Dorothy Day and César Chávez: American Catholic Lives in Nonviolence

During the 1960s, a socially awakened U.S. Catholic laity would come to understand nonviolence as a powerful spiritual response to injustice. Many of them would regard its practice as legitimate, moral, and consistent with—even essential to—their faith. What factors contributed to this outpouring of Catholic activism? Papal social encyclicals and an ecclesiology that emphasized the universal nature of the church continued to shape the social vision of Catholics in the 1960s. The rich teachings of John XXIII, Paul VI, and Vatican II encouraged greater engagement with the modern world. The leadership of Dorothy Day and César Chávez was a vital catalyst which invited further lay involvement and a new appreciation of the Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy.

During the postwar era, American Catholics witnessed the efficacy of nonviolence in a newly nuclear world, first in Gandhi's campaign for an independent India, and later, with Martin Luther King, Jr. Together, they addressed racism, war, and imperialism. Better educated than previous generations of Catholics, better informed by the mass media, and beneficiaries of a growing economy, they were challenged to participate in this deeply spiritual quest for social justice. A Catholic president's call for sacrifice inspired their participation in projects of social reform and economic development at home and abroad.

At the moment when Catholics were showing unparalleled receptivity to the message of social activism, two of their co-religionists provided a living example of what nonviolent direct action might accomplish. Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker movement, whose nonviolent "revolution of the heart" dated back to the 1930s, was creating a spiritual foundation for American Catholics to engage in nonviolent direct action in pursuit of justice in labor relations, international peace, and the dignity of the most marginalized human beings. ¹ Her work enlarged Catholic conscientious objection and draft resistance during the Vietnam War, drawing the young to her movement, while César Chávez's grape and lettuce boycotts focused attention on the situation of farm workers.

By the early 1950s César Chávez had begun a campaign for the improvement of Mexican-American dignity through community organizing to address needs through political empowerment, such as voter registration initiatives. Prevented from engaging in union organizing by the sponsor of his community efforts, the Community Service Organization (CSO), Chávez abandoned secure employment in 1962 to found a union for farm workers, the majority of them Americans of color and many of them immigrants. At first Chávez's efforts were little known outside of California. During the Delano strike that began in 1965, his nonviolent campaign garnered considerable attention from the religious press and mass media. By 1968 Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign and his support for Chávez's movement provided still greater visibility. Catholic school students could learn about the nonviolent activism of Day and Chavez in their courses. Activist students and professors supported the United Farm Workers (UFW) boycotts of non-union lettuce and Gallo wines. ² As the head of the union, eventually known as the United Farm Workers, Chávez raised social awareness about agricultural laborers throughout North America and Europe, while demonstrating the effectiveness of nonviolence deeply rooted in his Mexican-American Catholic spirituality. ³ By the end of the 1960s, Chávez's nonviolent movement mobilized farm workers and multitudes of comfortable people, many of them young, eager to work for the movement or at least to uphold the grape boycott in solidarity with the campesinos.

As devout lay Catholics, Day and Chávez were formed by their faith in dialogue with their social environment. Having absorbed the message that human dignity originated in God's creation and that humanity was created "in the image and likeness of God," their words and deeds embodied the message of the ubiquitous Baltimore catechism and Jesus's teaching to love God and neighbor. ⁴ Their witness helped to empower American Catholics and others to move beyond an insular "Jesus and me" spirituality and a materialistic culture to meet their faith requirement to worship and live in...