Tito,

In order for a person's cause for sainthood to be accepted by the Vatican, which it has in the case of Dorothy Day, the diocese must demonstrate that the person lived a life of heroic virtue. To become blessed or a saint, miracles must be demonstrated. Since our discussion focuses on the issue of whether Dorothy Day lived a life of heroic virtue, we can turn to the fact that the Magisterium has affirmed this to be true.

According to your statements, we should not look to Dorothy Day as a model of holiness, because she is not a saint. Following this line of reasoning, neither should we look to John Paul the Great or Fulton Sheen as models for our lives as Christians. Yet I think you might shy away from that extreme.

Chris

Are those people even Catholic? I mean, I believe from what I've read you don't have to be Catholic to be in that "movement." It also looks like they even let in anti-Catholic people. I don't believe its a fruitful task to discuss the possible sainthood of ms. Day with anti-Catholics. Much akin to discussing bible theology with atheists.

What about the Missionaries of Charity? Many non-Catholics help them and yet they don't earn any censure.

Tito,

Ad Hominem arguments don't lend any credibility to your pontifications, but I think Chesterton once said that the only interesting arguments are ad hominem.

Incidentally, since you seem interested in what people don't demonstrate, I'm still waiting for you to demonstrate that Cardinal O'Connor was "a known left-wing heterodoxical man." It should be an interesting read.

Chris

Tito, I am reading past issues of OSV this Lent....ones I didn't have time to read at the time. In the May 14th issue of OSV there is an article entitled "Church Must Be More Selective in Picking Saints" Perhaps you remember reading it.

"The Catholic Church should be more selective and very rigorous in choosing candidates for sainthood", Pope Benedict XVI said in a message to the Congregation for Saints' Causes.

..."Modern men and women need true models of holiness, he said, and they must be chosen with care."

"...steps should be taken to 'safeguard the seriousness of the investigations that take place in the diocesan inquiry' and that there must be a real 'fame of holiness' and not just a conviction among a small group of people that the person is question was a good Christian..."

Now, whether or not Dorothy Day was a true saint (canonized or not) is for God to decide.

Chris,

in plain language and repeatedly, Tito has insisted that Ms. Day should not be publicly venerated because she IS NOT YET (OR PERHAPS EVER WILL BE) DECLARED A SAINT.

He did not say you shouldn't use her as an example of holiness, although there is an argument to made for that due to her poor grasp of Catholic teaching on socialism, but that's not related to her veneration which is an entirely different (read para 1 if you're unclear on Tito, and the Roman Catholic Church's position on public veneration of Ms. Day).

God Bless,

Matt

Chris,

Since our discussion focuses on the issue of whether Dorothy Day lived a life of heroic virtue, we can turn to the fact that the Magisterium has affirmed this to be true.

No Chris, the Magisterium has not affeirmed that DD lived a life of virtue. The Holy See has accepted the diocese' proposal that a cause should be opened to INVESTIGATE her virtue, and seek potential miracles. Surely you understand the difference, but are just fudging it to try and emphasize your point?

Oh, and you know full well the primary debate is about veneration and not example, although we surely could debate that issue as well.

God Bless,

Matt

Matt,

After re-reading Tito's comments, I still believe that his primary argument is against her example. If this is not the case, how do you explain such trolls as: "Dorothy Day should be anathema." "Oh, and St. Augustine didn't kill his illegitate son. And Dorothy Day is not a saint, she is a wolf in sheeps clothing." and "Dorothy Day also sided with the Nazi's during WWII." And yet Tito has failed to prove any of these points. Instead, he continues to focus on two points that he has never adequately addressed, her tragic abortion (which she regretted the rest of her life) and her supposed socialism.

The former point has been addressed ad nauseum at Evangelical Catholicism, but I'd like to discover where Day's understanding of socialism is lacking. It seems that it is in accordance with the teachings of Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, all of whom condemn both socialism and free-market capitalism. If this is not the case, I would welcome any education on the matter.

God Bless,
Chris

Chris,

You're bringing in other arguments into the picture.

I probably shouldn't have called her anathema and I am not holding her abortion against her, she repented and that is that.

When you undermine the American war effort that is called sedition, ergo, she implictly supported the Nazi's during their reign of terror over Europe.

Again, she is not a recognized saint by the Church.

When you undermine the American war effort that is called sedition, ergo, she implictly supported the Nazi's during their reign of terror over Europe.

This is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. Sounds like you believe in Holy Mother State rather than Holy Mother Church. Tha Catholic Church upholds BOTH pacifism and just war stances as responsible approaches to war. That is what Dorothy Day did.

Dorothy Day did not have an inadequate understanding of socialism. She had a personal and very nuanced understanding of it, considering she went through just about every type of socialism you can imagine, finally settling on the kind called anarchism. She considered herself a Catholic anarchist.

The Church does not condemn socialism. It condemns authoritarian Marxism. The Church's social teaching actually upholds certain types of socialism and understands that there is more than one type of socialism (see the writings of Paul VI on this). Catholic social teaching most closely resembles democratic socialism, and Benedict XVI has been quoted as saying this.

'Nuanced'.

As soon as you mentioned that little word you just validated my statement that Dorothy Day is a militant pacifist at-all-costs.

At least your honest enought to admit that she IS an anarchist.

Thanks for being honest, that's the least that can be said for Joseph Michael and the other Dorothy Day apologists.

My use of the word "nuanced" was in reference to her understanding of socialism. The Church herself has a nuanced understanding of socialism, meaning that it does not think that there is only one kind of socialism, but many.

