Report from the Conference: Dorothy Day: A Saint for Our Time

Geoffrey B. Gneuhs • March 20, 2014

Guild Executive Committee member Geoffrey B. Gneuhs provides us with a report of his experience at the recent conference  "Dorothy Day: A Saint for Our Time":

What we would like to do is change the world...by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world."
---Dorothy Day

St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida, hosted a conference on "Dorothy Day: A Saint for Our Time" March 7-8. Dr. Francis Sicius, a history professor at STU and a biographer of Peter Maurin, organized the convocation. Those of us from northern climes were quite delighted with the beautiful campus, the hospitality of the students, and the wonderful warm, sunny weather.


Attended by nearly one hundred people, over the two days, from across the country, the university and the Miami area, the conference was a gathering of scholars and workers as Peter Maurin would have wished. There were 25 papers and talks delivered by college professors and a high school teacher, as well as from representatives of several Catholic Worker communities.


Discussions ranged from Dorothy's spirituality and the influence of the Fr. Lacouture/Fr. Hugo retreat, to her prayer life, to what her understanding of being a radical in the Christian sense meant, as well as to her spiritual and practical understanding of pacificism. One paper by Harry Murray of the Rochester CW confirmed that Peter Maurin was not a pacifist, as he registered for the Selective Service in 1942---and gave Dorothy Day as his contact person!


Other talks discussed Dorothy's deep faith centered on the Mass and her commitment to the Church as well as her unique way of living a life of holiness while dedicated to justice. There were also presentations about life in various Catholic Worker communities.


The conference discussed how to make Dorothy and her saintly life better known to more Catholics and others, including this new website and other social media, through teaching in schools and colleges, as well as at the parish level.


On Friday night, three students, a pianist, soprano, and tenor, gave a superb concert of arias in recognition of Dorothy's love of opera

Lance Richey announced that the University of St. Francis, Fort Wayne, Indiana, will host a conference next year May 13-15, 2015, on "Dorothy Day and the Church: Past, Present, and Future."


The meeting concluded with a Mass in the light-filled, pastel, adobe-like chapel, with an outdoor reception afterward.


There was a great spirit, vitality, and camaraderie during the two days that reflected a renewed commitment to the inspiration and example of Dorothy, thirty-three years after her death.



- Geoffrey B. Gneuhs


Archived Comments

cecutddhba@gmail.com says:

February 1, 2016  at 5:43 am

I do enjoy the manner in which you have framed this specific problem plus it does indeed provide me personally a lot of fodder for thought. On the other hand, coming from what I have seen, I simply just trust when other comments pile on that people stay on point and not get started on a soap box regarding the news du jour. All the same, thank you for this exceptional piece and while I do not really go along with this in totality, I value your standpoint.

Helene Garcia says:

November 17, 2014 at 7:01 pm

I have been reaching out all over the Catholic community I prayed to Dorothy Day for someone and she delivered, what are the next steps?

Sandra Montalbano says:

August 4, 2014 at 5:15 pm

Peter Maurin was dutiful; had a sense of duty, as well as right and wrong. Who can tell what is in a man’s heart, when he knows he has a sense of duty?

Tom Cornell says:

March 29, 2014 at 4:43 pm

Peter Maurin registered for the draft in WW II. I have a copy of his registration certificate. That does NOT mean that Peter was not a pacifist. ALL conscientious objectors recognized as such by Selective Serve HAD to register for the draft. Peter held to nonviolence but would not have stressed pacifism as WW II approached, Dorothy reported, saying that “men are not ready to hear….”

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Ninety-three years ago today!

By Casey Mullaney • May 1, 2026
Dear members and friends of the Dorothy Day Guild, Greetings to each of you in this fourth week of Easter and on the occasion of the Catholic Worker movement’s 93rd anniversary! On May 1st, 1933, Dorothy, her daughter Tamar, and several others sold the first issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper in Union Square for a penny a copy, and as Dorothy later wrote in The Long Loneliness, “It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on”! It is because of that faithful witness to the Gospel through Dorothy’s practices of nonviolence, hospitality, and voluntary poverty that we get to share in this joyful pilgrimage with you all these years later. Thank you, Dorothy, and happy anniversary to all our Catholic Worker friends, past and present!

Easter with Dorothy Day

By Casey Mullaney • April 9, 2026
Dear Dorothy Day Guild members and friends, Happy Easter; Christ is risen! We hope that the past several days have been occasions of joyful celebration with friends and family for each of you. As a Guild, we would like to extend a special greeting to all of those around the world who were received into the Church on Saturday night at the Easter Vigil. Here in South Bend, several of us from the Catholic Worker community attended the Easter Vigil at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, where our pastor surprised us by invoking Dorothy towards the end of his homily. Speaking directly to the newly baptized and confirmed, as well as the entire congregation, Fr. Andrew talked about how Dorothy’s own conversion to Catholicism had been sparked by the unexpected joy of finding herself pregnant with her daughter, Tamar, and how Christ had come to her, offering her peace. We know that Dorothy was on many of our minds as we watched new brothers and sisters in Christ enter the Church. Christopher Hale, of Letters from Leo, wrote an open letter to all the new Catholics who were received at the Vigil last weekend, offering them thanks and welcome, and inviting them to look to a fellow convert to understand the Church. “Dorothy Day — one of the great American Catholics of the twentieth century — converted to Catholicism and spent the rest of her life serving the poorest of the poor on the streets of New York. Her Episcopalian mother once complained that Dorothy had left respectable society to go to Mass with “the help.” Day did not flinch. She knew what the Church was for.” Like Dorothy, each of these new members of Christ’s Mystical Body enrich the Church and are a gift to the world. We hope that like Dorothy, each of them finds a home, a vocation, and a challenge in Her embrace. The following afternoon, our Catholic Worker community hosted a few dozen friends and neighbors, including many of the guests who join us for breakfast on weekends, for Easter dinner. It is truly a gift to be able to celebrate this feast day with so many of the people who have come into our lives because of Dorothy’s witness to the Gospel, and the legacy of hospitality, voluntary poverty, and nonviolence she gave us!

Happy 100th Birthday, Tamar Day Batterham Hennessy!

By Casey Mullaney • March 4, 2026
Dear members of the Dorothy Day Guild, Lenten greetings to each of you! Even just one week in, it’s been a great gift to journey with Dorothy, who reminds us that the practices of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are powerful tools in the struggle for justice and peace. On the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Worker movement and newspaper , Dorothy wrote about the seamless garment of love that was the animating force of Christian faith. “We want to show our love for our brother, so that we can show our love for God,” she said in 1943, “and the best way we can do it is to try to give him what we’ve got, in the way of food, clothing and shelter; to give him what talents we possess by writing, drawing pictures, reminding each other of the love of God and the love of man. There is too little love in this world, too little tenderness.”
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