Last night I was glad to be invited to address a national #CatholicWorker gathering (zoom) to reflect on the values that have sustained the movement (for 87 years). I described three "ingredients" in the CW "soup" (actual CW soup follows no recipe!).
Conversation
1. The message of Mt 25: that Christ is present to us in the needs of our neighbors. This is the foundation of the Works of Mercy, the most obvious expression of the CW. This insight is shared by many other religious communities, but the CW adds a 2nd ingredient:
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2. Protesting, resisting a system that gives rise to so much poverty and injustice, as well as the culture and values that underlie such a system. This conjunction of the practice of charity and struggle for justice is a distinctive feature of the CW. But there is a 3rd point:
3. To point to and try to model an alternative future—an alternative culture, animated by alternative values. Not just shouting loudly about what we are against, but proclaiming the message of what we are for: and trying to live by the values we proclaim.
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Peter Maurin wanted to build a society where it was “easier for people to go good”: a society organized around different values: solidarity and community rather than competition and individualism; systematic generosity and hospitality, rather than greed and hostility.
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From St. Therese and the saints, #DorothyDay learned that this alternative society can begin exactly where we are. Today, in this moment. It is expressed in voluntary poverty, community, personalism, nonviolence. "Building a new world in the shell of the old."
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Many people recognize the CW for what it does (works of mercy, etc.); others by what it opposes (nuclear weapons, racism, etc.); those who know it best know it also by what it proposes: a different society, culture, values. These 3 themes have and will sustain the movement.
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