A Roundup of National Gathering Roundtables

Dorothy Day’s Call to Live in a State of Permanent Dissatisfaction with the Church

Facilitated by Brian Terrell of Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker. He offers this report:

Dorothy Day often wrote, “I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from his Cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church.”

Another common refrain of hers was “in peace is my bitterness most bitter,” paired with Jesus’ words, “Our worst enemies are those of our own household,” always referring to priests and especially to bishops.

Dorothy’s admonition that “one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church” is not a qualifier, but an intensifier of that love. Dorothy offers it not as an acceptable option, but as an imperative, one MUST be dissatisfied, or one does not love the Church at all. As with any other love, filial, romantic, patriotic, love requires honest appraisal of the loved one’s faults and sins, otherwise it is simply an unhealthy attachment disorder, not love at all. Love is a harsh and dreadful thing, after all.

“I turned away from the Worker, and I turned away from the Church, for without the Catholic Worker, the Catholic Church made no sense to me,” wrote Kate Hennessy in her “intimate portrait of my grandmother”, Dorothy Day, The World will be Saved by Beauty. Reading Dorothy’s autobiographies and letters, it seems that the Catholic Church made little sense to Dorothy, either, before she met Peter Maurin and began the Catholic Worker. “I had no particular joy in partaking of these three sacraments, Baptism, Penance, and Holy Eucharist,” she wrote in The Long Loneliness.  “I proceeded about my own active participation in them grimly, coldly, making acts of faith, and certainly with no consolation whatsoever.” Joining the Catholic Church meant estrangement from the love of her life and father of her child as well as from her radical comrades and the struggle for justice. “Where are the Catholics?” she asked after covering the hunger march of the unemployed in Washington just before meeting Peter Maurin. With so little sustenance and finding no community in parochial life, could Dorothy have remained Catholic for much longer without the Worker? Several of those present agreed with Kate that without the Catholic Worker, the Catholic Church makes no sense to us and we would likely have “fallen away” long ago without the Worker.

Land Justice and Indigenous Representation in Catholic Worker Spaces,

Facilitated by Laura Lasuertmer from the Common Home Farm (Bloomington, IN), Katya Coffey-Burns, a former Day House Catholic Worker in Detroit, Regina Bambrick-Rust from the White Rose CW Farm (La Plata, MO), and Mike Miles from the Anathoth Community Farm (Luck, WI).

We’re working on getting a writeup of this roundtable.

Nuclear Weapons, Anti-nuclear Activism and Nuclear Accountability

Facilitated by Ann Suellentrop, Vice Chair of PeaceWorks KC, and John LaForge, Co-director of Nukewatch.

We’re working on getting a writeup of this roundtable.

History of the Catholic Worker and Non-Violent Activism

Facilitated by Michelle Nickerson, a professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, and author of the book “Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial.”

We’re working on getting a writeup of this roundtable.

Following Jesus in a Pro-Rich, Pro-War, Pro-US Empire

Facilitated by Frank Cordaro of the Des Moines Catholic Worker. He wrote this report:

Seven people attended my workshop.

I am a former Catholic priest and the co-founder of the “Des Moines Catholic Worker community” in 1976. The DMCW is an ecumenical, interfaith, nonviolent, anarchist Catholic Worker community living in voluntary poverty, intentional community, serving the poor and needy.  

We are also a community that has embraced the spirit of the “Catholic Left”—from Dorothy Day to Ammon Hennessy, to the Berrigan brothers and the Plowshares movement. We currently have a community member, Jessica Reznicek, in prison now, serving a 3-year and 3-month sentence in federal prison for dismantling an oil pipeline going through Iowa.

I believe and stated that any fair reading of the New Testament would see Jesus and his followers were not pro-rich, pro-war, or pro-Roman Empire; that loving your enemy means you cannot kill them, and that doing the works of mercy—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless—is what following Jesus is about.  

I based this assertion on the unique way I read the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are playbooks for discipleship in the Kingdom of God, not the proof-text for dogma or creed.

A lively discussion ensued.

War and Peace in the Middle East

Facilitated by Kathy Kelly, board president of World BEYOND War and a co-coordinator of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, and Cassandra Dixon of Mary House Catholic Worker in Wisconsin Dells, a residential carpenter and human rights activist who has been traveling to Palestine territories for over a decade.

