The Archdiocese of New York has asked the Vatican to consider the social activist for sainthood. But church leaders are not entirely comfortable with her politics.
By Liam Stack, January 21, 2022
Hundreds of people gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to celebrate an important moment for Catholics in New York. Cardinal Timothy Dolan delivered a homily on the life of one of their own, Dorothy Day, a native New Yorker and anarchist writer and activist who died in 1980.
The sermon last month represented the end of a 20-year inquiry by the Archdiocese of New York on whether Ms. Day should receive sainthood, a question the Vatican will ultimately decide.
Many of her admirers, including her granddaughter, had hoped Cardinal Dolan would talk about her commitment to social justice for the poor and the oppressed and her opposition to war and capitalism. In 1933, Ms. Day — often described as both politically radical and theologically orthodox — founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which remains active around the world in the form of Catholic Worker houses, where members live for free and provide services to the poor.
