I was moved this evening to take part in a panel at Maryhouse of former managing editors of the Catholic Worker ranging back over 50 yrs. My years were 1976-78. Dorothy appointed me to this task though I was only 20 and had no obvious qualifications. Yet she set me on my path.
Conversation
She said my job was to make sure she didn’t sound like a fool. That was the easiest part. She didn’t always like my choices— especially if the articles were too long. I admit it was eccentric to devote whole issue to Sacco and Vanzetti. But she liked my centenary of Peter Marin.
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Other highlight: my interview with E.F. Schumacher, Robert Coles on Simone Weil, my dad on neutron bomb, Nouwen on community, reprint of Dorothy’s story from 1927 on birth of her daughter. And 1st pub of Merton’s letter to Jim Forest that I called “Letter to a Young Activist.”
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Dorothy said the CW “is, in a way, a school, a work camp, to which large-hearted, socially conscious young people come to find their vocations. After some months or years, they know most definitely what they want to do with their lives.” So it was for me.
I meet Dorothy Day and came to the CW farm in Tivoli often as a college student. For me, it took many years of twists and turns before I came to believe in and follow the Christ who inspired and guided her.
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