The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist

Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a pacifist, social commentator, journalist, convert to Catholicism, and cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was baptized in the Episcopal Church. Day lived her young adult life as a political radical and socialist, sympathizing with anarchists and communists. She was increasingly drawn to Catholicism because she saw it as the Church of immigrants and the poor. After giving birth to her daughter Tamar in 1926, Day converted to Catholicism. Day cofounded the Catholic Worker movement in 1933 with Peter Maurin to live and spread the vision of Catholic social teaching. Day was honored by the University of Notre Dame with the Laetare Medal in 1972. She died in 1980 in New York and her cause for canonization was launched by Cardinal John J. O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, in 1997 on what would have been her one-hundredth birthday.