As the iconic photo implies, DD would always set herself against the man with the gun. It tore her heart when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, and half of her volunteers wanted to go fight for Franco --- or at least for the Carlists; the other half for the Reds--- or at least for Catalonia. (I exaggerate; many wanted to feed, clothe, and bandage people, and die martyred by one side or the other, I'm sure.) But she was willing to lose something like 75% of her newspaper's staff and 80% of its circulation, rather than side with anyone who sided against the Works of Mercy.
The Works of Mercy: that was her program, and her only one.
Anyone could call her a fool, but there's a long tradition of that. She would say, "A fool for Christ. And I only wish I were moreso."
You’re welcome, Mrs. Don-o. Anyone could call Dorothy Day a fool, but one wonders if she can be called a fool for Christ. As for Day being set “against the man with the gun,” she praised bloody dictators such as Castro, stating that although she could not “condone” the means that brought about his victory, she endorsed his “social advances” (”Catholic Worker” [CW], September-December 1962). She had similar praise for Ho Chi Minh and declared, “If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders” (CW, January 1970).
One wonders how accurately Day “instructed the ignorant”—one of the spiritual works of mercy—when she insisted:
Mao-tse-Tung. . . . Karl Marx . . . .Lenin . . . . These men were animated by the love of brother and this we must believe though their ends meant the seizure of power, and the building of mighty armies, the compulsion of concentration camps, the forced labor and torture and killing of tens of thousands, even millions. (CW, May 1951)
Day seems to have cultivated the ability—mentioned in Matthew 23:24—to strain at gnats and swallow camels.