 1980 at the age of 83, she was among the most respected women in the Church and, indeed, in the world.

"However, once she discovered the Lord and His Church in 1918 through hours of prayer in St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village and Our Lady Help of Christians Church on Staten Island, Dorothy Day was 're-born' in the way that the aforementioned Savior told the proud and powerful Nicodemus he needed to be 're-born.' She went to Mass and Communion every day. She confessed her sins to a priest every week. She meditated on the Scriptures whenever she had a free moment. She prayed the Rosary with never-failing delight. And all the while, she handed herself over totally to the humble and courageous service of the poorest of the poor by fighting for their causes in her newspaper, The Catholic Worker, which published as many as 180,000 copies a month; by providing them food, clothing and shelter in her 'Houses of Hospitality,' which today number over 130 in urban centers across the nation; by demonstrating for them; by showering uncompromising love over even the most ungrateful of them; and especially by praying and denying herself even the most ordinary of pleasures and conveniences for them.

"Dorothy Day sought no accolades. She dismissed any suggestion that she was a saint, though she took extraordinary delight in studying the lives of the saints. She accepted the rejection of certain women's groups who could not forgive her condemnation of abortion, just as she accepted the rejection of a great number of her followers who could not understand her uncompromising commitment to peace. She told Church leaders in no uncertain terms when she thought they were mistaken in matters of social policy, but stood foursquare with them in matters of faith and morals.

"When she passed away in 1980 at the age of 83, in the little 'House of Hospitality' she shared with the poor and abandoned on Staten Island, she was among the most respected women in the Church and, indeed, in the world, honored by editorial writers, civil rights leaders, labor unions, universities, and in a way that meant the world to her, by Pope Paul VI, who had her come to Communion at one of his Masses after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council.

"Will Dorothy Day ever be declared a saint by the Church of her beloved Savior? I, of course, do not know. Still, in my own mind, she is marvelously saintly...."[/quote]

[Cam42]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1092987' date='Oct 16 2006, 10:50 AM']
Cam,

What proof do you have that Dorothy Day was "very critical of some established norms of the Church"? Just because she was embraced by "left-wing Catholics" doesn't make her or her organization suspect. From what I know of her, she was a very orthodox woman. Do you have anything specific to bring against that perception?
[/quote]

Read up on her. It is pretty clear. Also if you read what she had to say about women's rights and their "right to choose" then you'll see what I am talking about.

Start with "The Long Lonliness" then move to "Dorothy Day: In My Own Words." Perhaps then I would have you read "Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion."

Those were the works that I read while taking a class on the Catholic Worker Movement while at St. Thomas. It isn't all that hard to understand her position.

[Era Might]

Cam,

John Cardinal O'Connor had high words of praise for her, and opened her cause for canonization. O'Connor was a pillar of Catholic orthodoxy here in America. Your perception seems very different from his.

What did she say about a "right to choose"? According to Cardinal O'Connor, she was scorned because of her stand against abortion. She didn't convert until 1918, so what she did before then is not really relevant to her later Catholic life.

[Budge]

Does this mean some of you will be upset if they name Dorthory Day as a saint?

Actually too many are led into that social gospel errors, even prots and christians...

One should help the poor, feed hungry etc, but it should never take place of preaching the gospel.

[Cam42]

[quote name='Budge' post='1093053' date='Oct 16 2006, 12:27 PM']
Does this mean some of you will be upset if they name Dorthory Day as a saint?

Actually too many are led into that social gospel errors, even prots and christians...

One should help the poor, feed hungry etc, but it should never take place of preaching the gospel.
[/quote]

No. It doesn't.


[quote name='Era Might' post='1092992' date='Oct 16 2006, 11:02 AM']
Cam,

John Cardinal O'Connor had high words of praise for her, and opened her cause for canonization. O'Connor was a pillar of Catholic orthodoxy here in America. Your perception seems very different from his.

What did she say about a "right to choose"? According to Cardinal O'Connor, she was scorned because of her stand against abortion. She didn't convert until 1918, so what she did before then is not really relevant to her later Catholic life.
[/quote]

I'll have to go back and re-read your edit. It was made after I posted.

