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International Interest in the Canonization of Dorothy Day

International interest seems to be growing in Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. We are receiving requests from various countries for our new translation in Spanish of The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins.

We wondered what was in the package from Germany. When we opened it, we found a copy of Concilium in German with a blue cover. Wondering why it was sent to us (we do not read German), we looked through the list of articles to try to discover something of interest. Imagine our surprise to find our names Mark und Louise Zwick, along with the title of the article in German, “What the New York Times Did Not Say About Dorothy Day.”

We then received a copy of Concilium in English from India with the same article, and checking online discovered that it had been published in all the countries and languages that Concilium publishes in – Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. It arrives in various countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. We heard later that a university president in Uganda had recently read about Dorothy Day for the first time.

Letter From Argentina About Dorothy Day

Estimados en Cristo,

According to the information that you sent us in the last Catholic Worker, there is a new Spanish edition of The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins.

The book would be of special interest to us in order to continue deepening in the thought and action of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin that in this decade in which we have been in contact with you through your newspaper, we have learned to appreciate more and more. And we see the complete connection between your founders with the great process of transformation which is taking place in our Church with the pastoral guidance of Pope Francis.

Our personal story, at sixty years of age, has been one of committing ourselves daily with our people – Argentinean and Latin American in a process similar to the path you have travelled, according to what we have read about your commitment.

We want you to know of our intention of collaborating insofar as we can, in the process of the beatification of Dorothy, in whom we find the most relevant, personal and social values of a lay saint for our times.

The designs of Providence brought us to participate in the Pilgrimage and Encuentro convoked by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which was held at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City this last November.

For us, as Latin Americans, it was a tremendous and very pleasing new event to meet together with Canadians and people from the United States, sharing under the mantle of Our Mother of America with a common vision and, above all, a path to travel together.

In spite of trips we have made to the United States or in this same meeting in the House of Our Mother of Guadalupe, we have not been able to meet personally with you, as was always our intention. We hope that Providence will give us the possibility at a suitable moment and in the place. We are conscious as our beloved Francis says, that we live almost “at the end of the world.”

Send us materials – if possible in Spanish – to participate in the process of Dorothy’s beatification.

We are at your disposal in any way we can be useful.

Cristina and Jorge Armas, Argentina

Lowering the Cost of Becoming a Saint

We were pleased to read that the Vatican has put a cap on the budgets for sainthood cases, another nod to Pope Francis’ call for sobriety. 
Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, announced the change during a meeting of postulators, those who guide sainthood cases through the lengthy investigations of would-be saints’ lives and miracles. Cardinal Amato said postulators must now abide by a “reference price” to curb overall expenditure and make the process more equitable for less well-funded cases.

This is good news for Dorothy’s cause.

Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, January-February 2014.