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Equality and Christian Anarchism: The Political and Social Ideas of the Catholic Worker Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Mary C. Segers
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Extract

From the beginning, the Catholic Worker movement, founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, has challenged the cherished beliefs of American citizens, many of whom have been more than willing to accommodate religious faith and social concerns to the economic imperatives of American capitalist society. Whether criticizing child labor, the exploitation of blacks, and anti-Semitism during the thirties or protesting the treatment of migrant workers, the Vietnamese War, and the nuclear arms race in the sixties and seventies, the Catholic Worker has consistently adopted controversial positions on contemporary social issues and has challenged Americans to think through the implications ofpublic policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , April 1978 , pp. 196 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1978

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References

1 References, in the order cited, are to Miller, William D., A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Novitsky, Anthony, “Peter Maurin's Green Revolution: The Radical Implications of Reactionary Social Catholicism,” Review of Politics, 37 (1975), 83–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lobue, Wayne, “Public Theology and the Catholic Worker,” Cross Currents, 26 (1976), 270–285.Google Scholar See note 22 below for more on personalism.

2 Dorothy Day has published five books and over seventy articles. Her autobiographical writings are sources for much of the information related in this section; they include The Long Loneliness (New York, 1952)Google Scholar and Loaves and Fishes (New York, 1963)Google Scholar and On Pilgrimage, all republished by Curtis in 1972 to commemorate her seventy-fifth birthday. The writings of Peter Maurin and Ammon Hennacy are cited below. Other material on the Catholic Worker is located in the Dorothy Day-Catholic Worker Collection, Marquette University Archives, Milwaukee. The most complete bibliography on the history of the Catholic Worker has been compiled in mimeograph form by Alex Avitabile, S.J., of Fordham University and is available with four supplements. In addition, there are a number of interesting recollections by some associated with the Catholic Worker in the early years; see, for example, Cort, John C., “Memories of Peter Maurin,” Commonweal, 22 01 1960Google Scholar; also Cort, John C., “The Catholic Worker and the Workers,” Commonweal, 4 04 1952Google Scholar; and Cogley, John, A Canterbury Tale (New York, 1976), especially chaps. 1 and 2Google Scholar. For an excellent treatment situating the Catholic Worker within the context of American Catholic history, see O'Brien, David J., American Catholics and Social Reform: The New Deal Years (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

3 In her autobiography she wrote of the early years of the depression: “It was a time for pressure groups, for direct action, and radicalism was thriving among all groups except the Catholics. I felt out of it all. There was Catholic membership in all these groups, of course, but no Catholic leadership” (Long Loneliness, p. 154).

4 The relationship between cofounders Maurin and Day has been characterized variously as Maurin being the spark and the “idea man” while Dorothy Day was the writer, editor, and organizer. The description given by John Cogley, who was with the first Catholic Worker house in Chicago in the late thirties, is perhaps apt: “Characteristically, [Dorothy Day] gave all credit for her remarkable accomplishment to Peter Maurin, an itinerant French philosopher of sorts who was supposed to be learned in a special, insightful way; a man of genuine Franciscan detachment from material goods, extremely humble in manner. Peter Maurin's intellectual genius was clearly exaggerated, but the description of his other personal characteristics was on the mark. He was obviously uncomfortable in the feigned role of leadership. Unless the questions were abstractly philosophical or sweepingly historical, he would turn helplessly to Dorothy Day for an answer. We had no doubt that she was the real leader of the Catholic Worker movement” (Cogley, , Canterbury Tale, pp. 11–12Google Scholar).

5 The papal encyclicals in question were Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, published in 1891, and Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno, published in 1931. Rerum Novarum may be found in Gilson, Etienne, ed., The Church Speaks to the Modern World (New York, 1954)Google Scholar while Quadragesimo Anno may be read in McLaughlin, Terence P., ed., The Church and the Reconstruction of the Modern World (New York, 1957).Google Scholar A good summary of the teachings of both encyclicals may be found in O'Brien, American Catholics and Social Reform, chap. 1.

6 Cornell, Thomas C. and Forest, James H., eds., A Penny a Copy: Readings from the Catholic Worker (New York, 1968), p. 3Google Scholar.

