To us at the Catholic Worker, Father Virgil was a dear friend and adviser, bringing to us his tremendous strength and knowledge. He first came to visit us at our beginnings on East Fifteenth Street. he was like Peter Maurin in the friendly simple way he would come in and sit down, starting right in… continue reading

The supreme guiding motive of the bourgeois mind is precisely the personal gain or profit that the medieval idealist rejected as a final goal. The principle of gain for its own sake, of an endlessly increasing profit, is now set up as the one sensible goal of all human life and endeavor. All the aspects… continue reading

At the mention of the subject of this article one might be inclined to ask: What has the liturgy to do with social reconstruction or the social question? Can the liturgy help to give jobs or raise wages? Can there be any connection between the liturgy and the social problem? The moment we deal with… continue reading

It was a great shock to us to hear of the death, by heart attack, in Paris of Emmanuel Mounier, at forty five. Mounier was the guiding spirit in the French personalist movement, and founder and director of Esprit, the magazine which is the organ of the movement. Mounier, who was the child of peasants,… continue reading

The following are excerpts from the works of Mounier: Principles of a Personalist Civilization A personalist civilization is one whose structure and spirit are directed towards the development as persons of all the individuals constituting it. They have as their ultimate end to enable every individual to live as a person, that is, to exercise… continue reading