Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day's Radical Vision and Its Challenge for our Times (D. L. Mayfield) -- A Review
UNRULY SAINT: Dorothy Day’s Radical Vision and Its Challenge for Our Times. By D. L. Mayfield. Foreword by Robert Ellsberg. Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2022. 256 pages.
When Pope
Francis addressed Congress he recognized Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic
Worker movement, along with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Thomas Merton as one of four great Americans of faith who “moved America’s
moral and social imagination forward in distinct ways” (p. 7). This choice
likely surprised many in Congress and beyond because in naming her, he named a
radical pacifist labor-supporting Roman Catholic layperson. Yet that's what he
did. Others have called her a saint (she is currently being considered for
sainthood). If she is a saint, then what kind of saint is she? While her
willingness to give up everything to care for those in great need, advocate for
workers, and oppose American wars, has caught the attention of many admirers,
one might wonder if she would want such an honor, especially if in doing this
the Church ended up domesticating her memory.
If you
are like me, you know the name Dorothy Day. You may know that she helped found
the Catholic Worker movement. You may know that many social justice advocates
look up to her. But do you know her story? Do you know how this one-time
Marxist-leaning, labor-organizing journalist, who once had an abortion, could
become a near saint? I will confess that I didn't know much about her until I
opened up D. L. Mayfield's book Unruly Saint. That title may sound odd,
but by the time you finish reading this book, you will understand why Mayfield chose
to give the book this title.
Mayfield
offers us in Unruly Saint a biographical study of Day's life, with a
focus on her role in the Catholic Worker movement. In other words, if you're
looking for a comprehensive biography of Day, this isn't it. However, she does
provide significant biographical details, which is because Day’s biography is
the foundation of her involvement with the movement. As for the author, D.L.
Mayfield is not Roman Catholic. Her spiritual location might best be described
as post-evangelical. In addition to this new book, Mayfield has authored two other
books. She is also a self-described activist who has taught ESOL to immigrant
and refugee populations. In other words, though not Catholic, she can identify
with Day’s activism.
In this
book, Mayfield approaches Dorothy Day as something of a fellow traveler. She
doesn't aspire to the asceticism that Day embraced or put others before herself
in the way Day did, but Mayfield seeks to identify as much as possible with Day
and her commitments to justice and the well-being of others. She recognizes a
degree of saintliness about Day's life but fears she might get domesticated by
a church that might use her memory in ways that do not reflect who she was.
Most of all Mayfield wants the reader to know that Day may have died in 1980,
but she remains relevant today.
What
makes Day's story so compelling is that before her conversion at age 30, she
was on a life path that didn’t lead toward the church. Nevertheless, once she
found the church, she wanted to make sure her new-found faith fit with her
commitment to serving the poor and the oppressed. The key to her life vocation
is her encounter with a French "philosopher-hobo" named Peter Maurin,
who helped her discover her calling to create what became the Catholic Worker
movement. That movement began with a newspaper she launched in 1933, which was
followed by a house of hospitality to house the homeless. Then later she added farms
and communes to help those in need. All of this is part of the story that
Mayfield weaves together.
In her
introduction, Mayfield notes that she discovered Day at a point when she was in
the midst of a personal crisis and trying to figure out who she was spiritually.
Growing up in white evangelical circles where she had resided spiritually no
longer worked. As she went looking for something else to sustain her
spiritually, she encountered Day. Therefore, this is a very personal book that
seeks to take Day's life and work very seriously as in it she found a sense of
direction.
Mayfield
breaks Unruly Saint into three parts. She starts appropriately in Part 1
with a series of chapters that introduce us to Dorothy Day's early life. Thus,
we begin with her birth in 1898 and continue to her conversion at age 30 in
1927. Her conversion shocked her friends since it didn't fit what they knew of
this chain-smoking writer for leftist papers who impatiently sought to change
the world. How did this "pregnant-out-of-wedlock free spirit who could
quote Marx with the best of them and was always ready with a sarcastic retort
or a girlish giggle" convert to Catholicism? (p. 22). For Day, as we
discover, it was her commitment to serving the poor that led her to God and
eventually the Catholic Church, even though she grew up in a nominal
Episcopalian family. Part of her conversion story involved the birth of her
daughter Tamar, which helped clarify her sense of identity and life purpose. It
was during this early period of her life, as she began to move into the church,
that she took her muckraking style of writing that she had used in writing for
leftist papers to Catholic publications such as Commonweal. While covering
labor issues as a journalist, Day started wanting to do more in support of
those who labored. Her turn to embracing religion in this effort emerged as she
watched Communists demand that people seeking justice leave religion for the
class struggle. "She was angry at how they overlooked the reality that
large percentages of the poor workers around the world were not only religious
but Catholic. How could one claim to be for the common worker of the world and
dismiss their religion as intellectually depraved and morally corrupt?"
(p. 70). That is a relevant question for contemporary liberals who often
dismiss religion. After covering a major labor march, she returned to her home
in a New York tenement. When she arrived at her apartment, she encountered an
older man in rumpled clothes who had come looking for her. That encounter would
lead to the creation of the Catholic Worker, a muckraking paper that
became the foundation of a movement in support of workers that emerged within
the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church.