7 In the June 1933 issue of Catholic Worker, Maurin wrote: “My whole scheme is a Utopian, Christian communism. I am not afraid of the word communism. I am not saying that my program is for everyone. It is for those who choose to embrace it. I am not opposed to private property with responlibility. But those who own private property should never forget it is a trust.”

8 See Powell, Donald, “Why I Like the Communist,” The Catholic Worker, 05 1936Google Scholar, reprinted in Cornell and Forest, Penny a Copy, pp. 29–31.

9 “Our Country Passes from Undeclared War to Declared War; We Continue Our Christian Pacifist Stand,” Catholic Worker January 1942, reprinted in Cornell and Forest, Penny a Copy, pp. 51–54.

10 Catholic Worker, July–August 1977, p. 3. Incidentally, the paper still costs only a penny a copy (or 25¢ for a one-year subscription). In her regular column in the June 1977 issue, Dorothy Day reported the paper's circulation as 94,000.

11 Regarding the Los Angeles house, the following recently appeared in Commonweal, “The Los Angeles Catholic Worker Community runs a clinic and hospitality house, and serves up to one thousand meals a day in an old two-story hotel in the city's skid-row sector… Six months ago the building's ownership changed hands, and the rent shot from $475 to $1700 a month. At the same time all maintenance was suspended. The community first tried negotiation; no success. Then it hunted for other accommodations in squaremile skid row; no luck. Eviction papers were filed and on June 29 (1977) the marshals were to arrive. A reprieve came at the eleventh hour. The new owner sat down with community representatives and accepted $9,000—the last of the Christmas donations fund and all the money in their savings—towards purchase of the property. Needed now was $55,000 by August 14th, else the Los Angeles Catholic Worker Community would be out its $9,000 and out the building it knows as Hospitality Kitchen and Zedakah House…Miracless still happen in California. An appeal went out, and within two weeks the Los Angeles C. W. Community had its $55,000, through contributions small and large” (Deedy, John, “News and Views,” Commonweal, 05 08 1977, p. 482)Google Scholar.

12 These were first published in 1936 under that title by Sheed and Ward. They were reissued again in 1949 under the title The Green Revolution, with a second revised edition published in 1960, by the Academy Guild Press, Fresno, California. Maurin wrote little (his legacy amounts to little more than 100 pages), preferring to rely on the spoken word to convey his ideas. His “Easy Essays” were written in a kind of free verse form, rhythmically, and in simple language. He believed strongly that the average workingman who typically congregated at Union Square in the twenties, thirties, and forties, should be addressed in a language easy to comprehend: and understand. There are more systematic and sophisticated statements of Catholic Worker thought in later articles in the newspaper, but the Worker has always striven to speak to the simple and unlearned as well as to thinkers and intellectuals.

13 Miller, , Harsh and Dreadful Love, p. 17Google Scholar.

14 Sheehan, Arthur, Peter Maurin, the Gay Believer (Garden City, N.Y., 1959)Google Scholar. This biography, though highly partisan, contains much information about Maurin's early years.

15 See O'Brien, American Catholics and Social Reform, chap. 1, for a discussion of the church's attempt to cope with the impact of industrialization.

16 Miller, , Harsh and Dreadful Love, pp. 30–31, 357Google Scholar.

17 Among the authors whom Maurin read and recommended were the following (this list, including book titles, is printed in the May 1977 issue of Catholic Worker): Mortimer Adler, Nicholas Berdyaev, G. K. Chesterton, Christopher Dawson, Amintore Fanfani, Paul Hanley Furfey, Eric Gill, Christopher Hollis, Peter Kropotkin, Wyndham Lewis, Jacques Maritain, Rev. Vincent McNabb, Emmanuel Mounier, Albert Jay Nock, R. H. Tawney, Thorstein Veblen.

18 In “The Case for Utopia,” Maurin wrote:

Christianity has nothing to do

with either modern capitalism

or modern Communism,

for Christianity

has a capitalism of its own

and a communism of its own.

Modern capitalism

is based on property without responsibility,

while Christian capitalism

is based on property with responsibility.

Modern Communism

is based on poverty through force

while Christian communism

is based on poverty through choice.

For a Christian,

voluntary poverty is the ideal

as exemplified by St. Francis of Assisi,

while private property

is not an absolute right, but a gift

which as such can not be wasted,

but must be administered

for the benefit of God's children.

