Portland Magazine
Garaventa Center
February 19, 2020
Linda Plitt Donaldson, associate dean of the College of Health and Behavioral Studies at James Madison University, came to University of Portland to speak about Catholic social justice icon Dorothy Day and the lessons we can still learn from her today. Donaldson also walked through the root cause of homelessness—the lack of affordable housing in this country—and the ways in which the “housing first” model—namely, getting people into secure housing and then tackling any other potential health issues second—is backed by evidence and research. The following is an excerpt of her talk sponsored by the Garaventa Center on November 5, 2019.
IN DECEMBER 1932, Dorothy Day went down to Washington, DC, to cover the hunger march for the unemployed. In Catholic social teaching, we talk about human beings as the subjects of their lives, not the objects, and that work should provide dignity and purpose. Dorothy Day not only wrote about this, but she showed up. She joined workers on the picket lines at strikes; she was a peace activist. She went to jail. It was the time of women’s suffrage, and she was a justice seeker.
While she was in Washington, DC, she went to the Shrine at Catholic University, and she asked for guidance and advice. She was a deeply spiritual person, and she developed a set of spiritual practices and was very disciplined in adhering to them. At the Shrine, she prayed that some way would be opened up for her to work for the poor and the oppressed.
She went home, and Peter Maurin was waiting for her outside her apartment. He wanted to talk to her about a great movement, what eventually became the Catholic Worker Movement.
Within five months, on May 1, 1933, they published the first Catholic Worker newspaper. This was in the midst of the Great Depression, massive unemployment, massive poverty. She let unemployed journalists who wrote for the Catholic Worker stay in their offices, and she always made sure there was coffee and soup on the stove for anyone who was hungry. Word got out, and pretty soon there was a soup kitchen. People started showing up. It was one of the first “housing first” programs. What an incredible legacy. The newspaper still costs one penny an issue. There are 178 Catholic Worker communities across the United States and more around the world today.
Day was the living example of “the preferential option of the poor,” [a major tenet of Catholic social teaching]. She opted for voluntary poverty. She said, “I’m going to choose the life of poverty. I’m really in the struggle with you, having the same worries.” They were evicted, they had bills, they had bill collectors, and they had all kinds of Catholics upset about what they were writing in the Catholic Worker newspaper.
Solidarity is that commitment to persevere. It’s not: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Solidarity is: “There go I; that’s me.” When you see homelessness on the street, that’s telling you that your world is broken. When you’re advocating for justice, really partner “with”…not “for.” It’s not them despite us. It’s more that our world is broken because their world is broken.
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