Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement and spent her life advocating for the poor and downtrodden. But her path didn't start in the Catholic Faith. Raised with no particular religion, she developed a deep sense that she needed to help the poor, workers, and the downtrodden early in life and took part in activism beginning in her late teens. She became a socialist and lived a bohemian lifestyle, living with a series of lovers. One prevailed upon her to have an abortion. Eventually she had a profound conversion experience and became Catholic after her daughter was born. A few years later, while writing for Commonweal, she met Peter Maurin, and they co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933. The Catholic Worker newspaper spread across the country and dozens of Catholic Worker houses opened. But her activism brought her into tension with the Catholic hierarchy often. She also spent time in Cuba where her coverage of the Castro revolution left many wondering. She was controversial, but she was a devout Catholic who truly worked to help the poor in the best ways she knew how. Her cause for canonization is open, making her a Servant of God.

One of the most controversial and complex Catholics of the 20th century, Dorothy Day went through a phase of atheism, she had an abortion, and a daughter, and she eventually found love in Christ and became a devout Catholic. With Peter Maurin she co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement and worked tirelessly for the disadvantaged.