The horrifying events of September 11, 2001, when suicide-mission pilots flew airplanes loaded with passengers into the two towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and another attempt against the U.S. was foiled by passengers, lead one to ask, after the tears have dried: Why do people hate us so much that they… continue reading
Responding as Catholic Workers to the Violence at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001
November 1, 2001 by
G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Day on Economics:Neither Socialism nor Capitalism (Distributism)
October 1, 2001 by
The following is a talk given at the American Chesterton Society annual conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 2001. Dorothy Day and G. K. Chesterton were contemporaries. Both came into Catholicism in the 1920’s, Chesterton in 1922 at age 48 and Dorothy five years later at age 30. Both spent years of reading, studying,… continue reading
Religion – Ally or Enemy of Change
August 1, 2001 by
Old-fashioned Marxists considered religion to be a major obstacle to social economic change, branding it as the opiate of the people. In a debate in the 70’s with a representative of the Communist Party in New York, I proposed the contrary. I claimed that the Marxist sense of revolution was shallow and that the Theistic… continue reading
John Paul II: Globalization Must Not Be a New Form of Colonialism
August 1, 2001 by
In recent months John Paul II has been critiquing the economics of globalization, raising serious ethical questions about the way it is implemented. It is almost as if he knew that some prominent Catholic writers, especially in the United States, were advocating in the name of the Church an economics based on using people as… continue reading
NO TO PLAN COLOMBIA: Land Reform Essential for Desperate Campesinos
June 1, 2001 by
Once again, the first casualty of war has been the truth. Over the last two years, lost somewhere between blaring media headlines of Elian and Napster, elections and the Oscars, miniature paragraphs and news bites on the escalating crisis of Colombia’s civil war have been vainly competing for the attention of a sensation-hungry, otherwise-occupied public…. continue reading
Madeleine Delbrel–a French Dorothy Day–writes We, the Ordinary People of the Streets
April 1, 2001 by
Review of Madeleine Delbrêl, We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000). Last August during a catechesis delivered to French-speaking youth in Rome for World Youth Day, the president of the Jubilee Committee, Roger Cardinal Etchegaray, en-couraged young people to take up “the arduous battle of holiness” (le… continue reading
Christian Asceticism: Breaking Consumerism’s Destructive Hold
January 1, 2001 by
It has been my experience through fifteen years of priestly service that the personal and familial problems facing Christians are greatly intensified by the consumerism that characterizes much of contemporary American life. As I have come to appreciate the psychological and religious aspects of this influence I have also become increasingly convinced of the social… continue reading
Multinationals Rob Seeds of Poor: Vandana Shiva and Houston Catholic Workers Protest Patenting of Life Forms at RiceTec in Alvin, Texas
December 1, 2000 by
It seemed incredible. A corporation in Alvin, Texas, just an hour and a half by car from Casa Juan Diego, was trying to patent seeds that rice farmers had developed over centuries in India and Pakistan. Actually, they had already done so and were in the process of renewing the patent. Farmers in India and… continue reading
Easter at Casa Juan Diego Center for Immigrants and Refugees; Catholic Worker Hospitality, Easter 2000
August 1, 2000 by
It is Easter evening at Casa Juan Diego. The lights are out in most of the house since the men will be up at 4 a.m. and on their way to the Padre Jack Davis Hiring Hall where hopefully all will pick up a days’ work. Our men are mostly from Mexico and the Central… continue reading
