Dorothy Day

, , , , , , , , , ,

Was the life of Dorothy Day too Catholic for the New York Times to grasp?

, , , , , , , , , ,
Was the life of Dorothy Day too Catholic for the New York Times to grasp?

The New York Times veers close to self-parody in publishing “Was Dorothy Day Too Left-Wing to Be a Catholic Saint?”

The very deck beneath the headline undercuts it: “The Archdiocese of New York has asked the Vatican to consider the social activist for sainthood. But church leaders are not entirely comfortable with her politics.”

Actually, Day has always made Catholics on the right and left uncomfortable. The key is making sure that readers know why this is true.

What Liam Stack has to report is pretty straightforward.

Martha Hennessy was upset with what Cardinal Timothy Dolan preached during a Mass in Day’s honor:

“He has reduced her to ‘she lived a life of sexual promiscuity and she dabbled in communism,’” she said. “What worse enemy could we have, saying those things about her?” Ms. Hennessy is active in the [canonization] movement and did a reading at the Mass. “We have got to focus on her policies, we have got to focus on her practices.”

Stack’s report does not link to the cardinal’s homily, which is available on YouTube and embedded in this post (the homily begins at one hour and 15 minutes).

Viewers will note that there is no indication in Cardinal Dolan’s remarks that he is anything other than an admirer. He calls Day “one of our greats,” and mentions that he asked Pope Francis to declare her venerable: one major step toward becoming a saint.

While Dolan’s brief homily did not dwell on Day’s political life, he referred to the significant detail of her being on assignment by a Catholic magazine to report on a Hunger March in 1932 in the nation’s capital. Dolan added a detail omitted by the Times: after observing this march, Day prayed in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and took another step toward integrating her politics and her emerging faith.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

U.S. Catholics divided by #BlackLivesMatter strategies as 2020 elections loom ahead

, , , , , , , ,

The video of 75-year-old activist Martin Gugino being pushed to the ground earlier this month by police in riot gear highlighted the divide between protesters seeking criminal justice reforms and the very officers tasked with ensuring the safety of all citizens.

Gugino suffered a fractured skull in the June 4 incident in Buffalo, a city in upstate New York. He quickly became an example of officers using excessive force, one of many captured on video during protests that arose following the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. Gugino is described by friends as a devout Roman Catholic and a lifelong advocate for the poor.

“I think it's very unnecessary to focus on me. There are plenty of other things to think about besides me,” Gugino said in a statement.

Gugino’s activism and the Black Lives Matter protests have not only drawn attention to deep fissures in American society on the issue of race, but have further polarized American Catholics. This intra-Catholic doctrinal debate, which began in the 1960s with the Second Vatican Council, remains relevant regarding the relationship between faith and politics.

Progressive Catholics, dating back to Dorothy Day and her social activism of the 1930s, see it as their role to help the United States achieve racial equality.

Traditional Catholics, however, see Black Lives Matter — the actual organization with a detailed policy platform, as opposed to the #BlackLivesMatter cause — as part of a sinister force that wants to spread Marxist ideology. Journalists need to investigate the differences between Black Lives Matter the cause, with many peaceful protests across the nation, often with strong support from churches, and the actual political organization.

While Catholics agree that racism is an issue in American society, the proposed remedies for those ills differ wildly. Again, there are fierce debates here worthy of news coverage.

For example, many Catholics, particularly Latinos, were angered when protesters toppled a statue of Catholic missionary St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco this past weekend. The same was done to Serra’s statue in Los Angeles. Some have accused the Spanish-born Serra, an 18th century Franciscan friar who is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to California, of brutalizing Native Americans and forcing them to convert.

The events of recent weeks and the looming presidential election continues to fuel the divide among Catholics across the political spectrum.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Kings Bay nuclear protestors: Was this civil disobedience or a matter of religious liberty?

