Catholic Worker

[thriller]

So my Grandma passed away recently and I was helping my mom clean out her house. I came across about 3 big cardboard boxes full of "Catholic Worker" newspapers. I got to reading, and it seems they are quite radical. Some may disagree due to their stance on non-violence, but as far as their views, I'm actually kind of digging 'em. My Grandma was a commie, who knew?

Anyhoot has anyone heard of them before?

Here's a link if you are interested: http://www.catholicworker.org/aimsandmeanstext.cfm?Number=201

[Die Neue Zeit]

Historically Catholic Workerism has been politically reactionary. It's very related to Distributism. The economic doctrines are much closer to Rerum Novarum than to Marxism or any other secular revolutionary socialist thinking.

[CornetJoyce]

The catholic worker movement embraces distributism (See the writings of Chesterton for that.) but it's abiding interest is in pacifism. They have an affinity for the Wobblies as well. The well known anarchist Ammon Hennessy was a Catholic worker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Ro4rTvDcw&feature=related

[NewSocialist]

Yeah from what I know of it, Catholic workerism is just distributism -- which is also a favorite ideology within certain fascist circles. Dorothy Day was a famous exponent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day

[Die Neue Zeit]

The catholic worker movement embraces distributism (See the writings of Chesterton for that.) but it's abiding interest is in pacifism. They have an affinity for the Wobblies as well. The well known anarchist Ammon Hennessy was a Catholic worker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Ro4rTvDcw&feature=related

In this the modern movement might be different from the earlier one, which did not hesitate to jump into forays like WWI.

[Dragovich]

Interesting find about your grandma! :)

[RED DAVE]

Historically Catholic Workerism has been politically reactionary. It's very related to Distributism. The economic doctrines are much closer to Rerum Novarum than to Marxism or any other secular revolutionary socialist thinking.You don't know what you're talking about. The Catholic Worker movement was/is a Catholic anarchist organization in the USA. It was founded in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

In recent times, it has focused on aiding the poor and pacifism, and has a network of hospitality houses for the poor. But in times past it actively supported the labor movement, especially the IWW. Aamon Hennacy, one of my heroes, a life-long Catholic Worker, individually started the protests in the USA against fallout shelters during the height of the Cold War.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

You don't know what you're talking about. The Catholic Worker movement was/is a Catholic anarchist organization in the USA. It was founded in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

There were Catholic Worker parties that tried to compete with European Social Democracy during the time of the Second International.

If the American "Catholic Worker" movement wished to make clear that it's closer to Marxism or any other secular revolutionary socialist thinking, as opposed to the Rerum Novarum, it might as well adopt liberation theology or emancipation theology.

[RED DAVE]

There were Catholic Worker parties that tried to compete with European Social Democracy during the time of the Second International.And I had a grandmother named Sarah, but that doesn't make her Sara Palin. The American Catholic Worker movement had nothing to do with the groups you're talking about. And if you did some research, you would have known this.

RED DAVE

[CornetJoyce]

There was a Green Party in Byzantium during the Justinian dynasty.

[jake williams]

And I had a grandmother named Sarah, but that doesn't make her Sara Palin. The American Catholic Worker movement had nothing to do with the groups you're talking about. And if you did some research, you would have known this.

RED DAVE
Well, you could call your knitting circle the Anti-Revisionist Society for the Appreciation of Uncle Joe, and if it turned out that really you had an uncle named Joe who liked knitting but whose kids, your cousins, were a bit embarassed about it, instead putting forth a revisionist biography of their father, and you simply wanted to remind everyone that Joe did, in fact, enjoy knitting - people would be a bit confused if you said you were a member of it and it shouldn't be assumed that they would understand what you're getting at.

You're just taking any opportunity to dig at DNZ. I'd never heard of this particular organization either. I have heard of a mostly right-wing Catholic worker movement, that is a tendency within the labour movement with a history of anti-communism, religious bigotry and oftentimes collaborationism, to which I think DNZ is alluding (but which in Québec eventually became the left of the labour movement, through a complicated series of events).

[Labor Shall Rule]

Don't pay too much attention to labels until you see it in person...

My friend Matthew, who is now temporarily teaching as a Theology professor at a local university, considers himself to be of the Catholic Worker tradition. He has done a lot of good anti-ROTC/anti-war work at Gannon, the college that I am now going to. At the same time, his pacifism is weak. Abortion too, eh...

