Summary: Passionate condemnation of the hydrogen bomb tests and industrial preparation of nerve gas for war. Upholds the supremacy of conscience and challenges each person to resist as they are able. Quotes spiritual writers in an effort to strengthen her faith and reduce fear.

Summary: Denounces the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and is outraged at the jubilation in the press. Juxtaposes words and images that contrast the evil of the bomb's destruction with God's creative love. Keywords: pacifism, war

Summary: Meditation on the struggle between heaven and earth, between God and man, and between worship and action. Juxtaposes images of an atomic bomb test, the mentally ill, the Mass and worship, and quotes from writers. Argues for decentralization of government services, most especially for the decentralization of mental hospitals, and personal responsibility over state aid. Explains how all must atone for sin through suffering.

Summary: Juxtaposes images of resignation, poverty, and fear over the H-bomb tests with hopeful words from Julian of Norwich and the Mass of the dead. Says we should not fear death but judgement, and live accordingly.

Summary: Promotes non-violent resistance to atomic bomb testing and all preparations for war. Defends the Catholic Worker's civil disobedience actions in refusing to participate in civil defense drills. Says all Americans need to atone for Hiroshima and Nagasaki as she anticipates being jailed again for her protest.

Summary: Passionate condemnation of UMT (Universal Military Training) as un-Catholic and atheistic. Advocates Catholics become conscientious objectors. Condemns Americanism and rabid anti-Communism.

Summary: Describes her and 18 others' arrest and court appearances for civil disobedience after demonstrating and not taking shelter in an air raid drill. Speaks of the courage and suffering needed in battle and in using spiritual weapons. Going to jail is one way of visiting the prisoner.

Summary: Affirms that all men are brothers--a view shared by Communists and Christians alike. Disavows violent means of change and cites Peter Maurin's pacifism. Love requires suffering and the Cross is the path to joy and life.

Summary: Reviews several books on voluntary poverty, especially Poverty by Fr. Regamey. Elaborates on the joy of, objections to, and purpose of voluntary poverty. Rejects capitalist and communist solutions to real poverty, pointing to decentralization and distributism as the answer.

Summary: Describes the hustle and bustle around the farm--planting, building, cooking. Ruminates about conversion, calling each person to a revolution beginning with themselves--to make a start toward a new way of living based on distributism. Says distributism is neither communism nor capitalism but based on individual ownership of land, tools, workshops, and factories. Keyword: economics

Summary: Condemns further atomic bomb testing and quotes the New York Times concerning a resolution supporting this view recently introduced in the Senate. Likewise opposes conscription (the draft) and its extension when there is no war as usurpation of authority regarding the destiny of the individual.

Summary: A Christmas-time reflection on the state of the world torn by the Korean war and poverty in the midst of plenty in the United States. Points to the Gospel message of peace, love of enemies, and love of one another--"It is the only word for Christmas when love came down to the mire, to teach us that love." Keywords: pacifism, conscientious objection

Summary: Meditates on suffering and nonviolence in light of fighting in Hungary. Harshly criticizes clergy who do not prepare the laity to use spiritual weapons. Doubts the criteria of the just war theory can be met. Desires to grow in love so as to understand the mystery of suffering and forgiveness.

Summary: Describes the poor they serve and a nearby dilapidated tenement they could acquire for hospitality but which needs extensive repairs.

Summary: Reminds herself that "the work of the spirit" is as important as other involvements. Visits her daughter Tamar's place in Vermont and admires the handicrafts being taught and practiced, especially working with wool.

Summary: Relishes life on the land, saying it is a place to retreat to, find God, and to go forth from as apostles. Summarizes five retreat talks whose focus is to increase the desire for sanctity, to a more complete love of God. Gives examples of her failure to love and the struggle to renew love of God and neighbor.

Summary: An overview of the beginnings of the Catholic Worker. As a journalist covering the Communist led march on Washington in December 1932, Dorothy yearns and prays to find a way to work for the poor and oppressed. She meeets Peter Maurin who "indoctrinates" her in Catholic social teaching and his program to change the social order: starting a newspaper, houses of hospitality, roundtable discussions and farming communes. Includes several of Peter's essays and details about starting the newspaper and their first houses of hospitality.

