''Catholic Worker'' is a

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...

published seven times a year by the flagship Catholic Worker community in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. The newspaper was started by

Dorothy Day Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-know ...

and

Peter Maurin Peter Maurin (; May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a French Catholic social activist, theologian, and De La Salle Brother who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 with Dorothy Day. Maurin expressed his philosophy through short pieces o ...

to make people aware of

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Ch ...

teaching on

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

History

It first appeared on May first, 1933 in an edition of 2,500 copies, to make people aware of the social justice teaching of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as an alternative to communism during the Depression. Its stated goal was to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Circulation rapidly rose to 25,000 within a few months, and reached 150,000 by 1936. The ''Catholic Worker'' lost thousands of subscribers because of its strict

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaig ...

stance and refusal to join in the call for U.S. involvement in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Dorothy Day was the editor of ''Catholic Worker'' until her death in 1980. The ''Catholic Worker'' covered the

Civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

in great depth as liturgically based social action. Writers for the paper have ranged from young volunteers to such notable figures as

Ammon Hennacy Ammon Ashford Hennacy (1893–1970) was an American Christian pacifist, anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement, and Wobbly. He established the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah, and practiced ...

Thomas Merton Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and g ...

Daniel Berrigan Daniel Joseph Berrigan (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author. Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admi ...

Jeremy Scahill Jeremy Scahill (born October 18, 1974) is an American investigative journalist, writer, a founding editor of the online news publication '' The Intercept,'' and author of '' Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army'', whic ...

Karl Meyer Karl Meyer may refer to: *Karl Meyer (activist) (born 1937), American pacifist, activist, Catholic worker and tax resister *Karl Meyer (aviator) (1894–1917), World War I flying ace *Karl Meyer (biochemist) (1899–1990), German biochemist *Karl M ...

, Robert Coles, and

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas fo ...

Ade Bethune Ade Bethune (January 12, 1914 – May 1, 2002) was an American Catholic liturgical artist. She was associated with the Catholic Worker Movement, and designed an early masthead of its publication, the ''Catholic Worker'', first used in 1935. She l ...

and

Fritz Eichenberg Fritz Eichenberg (October 24, 1901 – November 30, 1990) was a German-American illustrator and arts educator who worked primarily in wood engraving. His best-known works were concerned with religion, social justice and nonviolence. Biograp ...

have frequently contributed illustrations. In the 1960s, Judith Palache Gregory was an editor (and later executor for Day's estate).

Description

Day said the word "Worker" in the paper's title referred to "those who worked with hand or brain, those who did physical, mental, or spiritual work. But we thought primarily of the poor, the dispossessed, the exploited." The ''Catholic Worker'' is considered a Christian anarchist publication. The price per issue has always been one cent. The official annual subscription price in 2009 was 25 cents.

References

External links

The Catholic Worker Movement

Maurin, Day, the Catholic Worker, and Anarcho-Distributism
by Nicholas Evans 2018 {{Authority control Catholic Worker Movement Newspapers published in New York City Catholic newspapers published in the United States Publications established in 1933 Anarchist newspapers 1933 establishments in New York City Catholicism and far-left politics Dorothy Day es:Movimiento del Trabajador Católico#Pensamiento

History

Description

References

Further reading

External links