Maurin, , Green Revolution, 2nd ed. rev., pp. 37–38.Google Scholar In rejecting the materialist assumptions underlying Marxism and modern capitalism, Maurin did not concern himself with types (historical or organic as opposed to behavioral or inorganic) of materialism.

19 Few followed Maurin's critique of usury, which must have sounded quaint to many readers of Catholic Worker. But in 1960 Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker house on the Lower East Side returned to the City of New York a check for $3,579.39, which represented interest on money awarded to the Catholic Worker but still unpaid. The explanation for the refusal was “We do not believe in the profit system, and so we cannot take profit or interest on our money.” See “This Money Is Not Ours,” Catholic Worker, September 1960, reprinted in Cornell and Forest, Penny a Copy, p. 204.

20 The Distributists were an English group which rejected capitalism and advocated a system of small, decentralized landholdings. They advocated the rejection of machine technology and urban civilization in favor of a frank return to a peasant, handicraft society. Among their ranks were the English sculptor and wood engraver, Eric Gill (1882–1940), the novelist and essayist G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), born in France but an English citizen and Liberal M.P. from 1906 to 1910, and chiefly a poet, essayist, and historian. Belloc and Chesterton, close friends, were christened the “Chesterbelloc” by G. B. Shaw. Maurin had read! and recommended the writings of all three of these individuals. A Dominican priest, Vincent McNabb, was also associated with the Distributists. Based on information obtained from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 4th ed. and from O'Brien, American Catholics and Social Reform. See also Day, Long Loneliness, p. 262Google Scholar.

21 In “What The Catholic Worker Believes,” Maurin wrote:

The Catholic Worker believes

in the gentle personalism

of traditional Catholicism.

The Catholic Worker believes

in the personal obligation

of looking after

the needs of our brother.

The Catholic Worker believes

in the daily practice

of the Works of Mercy.

the Catholic Worker believes

in Houses of Hospitality

for the immediate relief

of those who are in need.

The Catholic Worker believes

in the establishment

of Farming Communes

where each one works

according to his ability

and gets

according to his need.

The Catholic Worker believes

in creating a new society

within the shell of the old

with the philosophy of the new,

which is not a new philosophy

but a very old philosophy,

a philosophy so old

that it looks like new.

Reprinted in Forest and Cornell, Penny a Copy, p. 9.

22 In 1938 Maurin persuaded Virgil Michel, Benedictine liturgist and editor of the journal Orate Fratres, to translate and publish Mounier's Personalist Manifesto. Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950) was a journalist by occupation and a philosopher by temperament; he was director of L'Esprit, founded in 1932, which became one of France's leading intellectual reviews. According to Mounier, the term personalist is applied to “any doctrine or any civilization that affirms the primacy of the human person over material necessities and over the whole complex of implements man needs for the development of his person.” The immediate aim of personalism was “to define the primary points of agreement upon which a civilization devoted to the human person can be constructed.” Personalism, Mounier insisted, does not offer a system of answers, but rather a method for thinking and living, in short a way of existing. “Personalists are neither doctrinaires nor moralizers. In the final analysis people judge us by our acts” (Personalist Manifesto [New York, 1938], pp. 1–4).Google Scholar According to Eileen Cantin, “The chief aim of the review L'Esprit was to modify the attitudes of two groups of thinkers whose vision of man and of reality were amost directly opposed to each other, viz., those whose intellectual formation had been exaggeratedly spiritualistic, and those whose concerns were excessively materialistic, that is, idealists and Marxists, respectively. Mounier joined the Marxists in denouncing the exaggerations of spiritualism, and he joined the idealists in pointing out the shortsightedness of those who looked to economics of all the answers to the human dilemma of the times” (Mounier: A Personalist View of History [New York: 1973], p. 10Google Scholar). Pierce, Roy, Contemporary French Political Theory (New York, 1966)Google Scholar also contains a chapter on Mounier's work.

23 Cort, John C., “The Catholic Worker and the Workers,” Commonweal, 04 04 1952Google Scholar.

24 In the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI, concerned with the increasing role of the state, asserted the traditional principle of subsidiarity, calling upon the state to delegate to subordinate bodies those tasks which “dissipate its efforts greatly,” leaving it free to “do all those things which belong to it alone because it alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasion requires and necessity demands” (Quadragesimo Anno in The Church and the Reconstruction of the Modern World [New York, 1957], p. 247Google Scholar, cited in O'Brien, , American Catholics and Social Reform, pp. 19–20)Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., pp. 208–209.