Summary: Describes the celebrations taking place in New York City following the announcement of the end of the Second World War. Writes about pilgrimages and their pilgrimage in thanksgiving for peace as well as in penance for having used the atomic bomb--a ten mile walk in the city at night accompanied by song and prayer. Gives accolades for the cooks, the volunteers at the farm, and those in the city.

Summary: A graphic description of how she and 29 others were treated by the police, jailers, and courts after arrest for protesting air raid drills against nuclear attack. Gives a reason for the protest and decries the inhuman aspects of their treatment--crowding, lack of food, waiting. Notes: "What a neglected work of mercy, visiting the prisoner."

Summary: Narrates the events surrounding a workers protest march in Washington, D.C., organized by the Communists. Contrasts the press-fed frenzy of the authorities with the well-planned, disciplined, and non-violent demonstrators.

Summary:

Writing from Albuquerque she contrasts two types of hospitality--the "grand gesture" that doesn't last and the "unspectacular" that perseveres. Opposes a top down governmental approach to helping the poor and is critical of excessive spending for airbases and for Church decorations. Witnesses the brutal breakup of the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama and relates several incidents of violence and segregation in Mississippi. Keywords: Negro, Black

Summary: Meditation on dying and praying for the dead. Enumerates the many people on a list kept in her missal. Recalls that Fr. Zachery, her confessor, taught her that "There is no time with God."

Summary: Appeals for help and answers the question "What is it all about, this Catholic Worker movement?" Describes the Catholic Worker as a school, a family, and a community of need. Says they are anarchist-pacifist, which is distinguished from nihilism. Asserts the primacy of conscience and "The most effective action we can take is to try to conform our lives to the folly of the Cross, as St. Paul called it." Keywords: Catholic Worker philosophy, non-violence

Summary: Speaks of her experience with the poor, and her love of the Church and the Eucharist. Recalls that August 6th is the day to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki and is critical of a nearby Mass for the military. Notes her family members involvement in wars and asks us to fast, like Ammon Hennacy, and to do penance and ask for forgiveness.

Summary: Explains what anarchism and pacifism mean against the backdrop of the modern state. Reaffirms the principles of subsidiarity, freedom and personal responsibility, and the membership of all in the body of Christ.

Summary: First of a series of articles on distributism (see DOC #160 & DOC #161). Against the backdrop of harsh city life she points to life on the land as a way to find zest in life. Distributism is a third point of view, neither Communism or capitalism. "The aim of distributism is family ownership of land, workshops, stores, transport, trades, professions, and so on." Recommends reading Belloc and Chesterson as an introduction to it.

Summary: A selection of texts on the theme of thanksgiving.

Summary:

Resists the "January doldrums" and writes about the continuing struggle of California farm workers. Tells of her visit to Sicily and England, giving details of the plane flights and her reasons for preferring planes over buses and ships. Praises the work of mercy of a disabled man. Keyword: nonviolence

Summary: After a quiet rising and a time of spiritual reading her writing time is filled with city street noises. Writes of migrant laborer conditions in New York and Vermont where much of the misery is hidden from view. Keywords: Negro, Black, Afro-American

Summary: Reflections on some Catholic Workers being jailed for civil disobedience, visiting the prisoner, and the folly of the cross. Recalls the death of the Rosenbergs and notes new evidence that is surfacing. Includes notes from a visit to her daughter and grandchildren in Vermont. Says the arms race is insanity. Keywords: anarchy, prison, civil rights

Summary:

Low Sunday, Rome, Italy

What are we here for, why did we come, we fifty or more women from all countries, of all religious affiliations, and many without a particular belief, of many nationalities? It is a pilgrimage of course, a true pilgrimage, to the Holy City of Rome, to the head of the Church, and for us Catholics, to the representative of Christ on Earth, to present ourselves as though a first fruits of his great encyclical Pacem in terris, to thank him, to pledge ourselves to work for peace, and to ask too, a more radical condemnation of the instruments of modern warfare. We are to be part of a large general audience on Wednesday, a meeting of groups and of single pilgrimage.