, , , , , , , , ,

It’s hard to live in Oak Ridge, Tenn., without learning a thing or two about civil disobedience, especially demonstrations linked to nuclear weapons. No matter what goes on inside the Oak Ridge National Laboratory — in terms of energy, medicine, the digital future, etc. — this top-secret research facility will always be known for its role in America’s history of atomic bombs and beyond.

This leads to protests. Some of them cross the line into civil disobedience, which raises interesting historical, legal and even theological questions. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

There is a very similar story unfolding elsewhere in the Bible Belt, as seen in a recent report — “Judge denies nuclear protesters’ religious freedom defense” — from Religion News Service. Here is the overture:

(RNS) — A federal judge has denied a request by a group of Catholic peace activists to dismiss charges against them for breaking into a nuclear submarine base in Kings Bay, Georgia, last year to protest nuclear weapons.

The seven activists, individually and through their lawyers, used a novel defense, citing the Religion Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law that says the government may not burden the faith practices of a person with sincerely held religious beliefs.

But Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, denied that defense and scheduled a jury trial for Oct. 21.

The activists, known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, face up to 25 years in prison each for trespassing on the U.S. Navy base, which houses six Trident submarines designed to carry nearly 200 nuclear warheads apiece. The seven, mostly middle-aged or elderly, will each stand trial on three felonies and one misdemeanor: destruction of property on a naval installation, depredation of government property, trespass and conspiracy.

Now, there are all kinds of questions I’d like to ask at this point.

First of all, I assume we are talking about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as opposed to the “Religion” Freedom Restoration Act that is mentioned here. RNS needs to make a correction.

But it would appear that the basic idea is that the protestors had a right to violate the law as an act of religious conscience. It would be interesting to know more the specifics of their claims.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
,

Attention readers and reporters: Is this the interfaith Marxist Moment?

,

Two recent essays — the first by a young Catholic writing for the Jesuit magazine America and the second by a graduate student published in Aeon — argue that Karl Marx is compatible with two of the world’s major religions.

Both devote precious little attention to communism’s sordid history of oppressing people who believe in something transcendent, from Catholic martyrs in Cuba to Buddhists in Tibet.

The question: Does the debate surrounding either of these pieces tell us anything about trends in the age in which we read and report the news?

In his piece for America, Dean Dettloff responds to “What Catholics don’t understand about communism,” which Dorothy Day wrote for America in May 1933. If Dettloff is aware that Day was a communist before becoming a Catholic, he does not make that clear by the quality of his argument. Instead, at one point he reduces her essay to the caricature of “we should hate the communism but love the communist.”

Dettloff finds it impressive that some Catholic theologians have been friends of communist rulers, and that contemporary communists seem more receptive to some Catholics than in past decades:

Despite and beyond theoretical differences, priests like Herbert McCabe, O.P., Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal, S.J., Frei Betto, O.P., Camilo Torres and many other Catholics—members of the clergy, religious and laypeople—have been inspired by communists and in many places contributed to communist and communist-influenced movements as members. Some still do—for example in the Philippines, where the “Christians for National Liberation,” an activist group first organized by nuns, priests and exploited Christians, are politically housed within the National Democratic Front, a coalition of movements that includes a strong communist thread currently fighting the far-right authoritarian leader Rodrigo Duterte. …

The Communist Party USA has published essays affirming the connections between Christianity and communism and encouraging Marxists not to write off Christians as hopelessly lost to the right (the C.P.U.S.A. paper, People’s World, even reported on Sister Simone Campbell and Network’s Nuns on the Bus campaign to agitate for immigration reform). In Canada, Dave McKee, former leader of the Communist Party of Canada in Ontario, was once an Anglican theology student at a Catholic seminary, radicalized in part by his contact with base communities in Nicaragua. For my part, I have talked more about Karl Rahner, S.J., St. Óscar Romero and liberation theology at May Day celebrations and communist meetings than at my own Catholic parish.

