Peter Maurin
by Fritz Eichenberg
It was Peter Maurin who had the idea for Catholic Worker newspapers
Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, we are glad that we have been able to put out the Houston Catholic Worker paper every quarter. Whether we are at Casa Juan Diego or miles apart, we know there are deadlines and long hours to make sure everything we have chosen for an issue belongs in the issue and arrives in your mailbox on time. We take pride in the work of the paper and try to breathe life into every issue.
The Houston Catholic Worker is the paper you hold in your hand. It is the many hours that go into making each issue. It is the many nights our writers stayed up to revise an essay. It is a sentence from that essay that stays with you. It is the hundreds of authors and artists we have published. It is how we try to honor the full catastrophe of human life: the wonder, the horror, the beauty, and the sorrow.
Our primary intention is to speak to our readers in an honest and meaningful way. No small talk. And no advertising. We want our readers to stay focused on what is important.
We first printed the Houston Catholic Worker forty years ago. We had no staff, no money, and no office, only the model Dorothy Day left us. But day after day, year after year, the Houston Catholic Worker was sustained by faith, hard work, and the steadfast support of its readers.
The fact that the Houston Catholic Worker has survived is something of a miracle. But what we are going through now is different from the challenges we have faced in the past. We have no idea what the effect of the pandemic will be for a nonprofit, reader supported paper like the Houston Catholic Worker. But whatever happens, we will keep publishing the best paper we can.
We did not know in 1980 that the Houston Catholic Worker paper would become part of our life’s work and be the paper it is today. Putting out a quarterly paper is both labor-intensive and a labor of love. And when the weight of the suffering in the world feels like too heavy a burden – this world that is so beautiful and unbelievably sad – we remember we are working for “a new heaven and a new earth, wherein justice dwelleth.” Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing, and sheltering our brothers and sisters; that publishing a paper, the Houston Catholic Worker paper “gives reason for the faith that is in us.”
P.S. You can help us spread the message of the Houston Catholic Worker by subscribing family and friends you believe might be open and receptive to the paper. There is no charge for subscriptions. Just e-mail us names and addresses to info@cjd.org or write to us at P. O. Box 70113 Houston, TX 77270
Houston Catholic Worker, Jan.-March, 2021, Vol. XLI, No. 1.