Someone wrote in, "Might not the money for pilgrim fares have been better spent to serve the poor." But that was the question asked our Lord when he was anointed by Mary Magdalene just before he was betrayed.

My passage was paid for one way by a friend in Chicago and my return by another in Connecticut and in some places living in Rome is cheap. A Yale student I met last night said he was paying sixty cents a night for his bed in a hospice for pilgrims. Vincent MacAloon who runs the Notre Dame Club at Margot Brancaccio 82, is the one to get in touch with if you are going to Rome. Another Notre Dame student said Vincent had been a guardian angel to many.

We women are staying at the Pacis Domus, two miles from the Vatican, a great hospice on a slight hill, many buildings set up in a delightful garden full of singing birds. One tall cage has mourning doves crooning to each other, and also some very active turtles. There are pines and palms and primroses, beds of flowers in bloom and many trees just coming into leaf. Wisteria is in bloom and the air is fragrant. In San Sebastian House Marguerite Harris and I share a narrow little room with two beds, a wardrobe and a washbowl. There is not room for two to dress at the same time. But there

Summary: Continues the account of her pilgrimage in Cuba with a story of getting lost on the bus system. Delivers supplies to the National Hospital. Stays with several families and visits collective farms. Admires many new homes going up, sturdy furniture, and pockets of free enterprise. Notes everyone's hunger for education. Describes Catholics who struggle with the language of the revolution but work for the common good in building up society. Sees similarities between Peter Maurin's philosophy of work and efforts to build up Cuban society.

Summary: Comments on the campaign to make everyone literate in Cuba and the impassioned style of Fidel Castro's oratory. Asserts that she found freedom of religion. Includes an extensive quote from Castro where he says one can be a revolutionist and a Catholic as long as anyone holds to the aims of the revolution and justice holding religious beliefs in his heart.

Summary: Citing recent violence against missionaries, she wonders if they are being prepared to face death. Ponders the meaning of self-defense and the need to combat fear. Keywords: non-violence, prison, jail

Summary: With the bank account at one dollar and grocery bill to pay, she appeals for help. Says "I like writing an appeal when we literally have nothing."

Summary: Comments on not being arrested at the annual civil disobedience against New York City's air raid drills. Visits Tamar in Vermont. Continues her account of a West Coast trip focusing on the farm labor situation there.

Summary: Tells of George Clements whose skeleton was found in the woods near Peter Maurin Farm. Paints a picture of the natural surroundings at the beach house. Describes the men's house in the city, wishing they had yellow paint for the walls. Answers critics who say they have a "morbid preoccupation with misery."

Summary: Meandering account of the past month--the beauty of nature, visitors, and conferences. Highlights Ammon Hennacy's fasting in repentance for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meditates on how the poor are treated by people in bureaucracies and on the core of voluntary poverty.

Summary: Culling newspaper accounts of the newly elected Pope, John XXIII, she describes him as a man who loves the soil and family. Includes quotes from his first public address on love of the poor and condemnation of preparing for war. Explains what it means to struggle for justice and to do so "even if by force," a phrase the Pope used.

Summary: Detailed description of her daughter Tamar's home in Vermont and the Hennessey family's life. Mentions the 25^th anniversary celebration of the Catholic Worker and all the "old timers" who came. Lauds Ammon Hennacy's penitential fast for out nations dropping the first atomic bomb.

Summary: Chronicles the comings and goings of visitors and workers. Notes the crafts they practice and some of the trials that ensue. Ammon Hennacy begins another fast protesting atomic weapons. Keywords: retreat, fasting

Summary: Reflects on her and other's personal interests that flower into beauty and works of mercy, as well as renewing us. Summarizes the content of a recent retreat and the notes the importance of silence.

Summary: Paints a picture of Catholic Worker community life--the house, work, prayer, needs, and volunteers. Lists the summer programs for Peter Maurin Farm and Maryfarm. Describes her Holy Week observance.

