A Good Day for Marquette

So, one of the interesting things that happened when the pope was over here on his American visit the week before last was his naming of four great Americans he personally admired: Abraham Lincoln, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day.

Now, of these four, two are universally famous and the third pretty well known: our most popular president, a martyr to civil rights, and an icon in mid-century Catholicism. But the fourth, Dorothy Day, is less well known, esp. to a southern Presbyterian like myself.

I knew about her from the Marquette Archives. Two of their most extensive collections, which cd not be more different, are J. R. R. Tolkien's manuscripts* and Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker papers.**  And so just by osmosis I came to know a bit about her in a general way. And I've come to realize there's much to admire: she was a pacifist and worker for social justice, someone who took quite literally the gospel injunctions to love thy neighbor, feed the poor, et al. I was also bemused, within the last year or so, to learn that there's both a movement to declare her a saint and an opposition movement opposing her canonization.

Clearly, at any rate, someone it'd be worthwhile to find out more about.

Here's the link.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/did-pope-francis-endorse-dorothy-day-for-sainthood

--John R

current reading: IDYLLS OF THE KING, by Tennyson (tedious), STRIKE THE BLOOD (young adult 'light novel').



* http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkien.shtml

** http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/day.shtml