New York City, N.Y., Dec 10, 2021 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
More than a dozen boxes containing evidence of Servant of God Dorothy Day’s reputation for holiness are on their way to the Vatican, after a Mass this week in New York City marked the end of two decades of diocesan work on Day’s sainthood cause.
Day, who died in New York City in 1980, was an advocate for the poor and the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. The Archdiocese of New York, with permission from St. John Paul II, opened her sainthood cause in 2000.
I hope you’ve heard of Servant of God Dorothy Day – and if not, let’s change that! She’s one of the radiant stars in Catholic America. Here’s my Homily from the Young Adult Holy Hour and Mass on Wednesday: https://t.co/vgyL3RopHX
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York celebrated the Mass on Dec. 8, during which 17 cardboard boxes containing papers and evidence in support of Day’s cause sat at the front of the church, tied shut with red ribbons.
The boxes will be presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and to Pope Francis.
“Folks, you’re witnessing history,” Dolan said during his homily on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, calling Day a “radiant star” of “American sanctity.”
The canonical inquiry on the life of Dorothy Day began in April 2016, and involved the interviewing of more than 50 eyewitnesses who knew Day personally; the reading of over 3,000 pages that she wrote for the Catholic Worker newspaper; and other evidence that was collected and examined to determine whether Day lived a life of heroic virtue.
Day was born in Brooklyn in 1897 and raised in Chicago. She was baptized Episcopalian at the age of 12 and displayed signs at a young age of possessing a deep religious sense, fasting and mortifying her body by sleeping on hardwood floors.
In the 1910s, Day dropped out of college and moved to New York, where she took a job as a reporter for the country’s largest daily socialist paper, The Call. She moved in socialist and bohemian circles, and undertook a series of disastrous romances, one of which included an abortion that she later deeply regretted.
She eventually entered into a common-law marriage with Forster Batterham, an anarchist lover of nature and a staunch atheist. Day lived for years on the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. She moved to Staten Island in the 1920s, where she raised her daughter Tamar.
Dolan acknowledged that Day lived a “far from a sinless life” at first; a life in which she detected an “emptiness.” This search for meaning helped to lead her to Catholicism; she began praying the rosary and had her daughter baptized Catholic.
She was received into the Catholic Church in 1927 at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in the Staten Island neighborhood of Tottenville.
After Batterham left Day, she lived in New York City as a single mother. Her deep-rooted and long-standing concern for the poor resurfaced. Along with the eccentric French itinerant philosopher Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933.
Living the Catholic notion of holy poverty and practicing works of mercy, the two started soup kitchens, self-sustaining farm communities and a daily newspaper. In the course of her 50 years working among the poor and marginalized, Day never took a salary.
Dolan noted that Day went to the National Shrine in Washington D.C. on Dec. 8, 1935, and prayed that she would come to know God’s providential plan. She wanted to live a simple, communal life, similar to the apostles.
She advocated Catholic devotion and hospitality while also engaged in social action for the poor and for civil rights. Her social criticism often took a radical perspective on poverty, labor, capitalism, and war, while still drawing on Catholic social teaching.
Her legacy lives on today in some 185 Catholic Worker communities in the U.S. and around the globe. Some members of her communities have expressed worry about the time spent and cost of her canonization process, saying that the expense could be better used to aid the poor.
In addition, some have noted that Day herself, in some of her writings, resisted being labeled a saint. However, Robert Ellsberg, who edited the first published collection of Day’s diaries, has said he thinks Day believed “we [are] all called to be saints” and that what Day objected to was being put “on a pedestal.”
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Minneapolis, Minn., Jun 2, 2020 / 04:17 pm (CNA).- As protests turned violent Thursday night after the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a police officer, a small Catholic parish in Minneapolis became a refuge for neighbors who didn’t feel safe in their homes.
St. Albert the Great Parish, located in the Longfellow neighborhood, sheltered 34 neighbors as riots destroyed surrounding businesses and damaged homes the night of May 28. Less than a mile from the church, thousands of protesters gathered to burn the Minneapolis Third Police Precinct, many of them inflicting violence on the surrounding area as well.
Father Joe Gillespie, pastor of St. Albert the Great, said the church’s neighbors feared fire and burglary, and asked the church for shelter. After receiving a call from the Volunteers of America asking for assistance, the church welcomed its neighbors into the church social hall, asking them to provide their own blankets and mats to sleep on.
“It wasn’t a Hilton,” Gillespie told CNA, while adding that the church basement provided running water and plenty of bathrooms.
The church is a back-up site for the Volunteers of America, which houses former inmates transitioning back into the workforce in Minneapolis. In case of floods or power-outages, residents can seek refuge in St. Albert the Great.
Although the parish’s partnership with Volunteers of America has been in place for over 10 years, the church had not been thus-utilized until this crisis.