Summary: Traces the French involvement in Vietnam through the lives of the 19th century missionary Venard and the political leader Ho Chi Minh. Admits it is hard to clearly see complex historical issues where faith, persecution, power, and economics intermingle. Keywords: war

Summary: An empathic reflection on the last hours before the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who were convicted of spying for Russia. Weaves images of children, fear of death, praying the psalms, and the duplicity of prelates who bless US warmaking. Says we must pray for mercy and have no part with the vindictive state.

Summary: Reflects on the struggle to achieve voluntary poverty in small steps and for a lifetime. Notes that even honorable work involves taxes used for war. Condemns advertising for increasing desires often leading people to poverty.

Summary: An essay on the mystery and complexity of poverty, real and voluntary kinds. Enumerates the many forms of poverty, the irony of "poverty" in "rich" religious orders, and finally poverty as a means of helping the poor.

Summary: A wandering collection of anecdotes centered around letter writing, spiritual reading, and the summer heat.

Summary: Reflects on the massacre of forty-two in the Attica prison uprising and sees new repression and brutality forthcoming. Asks us to reflect on Jesus who forgave his torturers. Suggests that no one would know the majority profess being Christians in this country.

Summary: Contrasts the attitudes of two religious sisters, one impatient and despairing, the other accepting and happy. Noting the fervent love of the early Christians she asks for more generous servants of the poor and sets it as a new year ideal for herself. Appalled at a news report planning for a man-made space satellite for weapons.

Summary: Journeying through Florida, Alabama, and Texas she arrives in California working on a book about Peter Maurin. Along the way comments on factory-farming in Florida and a generous woman's care of the downtrodden, racial violence in Alabama, and the need for lay apostles everywhere. Urges graduates to work in understaffed hospitals and institutions.

Summary: Meditation on the spiritual weapons of voluntary poverty and manual labor. Lists work to be avoided and personal practices of nonparticipation while exploitation in labor continues. Calls for decentralized living. Recommends growing in acceptance of God's providence and seeing good in others. Reflects on silence during Advent, a time of waitning and a time to examine one's conscience, a time "to see only what is loveable."

Summary: Praises God for May, the month of Mary and full of beauty. Recalls the Catholic Worker began in May sixteen years ago and summarizes their program and the many allied movements of the lay apostolate. Says their pacifism and distributism distinguishes them from other movements. Focuses on voluntary poverty as exemplified in Peter Maurin's life, especially since he became ill. Reflects on holiness and the call to all to become saints. Includes quotations from her winter's reading. Keywords: Gandhi, machine, philosophy of work

Summary: Finally Tamar's son Eric is born. She comments on the child's baptism and the beginning of her own faith. Considers the role of women as nourishers and upbraids herself for being self-indulgent, quoting St. Theresa of Avila at length on penance. As signs of Spring arrive they move to a "new-old" house and she plans to return to New York.

Summary: Attends the wedding of Catholic Workers in Detroit. Visits the widow of Paul St. Marie and recounts his union organizing at Ford Motor Company. Sees Fr. Pacifique Roy, suffering in the hospital, and recalls all his help to the Catholic Worker. Meets Fr. Lacourture whose retreats for priests are the basis of their retreat work.

Summary: Surveys the rural area around the Easton, PA, farm from "a distributist point of view" visiting a bookbinder's shop and complaining about polluting factories. Laments that the Catholic Worker hasn't produced more craftsmen. Enumerates all the work projects underway and the schedule of retreats. Joyfully announces the birth of her second grandchild, Susanna.

Summary: In the face of a world in turmoil--atom bomb tests, food shortages, impending strikes, destitution--an exhortation to "love as Christ loved, to the extent of laying down our lives for our brothers." Tells of a priest whose work made him "a perfect fool for Christ." Says "we confess to being fools and wish we were more so."

Summary: Eulogizes Msgr. Barry O'Toole, a friend of the Worker since its origins. Remembers him as a talkative teacher, founder of a house of hospitality in Pittsburgh, and defender of the right to be a pacifist and conscientious objector.

