Dear friends,

All of us at the Dorothy Day Guild are deeply saddened by the news that Pope Francis died early this morning, on Easter Monday. The Holy Father used his final Urbi et orbi Easter message and blessing yesterday to proclaim the joy of the Resurrection and call for a ceasefire in Gaza. During this time of grief, we are also filled with gratitude for the courage and tenderness with which Francis shepherded our Church these past twelve years.

We are particularly grateful for Pope Francis’ support of Dorothy’s cause for canonization. During his papacy, Pope Francis frequently upheld Dorothy’s method of living out the Gospel as worthy of our emulation. In his address to the US Congress ten years ago, the Holy Father named four men and women as steadfast exemplars of goodwill for the American people: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Merton, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Dorothy Day. What the Pope said then is as true today as it was a decade ago:

“In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.”

Last fall, for US Catholic, Robert Ellsberg reflected on what he might have told the Holy Father about Dorothy prior to his 2015 visit to the United States, seeing in Dorothy the incarnation of Pope Francis’ dreams of “a poor Church for the poor,” which constantly went out to minister to Christ on the margins. But then Robert asked what he might have said if he,

“could have sat down with Dorothy Day to tell her about Pope Francis? How thrilled she would have been to learn of a pope who took his name from St. Francis. So often she criticized the ecclesial trappings of power and privilege. How she would have delighted in Francis’s gestures of humility, his call for shepherds “who have the smell of the sheep,” his washing the feet of prisoners (including women and Muslims!). With her lifetime among the poor and discarded, how she would have resonated with his words: “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” How moved she would be to learn of his deep friendship with a Jewish rabbi, his love for opera and Dostoevsky, and his exhortation to spread the “joy of the gospel.”’

As we remember and reflect on Francis’ papacy, we encourage each of you to watch or read the transcript of the Holy Father’s powerful and prophetic remarks. Pope Francis understood Dorothy as an ardent defender of the dignity of the poorest and most forgotten of our brothers and sisters. Two years ago, he wrote a new foreword to Dorothy’s memoir, From Union Square to Rome, identifying in Dorothy’s narrative of conversion a living witness to what St. James writes in his epistle: “Show me your faith without works and I by my works will show you my faith.” (2:18). Dorothy’s “whole life was devoted to social justice and human rights, particularly for the poor, the exploited workers, and the socially marginalized,” Pope Francis wrote.

Many people around the world have felt unsettled and anxious over the past few days and months. Here, too, Pope Francis has left us words of assurance from his reflections on Dorothy’s life and legacy: “Dorothy Day teaches us that God is not simply a comfort or a form of alienation to turn to amidst life’s difficulties, but that he abundantly meets our yearning for joy and fulfilment. The Lord comforts restless hearts, not bourgeois souls who are content with things as they are.”

In a time when the people of the United States are much beset by questions of what it means for America to be great, we would do well to remember what Pope Francis told us when he visited:

“A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to "dream" of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.”

In the coming days and weeks, please join us at the Dorothy Day Guild in praying for the repose of Pope Francis’ soul, for the comfort of all who mourn him, and for the college of cardinals as they prepare to elect a new shepherd for our Church. We ask all these things through Dorothy’s intercession.

Thank you, Pope Francis, for being our Holy Father: a Pope for the poor and a shepherd after Dorothy’s own heart.

In Christ’s peace,

The Dorothy Day Guild

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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.”