26 Unless one considers the creative aspects of self-sacrifice and mortification on an individual level. As Woodcock points out, t h e destructive-creative or death-resurrection theme is important in anarchist thought; and it is, of course, central to Christianity: “Unless the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it will not bring forth fruit” (Woodcock, , Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements [New York, 1962], p. 14)Google Scholar.

27 These terms are Woodcock's, ibid., chap. 1.

28 I am relying chiefly on Woodcock and Marshall Shatz for this view; see the latter's introduction to The Essential Works of Anarchism, ed. Shatz, Marshall S. (New York, 1971).Google Scholar Woodcock defines anarchism “as a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly—for this is the common element uniting all its forms—at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of nongovernmental cooperation between free individuals” (Woodcock, , Anarchism, p. 9)Google Scholar.

29 Dorothy Day felt quite sympathetic to the aims and methods of the Industrial Workers of the World: “they believed in direct action and were impatient of the dialectic of the orthodox Marxist” (Long Loneliness, pp. 51–52). However, she devoted most of her discussion of these topics in her autobiography to anarchism and pacifism: see pp. 52–54 and pp. 258–266. Peter Maurin also frequently quoted “Wobblie” maxims and slogans. In his discussion of anarchism in America, Woodcock makes the following assessment of the IWW: “After 1905 the anarchists who were interested in labor organization tended to join the Industrial Workers of the World, which was to some extent influenced by French syndicalism. However, they formed only one of a number of groups in that chaotic organization, and they never controlled it. In fact the IWW, which drew so much of its vigor and its methods from the hard traditions of the American frontier, was at most a parallel movement to anarchism. It contained too many Marxist elements ever to be truly libertarian, and its central idea of the One Big Union was fundamentally opposed to the anarchists' passionately held ideals of localism and decentralization” (Woodcock, , Anarchism, p. 466)Google Scholar.

30 Day, , Long Loneliness, p. 262.Google Scholar See also Ludlow, Robert, “Revolution and Compassion,” Catholic Worker, 05 1948Google Scholar, where Ludlow argues that the nation-state is incompatible with Christianity: “as the ideals of Christianity are realized, as they become exteriorized in society, so will national states wither away as being impediments to the realization of human brotherhood… And this is what is meant by Christian anarchism which opposes freedom to slavery, nonviolence to war, decentralization to the national state.”

31 Shatz, , Essentials of Anarchism, pp. xi–xxixGoogle Scholar.

32 Kropotkin, Peter, Modern Science and Anarchism, 2nd ed. (London, 1923), p. 45Google Scholar, as cited by Shatz, , Essentials of Anarchism, p. xixGoogle Scholar.

33 Day, , Loaves and Fishes, p. 27.Google Scholar She is quoting here the final “verse” of Maurin's “The Case for Utopia”; see Maurin, , Green Revolution, pp. 38–39Google Scholar.

34 Shatz, , Essentials of Anarchism, p. xxGoogle Scholar.

35 In his “Easy Essay” entitled “Feeding the Poor” Maurin wrote:

In the first centuries

of Christianity

the hungry were fed

at a personal sacrifice,

the naked were clothed

at a personal sacrifice,

the homeless were sheltered

at a personal sacrifice.

And because the poor

were fed, clothed and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice,

the pagans used to say

about the Christians

“See how they love each other.”

In our own day

the poor are no longer

fed, clothed and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice

but at the expense

of the taxpayers.

And because the poor

are no longer

fed, clothed and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice

the pagans say about the

Christians

“See how they pass the buck.”

36 Day, , Long Loneliness, p. 175.Google Scholar Elsewhere she wrote: “Peter did not wish to turn to the government for funds. ‘He who is a pensioner of the state is a slave of the state,’ he felt. Peter also quoted Jefferson—‘He governs best who governs least’” (Long Loneliness, p. 218).

37 In Loaves and Fishes, Dorothy Day states: “Peter Maurin insisted that the works of mercy are the most direct form of action there is … (Corporal) works of mercy are feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, ransoming the prisoner, and burying the dead. The spiritual works of mercy are instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, rebuking the sinner, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving all injuries, and praying for the living and the dead” (p. vii).