Summary: Summarizes the first day's conferences of a weeklong silent retreat. Emphasis is on learning to increase our love of God through the right ordering of our desires in every day actions. Comments on the surroundings.

Summary: A St. Joseph Day bequest provides an opportunity to explain why The Catholic Worker has never incorporated and the nature of its organizational philosophy favoring smallness. As he had promised, Tony Pereiro brings spindles, similar to those used by Gandhi, as souvenirs from his trip to India which are viewed as "revolutionary implements," symbols of another way of life.

Summary: Urges personal responsibility to embrace voluntary poverty, to work at occupations that address human need and that do not support war, and to admit that we are responsible for the class structure of society. Thus revolutionary change is required, small personal steps and it is an effort that lasts a life-time.

Summary: Recounts times she experienced strong fear--being shot at and verbally abused in the South, in prison. Urges praying for the courage to bear pain and hardship because of one's belief in pacifism and faith in God.

Summary: Expresses her anguish over the works of war in Vietnam, which are the opposite of the works of mercy. She is upset with churchmen calling for "total victory," and notes that the Church is our Mother even though "she is a harlot at times." Calls on each person to work on changing their hearts and attitude.

Summary: Reflects on how hard it is to leave the cares of the Catholic Worker as she begins a pilgrimage to other CW groups. Extols efforts at rural self-sufficiency (e.g. wool making) in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and visits friends in Minneapolis and Chicago.

Summary: Six tender obituaries of Workers who had died the past year, each highlighting the person's special qualities. Comments that since "There is no time with God" our prayers for the dead are as if said before their death.

Summary: Elaborates on the vision of voluntary poverty and what it implies for the kind of work we do, what we eat and drink, how we entertain ourselves. Recommends decentralized living and numerous books. Says "We need saints. God, give us saints."

Summary: Expresses a joyful heart in the midst of war preparations. Visits friends, Bishops, and West Coast Houses of Hospitality in Seattle and Los Angelus.

Summary: Clarifies the Catholic Worker position regarding the war in Spain, opposing violence as a solution. Urges prayer for peace, love instead of violence, and preparation for martyrdom.

Summary: Recounts the misery of New York in 1916, her loneliness, and life in tenements among the ethnic poor. Describes her first newspaper job with The Call, the competing social ideologies, and sporadic strikes and protests.

Summary: Recounts her loneliness and poverty at college as well as her conscious turn away from religion. Describes reading Upton Sinclair, Ignazio Silone, Kropotkin, Tolstoi, and Dostoevsky--the latter two allowing her to cling to faith in God. Her yearning grows to struggle with the masses. "Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves but to do away with slavery?"

Summary: Defends "the little way" and individual acts of service and martyrdom against critics who charge the CW with defeatism.

Summary: Argues that distributism is the only alternative to the US economy. Distributism is an alternative to capitalism and socialism built around "the village economy" and a more just distribution of wealth. Quotes four modern Popes in its support. Summarizes its principles with the following Statements: "land is the most natural form of property" "wages should enable man to purchase land" "the family is the most perfect when rooted in its own holdings" "agriculture is the first and most important of all arts." (See also DOC #159 and DOC #161)

Summary: Outlines P. Maurin's program for social action as the instituting of Houses of Hospitality, Clarification of Thought and Farming Communes, and explains where the C.W. has gone with each program. Reveals Maurin's sources of thought and the need to find lay apostolates. Traces personal sacrifices to Jesus' command in the gospels and asserts that the state cannot take over this duty.

Summary: Discusses in length the modern industrial problem of the machine and its relation to factory, land and worker. Explains the C.W.'s attempt to gain the workers back to Christ, by explicating a philosophy of work that distinguishes between those machines that are the extended hand of man and those that make man the extended hand of the machine. Such a philosophy sees people as cooperating with their creator, and to labor is to pray. Criticizes American Catholics for not applying Papal teaching to the work area and shows a particular acrimony to a priest who tell workers to sanctify their surroundings instead of changing it.