May 1: The Catholic Worker

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is May 1st, and our story is The Catholic Worker. On a December afternoon in 1932, a slightly disheveled vagabond knocked on a young Catholic journalist's door. The vagabond was Peter Morin, a French immigrant who dreamed of political and social reform. The journalist was Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism who couldn't understand why her fellow Catholics weren't more concerned with the plight of the hungry and the jobless.

Before that afternoon, Morin and Day had never met. The Frenchman was looking for someone who could work with him to bring justice to the poor. A justice grounded in the gospel and illuminated by Catholic social teaching. A mutual acquaintance, Commonweal's editor George Schuster, told Morin that day might fit the bill. So, Morin came knocking. Schuster was right.

Five months later, on May 1, 1933, the world celebrated International Workers' Day, and the Catholic worker went to press. Sold for only a penny an issue, the newspaper sought to educate ordinary workingmen about the social doctrines of the Catholic Church. In that, it hoped to help those most susceptible to communism's appeal realize that another, better alternative existed. Within a few months, with Day as its editor, the Catholic workers' circulation reached 25,000. By 1936, that number had risen to 150,000.

As the newspaper's reach spread, so did its influence and impact. From it sprang an entire movement dedicated to helping the poor and marginalized, a movement whose work ranged from running homes for the dispossessed to operating farms that practiced sustainable methods of agriculture. Morin died in 1949. Day passed away 31 years later. But the Catholic worker movement they founded, and the paper that started it all, still sold for only a penny an issue, endures to this day, proclaiming the church's social gospel through word and deed.

Dorothy Day and Peter Morin demonstrated that faith is not meant to remain private. It is meant to animate the world. By living out the gospel in concrete ways, they showed that helping the poor and marginalized is both a moral duty and a form of witness. Look for one tangible way to serve the poor or marginalized today, even in a small, practical way.

Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Join us tomorrow, May 2nd, for another story of faith and courage in America.