38 In justifying Catholic Worker activities in the labor and peace movements, Dorothy Day wrote: “The spiritual works of mercy include enlightening the ignorant, rebuking the sinner, consoling the afflicted, as well as bearing wrongs patiently, and we have always classed picket lines and the distribution of literature among these works.” These concepts of Catholic theology as applied by the Catholic Worker are similar to those employed in Gandhian satyagraha campaigns and in the nonviolent protest marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr. It is noteworthy that Maurin did not favor Catholic Worker participation in strikes and picketing (“Strikes don't strike me,” was a favorite saying of his), but Dorothy Day's insistence that the Catholic Worker should support the workers' struggle for social justice prevailed. Catholic Worker support of striking workers and Catholic Workers picketing were justified as “instructing the ignorant.”

39 Shatz identifies a sixth feature of anarchism, a distrust of rigorous intellectual constructs, and an exaltation of “life” over “thought.” Anarchism, he notes, has always contained a broad streak of anti-intellectualism. “To anarchists, the attempt to impose order on reality by means of rational consciousness, and encompass it within abstract theory, robs life of its infinite variety and individuality. It literally dehumanizes individuals by reducing living, sensate beings to the status of categories” (Shatz, pp. xx–xxi). Some of these elements are present in Maurin's thought, although he sometimes appeared to be more antiacademic than anti-intellectual (see “A Rumpus on Campus,” Green Revolution, p. 23). On the other hand, in phrases reminiscent of Mao's egalitarian concern for the union of mental and physical work, Maurin insisted that “scholars and workers” must collaborate and learn from one another:

The scholar has told the bourgeois

that a worker is a man for all that.

But the bourgeois has told the scholar

that a worker is a commodity for all that.

Because the scholar has vision,

the bourgeois calls him a visionary.

So the bourgeois laughs at the

scholar's vision

and the worker is left without vision.

And the worker left by the

scholar without vision

talks about liquidating

both the bourgeois and the scholar.

The scholars must tell the workers

what is wrong

with the things as they are.

The scholars must tell the workers

how a path can be made

from the things as they are

to the things as they should be.

The scholars must collaborate

with the workers

in making a path

from the things as they are

to the things

as they should be.

The scholars must become workers

so the workers may be scholars.

Maurin, , Green Revolution, p. 27Google Scholar.

40 Day, , Lang Loneliness, pp. 178 and 220Google Scholar.

41 Woodcock, , Anarchism, p. 9Google Scholar.

41a Hennacy, Ammon, Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist (New York, 1954), pp. 128–131.Google Scholar Ammon Hennacy, self-styled “one-man revolutionist,” is a major figure in the history of the Catholic Worker movement. A socialist in college, a draft resister during the First World War, Hennacy was imprisoned for his noncooperation with the military. While at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Hennacy met Alexander Berkman and was converted to the latter's anarchist position. While in prison (solitary confinement), he also read the Bible and Tolstoy and emerged something of a Christian anarchist. A decision to avoid supporting American participation in the Second World War in any form led to Hennacy's working as a day laborer in the Southwest to prevent even the withholding of income taxes (in this manner he supported himself and sent his two daughters through Northwestern University). In the postwar era, Hennacy became involved with the Catholic Worker and converted to Catholicism under the influence of Dorothy Day. In the fifties, both in substance (opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy, demand for justice in the case of the Rosenbergs, opposition to civil defense drills, protest against nuclear weapons) and in style (picketing, fasting, “guerilla theater”), Hennacy's activities gained notoriety for the Catholic Worker movement. In 1961 he established his own Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he lived until his death in 1973, continuing his “one-man revolution” against the state until the end.

42 Ludlow, Robert, “A Re-evaluation,” Catholic Worker, 06 1955Google Scholar, reprinted in Cornell and Forest, Penny a Copy, pp. 169–172. For Ludlow's previous position on Christian anarchism, see footnote 30 above. In his autobiography, Amraon Hennacy quoted Ludlow approvingly on the subject of Christian anarchism: “There is an incompatibility between anarchism and religion only if the Christian insists on transforming the authoritarian set-up of the Church to the temporal field or the anarchist insists in rejecting authority in religion. In both cases it comes from a confusion of the supernatural with the natural” (Hennacy, , Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist, p. 130Google Scholar).

