The Catholic Worker after Dorothy: Practicing the Works of Mercy in a New Generation, and: Touching the World: Christian Communities Transforming Society (review)

From all the works that explore the past, the present, and the future of the Catholic Worker (CW) movement, these two books by Dan McKanan stand out for their insight, thorough historical research, sensitive evaluation, and forward-looking orientation.

In examining the CW movement after Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker after Dorothy can scarcely be overrated for its comprehensive and up-to-date presentation of the CW’s history, despite its modest size of 240 pages. Noting the fact that the CW has lasted “three-quarters of a century” and “is still going on” (p. 2), the author directs his attention toward the endurance of the movement. In his persuasive explanations for CW’s capacity to sustain and develop itself, he provides a fresh look at the CW’s origin and history while revising those appraisals that doubted whether the movement would survive the death in 1980 of charismatic CW founder Day.

Day, according to McKanan, exercised a strong but informal leadership over the CW, which resulted in a peculiar organizational structure. Day exerted her influence through supportive visits, dialogue, and correspondence with the CW communities. She did not want the movement to become an organization controlled by a centralized authority. Therefore, local houses of hospitality that constituted the core of the CW did not adhere to a single administrative model. This diversity and toleration of differences helped the local houses and the whole movement to achieve sustainability. McKanan persuasively refutes common misconceptions about the CW by pointing out its expertise in embracing different ideologies and groups. Although the CW has rarely been described as liberal or reformist, Day and her followers did not consider authentic individual freedom to be in opposition to genuine community, and inspired and maintained good relations with social reformers such as John C. Cort and Michael Harrington, who had both been part of the movement. McKanan does not see the acceptance of government funds by some local houses to feed the hungry as contradictory to their CW identity.

For McKanan, the CW has endured specifically because of its lack of fixed rules, enabling it to respond to changing circumstances. The frequently revised documents that described the “Catholic Worker positions” were never imposed on the movement by Day and her followers. According to McKanan, the practice of works of mercy and the multiple documents that described the CW’s “aims and means” endowed the movement with a great degree of coherence, if not a definitive identity. This “spiritual ambiguity,” tolerated by Day, created a healthy milieu of openness and helped the movement connect to people who had turned away from the institutional Church but remained faithful to the principles of Catholic teachings. In my opinion, however, although the openness to non-Catholic and even non-Christian members appeared to increase the vigor and the influence of the movement, it certainly blurred the boundary of the CW’s Roman Catholic identity, particularly in communities such as the Haley House in Boston, where Buddhism became a significant factor.

In The Catholic Worker after Dorothy, the author’s lucid reflections on the CW’s history provide context in which more recent developments may be estimated and criticized. For example, Day was believed by many to be intolerant of family life, and McKanan makes it clear that this judgment is ill-founded. He points out that both Day and her colleague Peter Maurin promoted a “lay apostolate” in which both married and single laypeople could participate fully in pursuit of social justice. Day’s radical background did not incorporate the experience of traditional American Catholic family life and thus may explain her sometimes ambivalent messages to CW families. These messages...