Posted on 02/11/2013 8:25:30 PM PST by ubipetrusest
...Cardinal Timothy Dolan, reported to be in the running to replace Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, is usually described as a “conservative” because he has strongly criticized President Obama’s attacks on religious liberty and federal intrusions into church affairs. But Dolan is also the leader of the campaign to promote Marxist Dorothy Day for Sainthood.
One report asks, “Could Timothy Dolan Become The First American Pope?” Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB,) is considered the voice of U.S. Catholicism.
But Carol Byrne, author of "The Catholic Worker Movement (1933-1980): A Critical Analysis," says Dolan manipulated a vote by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops last November to move forward with the canonization of Dorothy Day....
In a letter obtained by this journalist, Virginia State Senator Richard H. “Dick” Black was so disgusted by the push for sainthood for Dorothy Day that he told the Pope on January 7, 2013, that he was “appalled” that “a woman of such loathsome character” would be considered for sainthood.
Black, a retired Marine Corps colonel, noted that “Vatican archives are filled with reports of Christians martyred under the regimes that Dorothy Day supported. I am revolted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ support for the canonization of a woman whose views supported the violent extermination of Christians throughout the world. I ask that these matters be carefully weighed so that the Holy See will not be inadvertently misled when considering the canonization of Dorothy Day.”
As a Marine pilot, Black fought the communists. He flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam and was wounded during fierce ground fighting with the 1st Marine Regiment.
“I am particularly concerned about her support for Ho Chi Minh,” Black said in his letter.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
I think with the planned stepping down of this present Pope from a western country, Germany, most likely the next Pope will come from what is considered a “global south” country, Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Maybe even eastern Europe, maybe an eastern rite Catholic from that part of the world who can with the help of God work to bring greater Christian unity.
I think the Church is rapidly getting over the excesses after Vatican II.
If Pope John Paul II didn’t fight against communism, I don’t know anyone who did. And, if Pope Benedict didn’t fight against the homosexual agenda, I don’t know who did.
I fully expect the next Pope to continue.
It seems to me the author of this article is really stretching to make Dolan “possible successor” and slamming Day in order to... who knows? Make an emotional article that seems to have relevance the topic of Pope Benedict’s resignation?
Big Fail.
I suppose. But her sympathies were all over the map, extending at various times to anarchism, communism, pacifism.
People who have gotten used to routinely labeling their political opponents Marxist may have a better case with Day than with today's run-of-the mill US politicians given her sympathy with Castro and Guevara, even though her theism and Marx's atheism excluded each other.
Saying it doesn’t make it so, Mrs. Don-O. You write: “Dorothy Day’s economic justice ideals were the polar opposite of Communism. Communism stands for Total State Power subsuming and replacing every other institution: family, church, the entirety of civil society. Personalism eschews State power to support voluntary poverty as a basis for voluntary charity.”
If only this were correct. Day never lost her admiration for the economic and social policies of Communist states, although she did leave atheism behind and could not “condone” the violence that achieved these “reforms.” She attempted to create a “Christian communism.” After Pius XII”s “Decree Against Communism” was published, Day declared herself “an ex-Communist,” stating: “Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life. We don’t think it’s worth maintaining. We and the Communists have a common idea that something else is necessary, some other vision of society must be held up to be worked for.” (”Beyond Politics,” “Catholic Worker” [CW,] November 1949). In the same article she wrote: “[Communists] believe, of course, that violence will come. (So do we when it comes down to it, and we are praying it won’t.) They believe that it will be forced upon the workers by the class struggle which is going on all around us now. . . . Class war is a fact and one does not need to advocate it. The Communists point to it as forced upon them, and say that when it comes they will take part in it, and in their plans they want to prepare the ground, and win as many as possible to their point of view and for their side. And where will we be on that day?”
When Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro in January 1962, Day traveled a few months later to Cuba and then wrote several articles on the “social advances” achieved there (CW, September 1962-February 1963). She praised farming communes in Red China. She believed in a compulsory form of “voluntary poverty,” as the aim of the CW is—in her own words—”to MAKE the rich poor and the poor holy” (capitals added).
She consistently attacked “Holy Mother the State” in non-Communist societies such as the US, but accepted her daughter Tamar receiving $360 a month for her children and “something for herself” from the State of Vermont after Tamar and her husband separated (Day notes this in her diary, “The Duty of Delight,” 2011, p.325). Day’s economic theories do not seem to apply to everyday nuclear families not living in communal arrangements. (By the way, she never gave an equivalent term for Marxist countries—Unholy Father Soviet?)
Sadly, Tamar and children also fell away from the Faith, and Day writes in 1967 of being the only one attending Christmas Mass (”Duty of Delight,” p. 427).
Your claim that Day was not a “political theorist” gave me my laugh of the day. She studied Kropotkin as a college student, and then Peter Maurin broadened her knowledge of his works, as she reveals in “From Union Square to Rome” and “The Long Loneliness.” One need only read her CW columns to see how aware she was of movements within the Communist Party and who was who. She often did not bother to inform readers of the details about her Communist friends. She was also an admirer of Saul Alinsky (CW, May 1966) and endorsed his call for a massive public authority similar to the TVA to be set up: “He envisages something like the Tennessee Valley Authority with the use of the billions to build villages, schools, hospitals, roads, and all else needed.”
Most of the articles on Day’s cause are long on praise for her love of the poor, and short on her unchanged Marxist views and other facts. The answer to Day’s fitness is found in her own writings. A “softer, gentler” Dorothy is being fabricated by her admirers (and thankfully is being questioned in the “Comments” to the articles). For example, CW Brian Terrell questioned the veracity of, and publicized his inability to find one of Day’s statements. For your and his information, here is the statement and its source: “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system” (Dorothy Day, from a public speech, “Women on War,” Daniela Gioseffi, ed., 1988, pp. 103, 371).
Similarly, Robert Ellsberg— editor of the CW under Day’s tutelage for five years and now editor of her Selected Writings, Selected Letters, and Diary (cited above)—claims that the matter of the CW changing its name was “not raised again” after Day wrote a conciliatory letter to the New York Chancery (”Duty of Delight,” p. 169). However, CWs Michael Harrington, Ammon Hennacy, and Jim Forest stated that the issue recurred (Carol Byrne, “The Catholic Worker Movement (1933-1980): A Critical Analysis,” 2010, pp. 206-208).
In addition to the homespun quotes you propose, more quotes of Dorothy Day are available at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day and at http://dorothydayworker.blogspot.com/2012/10/sayings-and-writings-by-dorothy-day.html
Indeed, sadly. (Love your screen-name.)
Dolan seem pretty fitting to me.
Dorothy Day can be his Valerie Jarrett.
Sounds like a commie to me.
Thank you for noticing! “Where Peter is, there is the Church,” or “Ubi Petrus [est], ibi Ecclesia.”
What would Fr. Guido Sarducci say? Perhaps, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” — Luke 6:43-45.
Thanks for sharing. LOL.
Seems like it. “The God of the Copybook Headings” is pertinent. I doubt Dorothy Day or Cardinal Dolan would appreciate Rudyard Kipling’s poem—it has such wisdom in even the few stanzas below:
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
I am firmly of the opinion that nearly all social, cultural, and governmental issues can be correctly resolved by referring to Kipling’s poems.
Terrorism? The Grave of a Hundred Head and Arithmetic on the Frontier
Islamism? Kitchener’s School
Socialism (and especially Obamacare!)? An Imperial Rescript
Society and Culture in general? The Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Religion and State? Requiem and Hymn before Battle.
All the answers are there, but Gods of the Marketplace and their followers ignore them because they are not pretty, “fair” or “politically correct.” So the lights go out in Rome and the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more...
Birds of a feather!
Thanks, it will be good to to check more of Kipling’s poems.
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