43 Day, , Long Loneliness, p. 213Google Scholar.

44 Miller, , Harsh and Dreadful Love, pp. 85–88. Dorothy Day appointed (nominated) Rev. Joseph Foley, C.S.P., who was her spiritual adviser and a staunch defender of the Catholic Worker movement. See his review of her book, From Union Square to Rome, in the January 1939 issue of Catholic World where he emphasized how faithful and obedient to the authority of the church Dorothy Day wasGoogle Scholar.

45 Macdonald's, Dwight profile of the Catholic Worker appeared in two issues of the New Yorker, 10 04 and 10 11, 1952Google Scholar.

46 Day, , The Long Loneliness, pp. 248 and 253Google Scholar.

47 Miller, , Harsh and Dreadful Love, pp. 87–89Google Scholar.

48 For example, in The Long Loneliness Dorothy Day wrote: ”It is a matter of grief to me that most of those who are Catholic Workers are not pacifists, but I can see too how good it is that we always have this attitude represented among us. We are not living in an ivory tower” (p. 267). See also the January 1942 editorial of Catholic Worker on the United States declaration of war on Japan and Germany.

49 Woodcock, , Anarchism, p. 13.Google Scholar Woodcock also states: “Perhaps the most impressive example of Tolstoyan influence in the contemporary Western world is—ironically in view of Tolstoy's distrust of organized churches—the Roman Catholic group associated in the United States with The Catholic Worker and particularly with that saintly representative of Christian anarchism in our time, Dorothy Day” (Ibid., p. 234).

50 In the editorial statement of Catholic Worker positions in the May 1977 issue of the paper is the following: “We believe in the complete equality of all men and women under God. Oppression in any form is blasphemy against God, who created all persons in his image and who offers redemption to all. The person comes to God freely or not at all and it is not the function of any person or institution to force the faith on anyone. Persecution of any people is therefore a serious sin and denial of free will” (Catholic Worker, May 1977, PP. 6–7).

51 There is an implicit allusion to the distinction between formal and substantive approaches to equal treatment in Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness (p. 200). Referring to Jesus' parables, particularly to the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16), she wrote: “In his parables he spoke of the living wage, not equal pay for equal work, in the parable of those who came at the first and the eleventh hour.”

52 Regarding organization of the New York Catholic Worker house, Dorothy Day has written: “What kind of an organization do we have? It's hard to answer that. We don't have any, in the usual sense of the word. Certainly we are not a cooperative, not a settlement house, not a mission. We cannot be said to operate on a democratic basis. Once both an ex-soldier and an ex-Trappist (monk) were staying with us, and I asked each in turn how he liked The Catholic Worker group. The soldier said, ‘It's just like the Army,’ and the Trappist said, ‘It's like a Trappist monastery.’ Then a man from an Israeli kibbutz visited us and I asked him the same question. He felt very much at home, he said, because the atmosphere was that of the kibbutzim. A visitor from India likened our cityhouse of hospitality to an ashram. A teacher of Russian at Fordham told us our farming commune reminded her of Tolstoy's home. Someone else called it a benevolent dictatorship. Perhaps the most accurate description was supplied by the friend who referred to it as a ‘revolutionary headquarters’” (Loaves and Fishes, p. viii). There is a coordinator or director at the Catholic Worker house in New York, who writes a column every month for the paper (the current coordinator is Jonathan Beasley). Most of the other Catholic Worker houses are similarly organized.

53 See, for example, Tom Sullivan's article on the New York Catholic Worker house in the December 1947 issue of Catholic Worker, reprinted in Cornell and Forest, Penny a Copy pp. 85–87.

54 Day, , Long Loneliness, pp. 176–177Google Scholar.

55 A case in point is the Catholic Worker farm in Avon, Ohio, founded in the thirties by Bill and Dorothy Gauchat, which has developed into a home for seriously retarded children. The assumption is that these human beings have as much right to the care, respect, and personal attention they need as do normal children who, on the surface, appear to be potentially more productive members of society. I find this instructive, especially in view of the fact that—with the exception of Stanley Benn's discussion in his essay “Egalitarianism and the Equal Consideration of Interests”—the philosophical literature on equality has generally ignored or glossed over questions of equal treatment for idiots, imbeciles, and the severely retarded. Benn's essay is in Nomos IX: Equality, eds. Pennock, and Chapman, (New York, 1967)Google Scholar.