See Kathy Kelly’s writeup of this session: Kathy Kelly and Cassandra Dixon Lead Roundtable on Middle East Conflict

Art & Creativity in the Catholic Worker

Facilitated by Becky McIntyre and Sarah Fuller, founders of the Catholic Worker newsletter The Illuminator. Sarah Fuller submitted this report:

People who attended the roundtable discussion on art and creativity in the Catholic Worker world discussed many different themes and experiences about art in the movement.  Participants discussed how art and creativity were used to create beautiful spaces for hospitality, spaces that made people feel welcomed and appreciated.  Community members valued spaces that were joyful and beautiful.

Some folks discussed how art making was an act of resistance.  It is a way to envision creating something new, including creating “a new society in the shell of the old,” the Peter Maurin vision.  It’s a way to learn how to see things in a new way- icons of religious experience that address modern political realities, for example- and also to use unlikely or limited resources to create things that are beautiful.  One participant mentioned that making art was doing the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and another cited Dorothy Day’s oft-repeated use of the Dostoevsky quote, “The world will be saved by beauty.” From a personalist perspective, making art reinforces the truth that people have the power to create, and to change in the world around them.  It is a transformative space where people can communicate ideas in new ways, and possibly to people who might not otherwise be interested.  Art is a concrete element in many of the best protest experiences, bringing people together to create in community, and communicating hard truths in hard-to-ignore new ways.  

People also discussed how making arts and crafts was healing, as well as a good way to break the ice with new people, as well as a good way to practice the creativity that is required to envision and create a nonviolent world.  It was a way to re envision mental health experiences, and a way to create a home.  An art therapist participant said, “There should be a tent on every block with art materials, just accessible for everyone.  That’s a prescription from me for everyone.”

Reparative Justice

Facilitated by Lucia van Diepen from the Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, N.Y.

We’re working on getting a writeup of this roundtable.

Listening, Learning, Loving: A Facilitated Conversation about Our Diverse Experiences with and Beliefs about Abortion

Facilitated by Laura Lasuertmer from the Common Home Farm in Bloomington, Indiana, who submitted this report:

At the National Catholic Worker gathering, I facilitated a conversation about abortion. The aim of the conversation was to make space for diverse views and deepen our connections as we explored our beliefs. About sixteen people attended the roundtable. We spent the first half-hour talking responding to a series of questions in pairs. The questions included some get-to-know-you conversation, some exploration about the way our life experiences have influenced our ideas around abortion, and what questions remain for us about this topic. We then had one go around where everyone had a chance to share some of what stood out to them from the pair-share conversations. Overall, participants shared appreciation for a space in which they could talk about this challenging conversation topic and share their thoughts in a safe space.

Peter Maurin and the Personalist Revolution

Facilitated by Lincoln Rice, author of The Forgotten Radical Peter Maurin. He offered this report:

About a dozen folks showed up for the roundtable on “Peter Maurin and the Personalist Revolution.” In truth, I focused less on Peter Maurin and more on his primary source for personalism, Emmanuel Mounier. Both the Catholic Worker newspaper and Mounier’s journal Esprit began publishing about the same time. Mounier described personalism as “any doctrine, any civilization, which affirms the primacy of the human person over the material needs and over the collective mechanisms which sustain his development.” Mounier and other personalists saw personalism as a path to avoid the rugged individualism present in business interests and capitalism as well as the oppressive collectivism of Marxism, Fascism, and Nazism.

Peter’s strand of personalism emphasized personal responsibility and sacrifice, gentle personalism, and a communitarian vision. Peter only became aware of the term personalism and its philosophy during the summer of 1934 (a full year after the first issue of the Catholic Worker paper was published. Nevertheless, he quickly began incorporating the term. Personalism was the perfect way to describe his three-point program of round table discussions, houses of hospitality, and farming communes. In that sense, Peter becoming aware of personalism did not change his basic program. It simply gave him another way to describe and explain it.

Discussion largely focused further on Peter’s idea of personalism and the communitarian aspect of personalism. In going beyond interpersonal interactions, attendees discussed how personalism could be incorporated specifically into the fields of medicine and education.