Of course, you only say that I "validated" your opinion without saying why.

I not only admit, but admire her anarchism. Anarchism, as she conceived it, meant that her Catholicism was not tainted by the world's political categories - liberal/conservative/etc. She considered herself simply Catholic. She was indeed "un-American" because she believed that Christ and his Church are the only ultimate authorities that have claims on Christians. If only more Catholics were like this instead of bowing down to Holy Mother State, or the pseudo-Pontiff in the White House.

I am honest about Dorothy Day because I think she was a model of Christian discipleship. I do believe she is a saint (small 's'), and will be declared a Saint (big 'S') by the Church eventually.

You, on the other hand, are not honest because you cannot defend your own distaste for the woman except by calling her a "liberal" and by criticizing those who admire her. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

Tito,

Regarding Dorothy Day's anarchism, there are several things to bear in mind. First, there is a distinction between your usage of anarchism and that used by Bing. Your use of the word emphasizes an anarchy based upon lawlessness. Bing, on the other hand, uses anarchy to denote a society founded upon a higher law, in his case, that of God. This second approach is often used by those espousing anarchism as a political movement.

The second thing to bear in mind is that Dorothy Day's approach to emulating the life and teachings of Christ grounds itself in the monastic tradition, which offers itself as an alternative, the City of God, to the City of Man. St. Augustine viewed history as a movement from the fallen City of Man towards the City of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, specifically in City of God XIV,28-XV,2. While I won't quote the entire section, the description of the Heavenly City is extremely important in understanding Augustine's approach to politics:
"In the Heavenly City...man's only wisdom is the devotion which rightly worships the true God, and looks for its reward in the fellowship of the saints, not only holy men but also holy angels, 'so that God may be all in all.'"
This is the summit of the polis, the worship of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. (I should emphasize that the saints that St. Augustine refers to are the Christian people as a whole, not those that are canonized. In fact, the current process for canonization is not the same as that of Augustine's day. For Augustine, a saint was named by the local bishop and did not require universal acclamation or a pontifical statement.) Since man is fallen, we will not experience the full majesty of the City of God until Christ's return. But we can attempt to emulate that heavenly perfection and that is what is found in the monastic life, which was a primary model for the Catholic Worker Movement.

Chris,

Thanks for that clarification.

And the Church does condemn socialism.

Tito --

If that is true then I find it odd that Ratzinger would have said that democratic socialism is the closest a political form can come to what is called for in Catholic social teaching.

The fact is you are not able to make distinctions. And that makes your arguments sloppy.

Bing,

I believe the word you are looking for is 'nuanced' instead of sloppy. But then again our faith is 'black & white' with no gray area, unless of course if your Anglican.

Tito -

No, if one is not able to make distinctions, as you are not able to do (lumping Dorothy Day in with "liberals" whatever you mean by that), I would not say you are capable of nuanced argument. Quite the opposite. You paint with broad strokes.

The Catholic faith certainly is NOT black and white. But I am not surprised that a patriotic American Catholic (emphasis on the American side) such as yourself would think so.

Bing,

I am a Catholic first, American second, though you fail to even read my most recent posting.

I believe sir that you are a liberal first, and a Catholic second.

That's very funny. But if you say so.

It'd be nice if you could define the word that you want to apply to me. Care to try?

Bing,

Nice attempt at a straw-man argument.

Dorothy Day is not a saint and she shouldn't be publicly venerated.

Straw man argument? No, you made an assertion, and I'd simply like you to define one of the words that you used in that assertion.

I do not think you can, however.

The debates about Dorothy Day's sainthood on your blog are silly. The fact is that the Church will not even begin investigating the possible Sainthood of a person unless there is some kind of movement already in which that person is described as a saint. No one is suggesting we literally start referring to Dorothy Day as Saint Dorothy Day yet. No one is composing prayers to Dorothy Day yet. It seems as though you're making a big deal out of something that isn't even really happening.

UNLIKE, of course, those who are already calling JPII Saint John Paul the Great. What do you think about the JPII holy cards that are circulating?

Finally,

You see my point.

But before we get to that...

You're unwarranted defense of saying it's ok to declare DD a saint and doing it publicly can easily be construed as liberal.

That's that, but if you insist on being obtuse about it, so be it.

Getting back to the point...

Finally you agree that calling DD a saint is incorrect, just as much as referring to JPII as one, technically speaking. For the record I only referr to JP2 as JP2, not St. JP2 or even JP the Great.

We are in agreement.

My last post was the first one in which I had ever mentioned Dorothy Day's sainthood, if you go back and check. So I didn't "finally" come around to your side. In fact, I think it is fine to talk about DD as a saint, in anticipation of further movement toward making her one, which is REQUIRED for the Vatican to even consider making someone a Saint. This even includes praying to Dorothy Day. How else are the alleged miracles supposed to happen, right? In history, people have prayed to people they have considered saintly, and sometimes miracles have occurred, which are taken into account in the canonization process.

My beef with you is that you a) called Dorothy Day a "liberal" which is entirely false, and b) your general application of the word "liberal" which is sloppy, and still undefined as you will not define the word that you use against so many people.

For you to explain your use of the word in this way, "Well, you kinda sounded like a liberal when you talked about Dorothy Day" doesn't cut it. I'd like you to DEFINE what you mean when you use the word "liberal" in reference to certain Catholics. Can you do that for us, since that word is thrown around a lot on this blog?