As we
turn to Part 2, Mayfield begins her exploration of the birth of the Catholic
Worker journal. This begins with Day’s meeting with Peter Maurin that day
at her apartment. It was Maurin who encouraged Day to turn her passion for
justice and writing ability to create a justice movement within the church.
Maurin may have looked like a hobo, but he was trained in theology and
philosophy. With that intellectual background, he sought to marry Catholic
social teaching with this philosophy. As such he served as the intellectual
foundation for what became Day's life work. The goal here was to change the
world. Together with his ideas and her energy and writing ability, they laid
the foundations for that justice movement. Although they had hoped to convince
church leaders to embrace their vision and begin creating what they called
houses of hospitality in every congregation, that effort failed to bear fruit.
Nevertheless, their vision caught on as thousands subscribed to the journal.
With that, she began to influence Catholics, encouraging them to commit themselves
to create space and support for those in need. The Catholic Worker
journal was born in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression. After this
came the houses of hospitality, which ultimately began when people showed up on
Dorothy's doorstep needing housing and help. Most importantly, for her part,
she was spreading the word about Catholic social teaching, which not everyone
in the hierarchy appreciated. The first house was opened in 1934. as Dorothy
was busy renting apartments to house all those who were homeless.
Mayfield
notes that even as Day was embarking on this justice work, she was not
impressed with government-sponsored programs. Therefore, she sought to do
things differently. Nevertheless, despite not being a fan of government
efforts, she recognized the need and chose to help people get signed up for the
relevant government programs. These qualms about the nature of these programs
have unfortunate contemporary implications since some opponents of current government
programs will appeal to her concerns. However, the way that they do this is
contrary to her understanding of the situation she faced. Interestingly, her
problem with the government programs wasn’t rooted in religious beliefs, but
rather in a deep-seated anarchist bent that predated her conversion. I guess
that those who seek her endorsement for their efforts wouldn’t embrace her
anarchist beliefs. As a reader, I found that Mayfield does a good job
navigating these concerns and suspicions.
As for
the origins of this burgeoning movement that Day and Maurin launched, Mayfield
notes that the stories are "full of humor and failure and grassroots
camaraderie and heady days." (p. 154). Over time the movement grew,
setting up shop across the country with each having its distinct feel. Mayfield
writes of this work of living out Catholic social teaching in seeking to create
a better world: "Love in action could be a harsh and dreadful thing, but
it was certainly never, ever boring." (p. 154).
Mayfield's
focus in this book is not on the entirety of Day’s life, but rather on the origins
of the Catholic Worker movement, which she lays out in Part 2. That effort takes
off in 1933 when Day was 35 years old. While she focuses her attention on the
early days of the movement, Mayfield doesn’t neglect the ongoing work of that
movement. So, in Part 3, titled "The Work Continues," Mayfield shares
with the reader how the work matured over time. This section includes a
discussion of the problems that emerged due to her commitment to pacifism. Her
pacifism led to problems with her Church (this was especially true during the
Spanish Civil War in 1936 because the Roman Catholic Church in the United
States supported Franco in that war) as well as with the Church and the United
States government during World War II, when she took a strong stand against the
war. This commitment led to a steep decline in support for her movement since
she would not let go of her commitment. That commitment even led to the FBI
putting her on a watchlist. While her earliest efforts focused on labor issues
and the realities of poverty, including homelessness, over time she gave more
attention to her commitment to pacifism and along with addressing the realities
of racism in the country. Mayfield was surprised by how often articles on race
appeared in the early issues of the journal.
Interestingly,
in her later years, Day experienced a second conversion that brought her under
the influence of a rigorist version of Catholicism. This version of Roman
Catholicism seemed to give her a sense of grounding, but it also alienated many
of her co-workers and family members. Mayfield shares how a certain figure, Fr.
Hugo, led silent retreats at the Catholic Worker farm that called for a severe
form of asceticism that involved giving up the best things in life (including
familial relationships).
As we
read through this book, we encounter an Unruly Saint who is in every way
a radical Christian who gave her all for her cause. At times that commitment
led to her neglecting members of her own family, which led to a break with her
daughter at one point. Fortunately, the two were reconciled, but we might see
in this part of the story a warning to us about collateral damage as a result
of taking a radical position when it comes to living out one’s faith. Perhaps
that’s why some take to the life of the ascetic, eschewing family and friendships.
Day tried to have both and in doing so her family at times suffered. For
Protestant readers, sainthood is not part of our normal way of being Christian.
However, we do tend to receive some of the saints of the Roman Catholic Church
into our own lives. Perhaps that will be true of Dorothy Day should she be
canonized. If she becomes an official saint of the church, then certainly she
is an unruly one. We can thank D. L. Mayfield for helping us get to know this
woman who might be a true saint. Hopefully, if that comes to pass, she’ll remain
an unruly one, as Mayfield suggests, rather than a domesticated one who proves
useful for those who are not interested in Dorothy Day’s commitment to justice.
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