[shortnun]

[quote name='Budge' post='1093053' date='Oct 16 2006, 01:27 PM']
Does this mean some of you will be upset if they name Dorthory Day as a saint?

Actually too many are led into that social gospel errors, even prots and christians...

One should help the poor, feed hungry etc, but it should never take place of preaching the gospel.
[/quote]
No I certainly wouldn't be upset.

What do you mean that helping the poor and feeding the hungry shouldn't take the place of preaching the gospel? That is preaching the gospel. I guess I'm confused.

[Mateo el Feo]

Wiki link to Catholic Worker Movement:

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_workers"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_workers[/url]

[Budge]

[quote]No I certainly wouldn't be upset.

What do you mean that helping the poor and feeding the hungry shouldn't take the place of preaching the gospel? That is preaching the gospel. I guess I'm confused. [/quote]

Some get so hung up on changing this world, they forget that Jesus's kingdom is NOT of this world.

I think someone like Dorothy Day had good intentions...but this is an easy trap to fall into.

I think helping the poor etc, is a good thing, every Christian should be involved in those things...but the works flow out of the faith. Changing the world is not your center focus but bringing individual souls to Christ.

Edited October 16, 2006 by Budge

[shortnun]

[quote name='Budge' post='1093198' date='Oct 16 2006, 04:18 PM']
Some get so hung up on changing this world, they forget that Jesus's kingdom is NOT of this world.

I think someone like Dorothy Day had good intentions...but this is an easy trap to fall into.

I think helping the poor etc, is a good thing, every Christian should be involved in those things...but the works flow out of the faith. Changing the world is not your center focus but bringing individual souls to Christ.
[/quote]
I think we're actually saying the same thing, but in different words.

[Aloysius]

kinda like all those evangelicals in south america converting people away from the Catholic Church with marxist social-gospel mumbo jumbo... huh budge?

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='Budge' post='1093198' date='Oct 16 2006, 05:18 PM']
Some get so hung up on changing this world, they forget that Jesus's kingdom is NOT of this world.

I think someone like Dorothy Day had good intentions...but this is an easy trap to fall into.

I think helping the poor etc, is a good thing, every Christian should be involved in those things...but the works flow out of the faith. Changing the world is not your center focus but bringing individual souls to Christ.[/quote]Christian Faith is [i]incomplete[/i] without the love for our neighbor. Our Lord's first commandment is to love "The Lord, your God" ([url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew22.htm#v37"]Matt 22:37[/url]). The second commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself" ([url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew22.htm#v39"]Matt 22:39[/url]). This is not an either/or, though one command (i.e. loving God) is more important with the other.

Though the greatest love we can show a neighbor is to share the gospel with our lips, this is clearly not the only love that God commands of us (see [url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew25.htm#v34"]Matt 25:34-46[/url])--evangelizing is not even listed. There is no indication that showing love toward our neighbors, as described in Matt 25, is solely for the purpose of proselytizing.

On the other hand, our neighbor's temporal well-being is not the end goal of the commandment--we aren't mere social workers. The goal is to imitate the example of Our Lord, and ultimately to bring ourselves closer to Him.

As it sometimes happens, this topic has two extreme views and a Catholic position in the middle. From the vantage of one extreme, the person looks at the middle position and incorrectly sees the other extreme. So, someone who is focused on the "other worldly" aspects of Christianity will see active charity and fear a focus on the temporal world. On the other extreme, a person who is focused on the temporal well-being of others will look at those "in the middle" and see someone who isn't loving their neighbor as God commands.

It seems to me that this is an issue of focusing on the splinters in other people's eyes instead of focusing on our own spiritual lives.

[Budge]

[quote]kinda like all those evangelicals in south america converting people away from the Catholic Church with marxist social-gospel mumbo jumbo... huh budge?[/quote]


Isnt the Marxism in the South America connected to CATHOLIC LIBERATION THEOLOGY?

Sure there could be some apostate Prots following in these footsteps...

I know a few missionaries in South America, we have one that comes from Bolivia that my church supports, they are not Commies whatsoever.