[Die Neue Zeit]

There was a Green Party in Byzantium during the Justinian dynasty.

Welcome humour, comrade, but:


And I had a grandmother named Sarah, but that doesn't make her Sara Palin. The American Catholic Worker movement had nothing to do with the groups you're talking about. And if you did some research, you would have known this.

That still does not detract from its rejection of liberation theology or emancipation theology.

[CornetJoyce]

Liberation theology is much more recent than the Catholic Worker movement and centered in Latin American. It was influenced by the CWM

http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Liberation_theology

The more orthodox tendency in Liberation Theology is exemplified by Rubem Alves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubem_Alves), a Brazilian theologian working at Princeton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University), who wrote Towards a Theology of Liberation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_Theology_of_Liberation) (1968).
The more radical tendency in Liberation Theology is exemplified by the Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Guti%C3%A9rrez), O.P. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.P.) In his 1972 book, A Theology of Liberation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theology_of_Liberation), Gutierrez theorized a combination of Marxism and the social-Catholic teachings contributing to a socialist current in the Church that was influenced by the Catholic Worker Movement (http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Catholic_Worker_Movement) and the French Christian youth worker organization, "Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeunesse_Ouvri%C3%A8re_Chr%C3%A9tienne)." It was also influenced by Paul Gauthier (http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Paul_Gauthier_%28theologian%29)'s "The Poor, Jesus and the Church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poor,_Jesus_and_the_Church)" (1965). The book is based on an understanding of history in which the human being is seen as assuming conscious responsibility for human destiny, and yet Christ the Saviour liberates the human race from sin, which is the root of all disruption of friendship (http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Liberation_theology#) and of all injustice and oppression[6] (http://religion.wikia.com/wiki/Liberation_theology#cite_note-5).

and I've never heard of the CWM disowning Liberation theolgy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, the key there is "a combination of Marxism and... teachings... influenced by the [American] Catholic Worker Movement." ;)

[CornetJoyce]

http://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/A_033br_DorothyDay.htm

"Ever since Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin founded the Catholic Worker Movement (CWM) in 1933, the subject of its being a Communist front has become the elephant in the room – something of which CWM aficionados are inwardly aware but which they all agree to outwardly ignore. They have succeeded in circulating the myth, implicitly believed even by members of the clergy who should know better, that Day left Communism behind when she entered the Catholic Church.."

[RED DAVE]

Fact is, DNZ, you ran off half-cocked and have been trying to obscure your mistake for several posts. You confused a right-wing Catholic labor movement of the early part of the 20th Century in Europe with a left-wing, anarchist Catholic organization that originated in the US that wasn't organized until the 1930s.

ETA: All this would have been avoided had you checked the link in the OP instead of relying on your pseudo-erudition.

RED DAVE

[thriller]

You're just taking any opportunity to dig at DNZ. I'd never heard of this particular organization either. I have heard of a mostly right-wing Catholic worker movement, that is a tendency within the labour movement with a history of anti-communism, religious bigotry and oftentimes collaborationism, to which I think DNZ is alluding (but which in Québec eventually became the left of the labour movement, through a complicated series of events).

Well if you read the aims of the newspaper on the link I posted, you would see they are anti-racist and anti-bourgeois (maybe not communist but against capitalism) and reading from the papers my Grandma collected in the 40's their views have not changed.

And DNZ: I havnt heard of the Catholic Worker in Europe, I'll check it out. But of course they are not on par with any secular socialist thinking considering they are CATHOLIC lol

[Die Neue Zeit]

And DNZ: I havnt heard of the Catholic Worker in Europe, I'll check it out. But of course they are not on par with any secular socialist thinking considering they are CATHOLIC lol

You don't need to look far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Catholicism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy#History

[Crux]

You don't need to look far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Catholicism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_democracy#History
This is kind of ironic, DNZ. May I suggest you too consult wikipedia the next time before confusing things?

[Os Cangaceiros]

My mom had a book with a ton of (Catholic Worker) Fritz Eichenburg illustrations, which she got as a gift for some social work she did. I really like his work:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_voTyZjrTgrA/THy_X-vXn9I/AAAAAAAAANM/rzfLbfHfF4A/s1600/Illustration_5.jpg

http://www.conradgraeber.com/images/Portraits/Eichenberg_Sins.jpg