New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday, March 25 that one of the three new boats connecting Staten Island to southern Manhattan Island would be named after Dorothy Day (1897-1980), a leading figure in Catholicism social in the United States. “Dorothy Day has lived a life of selflessness and extraordinary service. I can’t think of a better way to honor his beloved heritage than to have his name on this new ferry connecting Manhattan and Staten Island ”, said Bill de Blasio, himself a Catholic.
“It is entirely fitting that a ferry carrying people honors an apostle believing in peace, justice and charity who has dedicated her life to moving people from war to peace, from emptiness to emptiness. fullness, from isolation to belonging ”, rejoiced Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. The new vessel should be commissioned in the course of 2022.
Figure of American Catholicism
Close to anarchist circles in her youth, Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism and then became involved with the poorest. In the 1930s, she founded, with the French Pierre Maurin, the newspaper Catholic Worker in order to promote the social doctrine of the Church, following the publication of the encyclical Of the new things by Pope Leo XIII.
It was also in New York that she opened the first “house of hospitality”, an establishment advocating voluntary simplicity as well as community life between Catholics and non-Catholics. These “houses of hospitality” will become the basic cells of the Catholic Worker Movement, a movement which today claims 249 communities, including 33 outside the United States.
Beatification
In 2000, Pope John Paul II opened the cause for the beatification of Dorothy Day. In April 2016, Cardinal Timothy Dolan officially opened the investigation “ on life, heroic virtues and on the reputation of holiness and signs ” of the American Catholic activist.
The figure of Dorothy Day was greeted by Pope Francis during his speech to the US Congress in September 2015. The Pope then praised “ his social activism, his passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed were inspired by the gospel, by his faith and by the example of the saints. “
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