St. Albert the Great office and communications manager Erin Sim received the call from the Volunteers of America the morning of May 28, and immediately made the church basement available to them.
“You can’t just help your own, you have to be available to help everybody,” she said.
As violence once again escalated that night, some of the residents who sought shelter in the church took the building’s safety into their own hands. They took shifts to keep watch over the building, joining a group of Native Americans who kept watch over the attached Native American immersion charter school.
“We have been miraculously spared from the devastation around the Church,” said Sim.
Father Joseph Williams of St. Stephen’s Church in Minneapolis also received a call from a parishioner seeking refuge in the church. The Sanchez-Ponce family, who also live in the area surrounding the Third Police Precinct, took shelter in the church rectory the night of May 28, according to a report by the Catholic Spirit.
Not every Twin Cities parish emerged unscathed; the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis suffered fire damage, and graffiti was found on the Church of St. Mark in St. Paul, over two miles away from the heart of the violence.
“It had a war-like quality,” said Gillespie. “We’ve been under siege.”
In wake of the violence inflicted on their community, Gillespie said that the message of togetherness during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic extends to this situation.
“We’re in this together,” said Gillespie, echoing the refrain of the pandemic. “It takes a neighborhood to repair itself. It’s not just my house or my church, it’s our church and our house.”
“[St. Albert’s] has always been a welcoming parish,” said Gillespie. The church has been in the neighborhood for 85 years and was a place that the community gravitated to when their homes felt threatened.
“Any church offers that possibility in times of need,” said Gillespie, who said the parish follows the “sanctuary model.”
The Saint Albert the Great community has received an outpouring of donations to distribute to those in need, including water, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and food. Gillespie noted that the church received three substantial monetary donations the morning of June 1 alone.
Giving back to those in need is nothing new to St. Albert’s church: even before the recent destruction in the neighborhood, St. Albert was helping to provide food and rent to those most affected by the pandemic.
Parishioner Rebecca Davis, who has lived in the Longfellow neighborhood since 2001, said that she thinks of St. Albert the Great as “the little parish that could.”
Since the onset of the coronavirus, St. Albert’s has organized teams of parishioners to serve the community, both parishioners and non-Catholics alike.
The community response to the violence accompanying protests has largely been a grass-roots effort to meet the community’s needs as they emerge.
“It’s a lot of pop-up organizations,” said St. Albert the Great part-time staff member Ed Burke. “One day they will come up, they will start taking donations, they will fill a field, and then they will stop. So then you go somewhere else.”
“So many people want to help but they aren’t sure what to do,” said Davis. She recently tried donating food to a local school that called for donations, and joined a line that stretched around several blocks in order to do so.
“So much has been destroyed,” said Sim, “but [it is] inviting us to think about the world we want to rebuild.”
Despite the destruction he has witnessed in the past week, Father Gillespie will not give up his sense of humor.
“I haven’t been to a slumber party since I was about 10,” said Gillespie, reflecting on Thursday night.
Thousands of pro-life advocates gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 1, 2021, in conjunction with oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington D.C., Dec 2, 2021 / 08:04 am (CNA).
Anna Del Duca and daughter, Frances, woke up at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning to brave the 30-degree weather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. They arrived hours before oral arguments began in the highly-anticipated abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The case, which involves a Mississippi law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks, challenges two landmark decisions: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe in 1992.
“We’re looking forward to the end of Roe versus Wade in our country,” Anna, who drove from Pittsburgh Tuesday night, told CNA. In her hands, she held a sign reading, “I regret my abortion.”
“I would like to use my testimony to be a blessing to others,” she said, so that “others will choose life or those who have regretted abortion or had an abortion would turn to Jesus.”
Anna remembered having an abortion when she was just 19. Today, she and her daughter run a group called Restorers of Streets to Dwell In Pittsburgh that offers help to women seeking healing after abortion.
Anna and Frances were among thousands of Americans who rallied outside the Supreme Court before, during, and after the oral arguments. To accommodate them, law enforcement closed the street in front of the court. Capitol police also placed fencing in the space in front of the building in an attempt to physically separate rallies held by abortion supporters and pro-lifers.
At 21-weeks pregnant, pro-life speaker Alison Centofante emceed the pro-life rally, called, “Empower Women Promote Life.” The event featured a slew of pro-life women of diverse backgrounds and numerous politicians.
“It’s funny, there were so many diverse speakers today that the only unifying thread was that we want to protect preborn children,” Centofante told CNA. They included Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Catholics, agnostics, atheists, women who chose life, and women who regretted their abortions, she said.
She recognized women there, including Aimee Murphy, as people who are not the typical “cookie cutter pro-lifer.”
Aimee Murphy, 32, founder of pro-life group Rehumanize International, arrived at the Supreme Court around 6:30 a.m. She drove from Pittsburgh the night before. Her sign read, “Queer Latina feminist rape survivor against abortion.”“At Rehumanize International, we oppose all forms of aggressive violence,” she told CNA. “Even as a secular and non-partisan organization, we understand that abortion is the most urgent cause that we must stand against in our modern day and age because it takes on average over 800,000 lives a year.”