Dettloff mentions neither Pope John Paul II’s pointed rebuke of Ernesto Cardenal nor the Sandinistas’ attempts to shout down the pope as he celebrated Mass in Managua.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Seattle Weekly offers the story of a heroic gay mayor and the 'prison' that is Catholicism

, , , , , , ,

The mayor of Seattle is a gay Catholic whose 2013 wedding to his male partner was at the local Episcopal cathedral. Ed Murray’s insistence on staying Catholic fascinated one editor at the Seattle Weekly to the point where he asked the mayor if Murray would expound on his faith.

The result was this nearly 4,000-word piece that ran about a month ago. The reporter stated up front that he didn’t wish to raise the issue of whether Murray was a “true” Catholic in terms of abiding by the doctrines of his faith, but instead learn why the mayor has stuck with a church that on many levels doesn’t want him. We will not read, in this long piece, what the church teaches about marriage and how the mayor flouts it.

Still, as far as I know, this is the only article anyone has done on the mayor’s faith journey. This is something the Seattle Times should have done years ago.

Thus, I am glad the Weekly stepped up to the plate, even though the premise is those who defy the teachings of the Catholic church are heroic while those who honor their vows to the church are, at best, robots.

After some intro paragraphs, the article picks up with:

Murray’s Catholic faith can seem a study in contradiction. Not only is he a practicing Catholic in a secular city, he is a gay man who has remained in a church that has been outright hostile toward homosexuality; he is a public official who seeks to follow the path of (Catholic Worker Movement foundress Dorothy) Day, who refused financial assistance from the government and declined to pay her taxes for years at a time; he is an impossibly busy man who says he feels closest to his Catholic faith when he is practicing quiet Benedictine meditation, which requires he wake at 5:30 a.m. if he has any hope of doing it at all.

After describing Murray’s childhood, it relates how he found certain Catholic institutions more gay-friendly than he had anticipated.

After graduating from high school, Murray attended St. Thomas Seminary in Kenmore, exploring the priesthood. After a year there, he decided against it, and finished his college studies at the University of Portland, a Catholic institution. There he got to know Trappist monks who introduced him to monastic worship, and counseled him on, among other things, his homosexuality, which he began to acknowledge in college. Far from the pious recriminations one might expect, Murray says that in college he was encouraged by priests to embrace that part of himself, rather that feel shame about it. It was further evidence, for Murray, that the Catholic Church, especially in its social-justice form, was a home for him, rather than the prison many people considered it.

“Many people?” Who does the reporter have in mind?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

New York Post: Pope Francis finally opens door to reconciliation for women after abortions?

, , , , , , , , , ,

You know you are in for a wild ride when a GetReligion reader sends you a URL from The New York Post (or The New York Daily News, for that matter) with one of those, "Yeah, consider the source, BUT" notes that basically is warning you to duck and cover. Incoming.

So here is the headline on this one: "The Catholic Church will now forgive your abortion."

The loyal reader noted: "The title is bad, but it gets worse from there. Wouldn't have wasted your time with it, but it is such awful dreck that it seemed to me a perfect crystallization of what your site is so admirably attempting to combat -- sort of a 'why we fight' type of example."

At the heart of this story is a journalistic virus that seems to be affecting journalists around the world. You know the one, the "Everything Pope Francis touches is brand new" bug. As you could see from that headline, this one is an instant classic. Here's the top of the story:

Pope Francis will send an army of globe-trotting priests -- his “missionaries of mercy” -- to absolve women who’ve had abortions, in the latest Vatican bid to catch up with modern times.
The effort, which includes reaching out to doctors and nurses who’ve performed abortions, will commence in the Holy Year of Mercy, which Francis has declared will be celebrated between Dec. 8, 2015, and Nov. 20, 2016.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, announced the bold initiative and said the church should always be in the absolution business.

Catholic readers, you can get back up into your chair now or clean the computer screen onto which you spewed your morning source of caffeine.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Brave religious protestors fight the devil in Oak Ridge

, , , ,

My goal is to write a relatively short post about a very, very long Washington Post story, a Style section story that I urge all GetReligion readers to check out.


Please respect our Commenting Policy