Dorothy Day
Marquette University Archives
| When Pope Leo’s first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, came out earlier this fall, many of us eagerly read through it to see if the Holy Father would mention Dorothy in this text on love for the poor. Dorothy’s name never explicitly came up in the exhortation, but Pope Leo’s remarks, particularly in the section on popular movements, strongly reflected Dorothy’s unique mode of discipleship in the modern world. We suspected that given his emerging pastoral priorities and his American background, the Holy Father was likely aware of Dorothy and the Catholic Worker movement she founded, but we were floored when the Pope named her in his Jubilee Audience for pilgrims on Saturday, November 22nd.
Pope Leo said of Dorothy: “Jesus came to bring fire: the fire of God’s love on earth and the fire of desire in our hearts. In a certain way, Jesus takes away our peace, if we think of peace as an inert calm. This, however, is not true peace,” Pope Leo said to the assembled pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. Instead, “the peace Jesus brings is like a fire and asks much of us. Above all, it asks us to take a stand.” Speaking in Spanish, the Pope then invited the audience,“to remember a small, great American woman, Dorothy Day, who lived in the last century. She had fire inside her. Dorothy Day took a stand. She saw that her country’s development model didn’t create equal opportunities for everyone; she understood that for too many, the dream was a nightmare; that as a Christian, she had to engage with workers, migrants, and those rejected by a killing economy. She wrote and served: it’s important to unite mind, heart, and hands. This is taking a stand. She wrote as a journalist; that is, she thought and made others think. Writing is important. And so is reading, today more than ever. And then Dorothy served meals, gave clothes, dressed and ate like those she served: she united mind, heart, and hands. In this way, hoping is taking a stand. Dorothy Day has involved thousands of people. They have opened homes in many cities, in many neighborhoods: not large service centers, but centers of charity and justice where they can call each other by name, get to know each other one by one, and transform indignation into communion and action. This is what peacemakers are like: they take a stand and bear the consequences, but they move forward.” What an incredible gift, and an amazing surprise! English-language Catholic news sources including Aleteia and OSV News provided early summaries of the Pope’s remarks. |
| Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XLVI, No. 2, April-June, 2026 |