She also had a personal reason for attending.
“When I was 16 years old, I was raped and my rapist then threatened to kill me if I didn’t have an abortion,” she revealed.
“It was when he threatened me that I felt finally a solidarity with unborn children and I understood then that, yeah, the science told me that a life begins at conception, but that I couldn’t be like my abusive ex and pass on the violence and oppression of abortion to another human being — that all that I would be doing in having an abortion would be telling my child, ‘You are an inconvenience to me and to my future, therefore I’m going to kill you,’ which is exactly the same thing that my rapist was telling me when he threatened to kill me.”
On the other side of the police fence, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Abortion Access Coalition and NARAL Pro-Choice America participated in another rally. Yellow balloons printed with the words “BANS OFF OUR BODIES” escaped into the sky. Several pro-choice demonstrators declined to speak with CNA.
Voices clashed in the air as people, the majority of whom were women, spoke into their respective microphones at both rallies. Abortion supporters stressed bodily autonomy, while pro-lifers recognized the humanity of the unborn child. Chants arose from both sides at different points, from “Whose choice? My choice!” to “Hey hey, ho ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go!”
At 10 a.m., the pro-life crowd sudddenly went silent as the oral arguments began and the rally paused temporarily as live audio played through speakers.
During the oral arguments, students from Liberty University knelt in prayer. One student estimated that more than a thousand students from the school made the more than 3-hour trip from Lynchburg, Virginia.
“Talking about our faith is one thing, but actually acting upon it is another,” he said. “We have to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. So to me this is part of doing that.”
Sister Mary Karen, who has been with the Sisters of Life for 21 years, also stressed the importance of prayer. She drove from New York earlier that morning because, she said, she felt drawn to attend. She came, she said, to pray for the country and promote the dignity of a human person.
“Our culture is post-abortive,” she explained. “So many people have suffered and the loss of human life is so detrimental, just not knowing that we have value and are precious and sacred.”
She stood next to Theresa Bonopartis, who traveled from Harrison, New York, and ministers to women and others wounded by abortion.
“I’ve been fighting abortion for 30 years at least,” she told CNA.
Her ministry, called Entering Canaan, began with the Sisters of Life and is observing its 25th anniversary this year. It provides retreats for women, men, and even siblings of aborted babies.
Abortion is personal for Bonopartis, who said she had a coerced abortion when she was just 17.
“I was kicked out of the house by my father and then coerced into getting an abortion,” she said. “Pretty much cut me off from everything, and that’s something people don’t really talk about … they make it try to seem like it’s a woman’s right, it’s a free choice. It’s all this other stuff, but many women are coerced in one way or another.”
She guessed that she was 14 or 15 weeks pregnant at the time.
“I saw my son. I had a saline abortion, so I saw him, which I always considered a blessing because it never allowed me to deny what abortion was,” she said. Afterward, she said she struggled with self-esteem issues, hating herself, guilt, shame, and more. Then, she found healing.
“I know what that pain is like, I know what that experience is like, and you know that you can get past it,” she said. “You just want to be able to give that message to other people, that they’re able to heal.”
Residents of Mississippi, where the Dobbs v. Jackson case originated, also attended.
Marion, who declined to provide her last name, drove from Mississippi to stand outside the Supreme Court. She said she was in her early 20s when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
“At the time, of course, I could care less,” she said. Since then, she had a change of heart.
“We were the generation that allowed it,” she said, “and so we are the generation who will help close that door and reverse it.”
The crowd at the pro-life rally included all ages, from those who had witnessed Roe to bundled-up babies, children running around, and college students holding up homemade signs.
One group of young friends traveled across the country to stand outside the Supreme Court. They cited their faith and family as reasons for attending.
Mathilde Steenepoorte, 19, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, identified herself as “very pro-life” in large part because of her younger brother with Down syndrome. She said she was saddened by the abortion rates of unborn babies dianosed with Down syndrome.
Juanito Estevez, from Freeport, a village on Long Island, New York, arrived Tuesday. He woke up at 6 a.m. to arrive at the Supreme Court with a crucifix in hand.
“I believe that God is the giver of life and we don’t have the right [to decide] whether a baby should live or die,” he said.
He also said that he believed women have been lied to about abortion.
“We say it’s their right, and there’s a choice,” he said. When girls tell him “I have the right,” his response, he said, is to ask back, “You have the right for what?”
Mallory Finch, from Charlotte, North Carolina, also woke up early but emphasized “it was worth it.” A pro-life podcast host, she called abortion a “human-rights issue.”
“I hope that it overturns Roe,” she said of the case, “but that doesn’t mean that our job as pro-lifers is done. It makes this, really, just the beginning.”
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