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Editor: First published in the La Salette publication, Our Lady’s Missionary in January of 1940, this article chronicles a visit which Fr. John Rohrman, M.S. had with the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. Although it is fairly lengthy, I retained its entire content in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Untitled-1The bronze, “Depression Breadline” at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC.
A Jesuit professor of philosophy from a large mid-western university was seated in the editorial office of the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality, on Mott St., New York City, waiting to see Peter Maurin, the instigator and guiding genius of the Catholic Worker movement. He was enthused by the many accounts which he had heard and read about Peter and his social program. Peter Maurin – there was a man with ideas, but more than that, one who was putting his social philosophy into practice, and actually succeeding.

There were many ragged and poorly clad men, homeless and unemployed from the bread-line, sitting in the yard, which separates the front tenement from the one in the rear. So the priest took no particular notice when one of these men – so he thought – entered the office and sat down. He continued his eulogy of Peter, telling those present what a great man Peter was, when, after a while, someone smilingly addressed the newcomer, saying: "Peter, here is a priest who has been waiting to see you."


This was not my experience, but might easily have been. I had telephoned the Catholic Worker office the previous evening, and was told that Peter would see me the following morning. When I arrived there, he was just arising. I felt rather sheepish when one of the staff explained that Peter didn't get to bed until two or three o'clock in the morning, and hence arose anytime before noon, when he attended noon-day Mass at St. Andrew's Church, behind the City Hall, and received Holy Communion.

It was only half way through our talk that I realized Peter was fasting – and that was fully two hours before noon. I did not have long to wait – conversing with the staff, some of whom I had met on a previous visit, and making the acquaintance of others who had just returned from the annual retreat at the Untitled-2Peter Marin, at the store-front office of the movement’s newspaper, “The Daily Worker”.farm in Easton, Pennsylvania – when I heard someone say: "Good morning, Peter" – and arose to greet him.

 

Meeting a Man of His Convictions

 

I had heard of Peter Maurin from one of the brothers here at La Salette Seminary, who knew Peter during his sojourn at Kingston and Mt. Tremper, N.Y., before he started his movement. He it was who introduced me to the "Easy Essays," a copy of which Peter had given him with his name and Peter's neatly printed on the inside of the cover.

These "Essays" are the fruit of Peter's long reading and deep thinking, and contain in a clear, concise style, his criticisms of the present social and economic orders, and more important still, a positive program of social reconstruction. Anyone reading these "Essays" and following the logical development of the thought, must conclude that here is a man who is not only extremely well read in historical and social matters, but has thoroughly assimilated what he has read, and is able to use it in a practical and intelligent manner.

Ever since I first learned of the movement, I followed its activities with interest. There was much, of course, that I did not know about the doctrinal part, and nothing at all about the external organization and the practical methods employed, except what I had read in the "Catholic Worker" monthly. So if ever I should have the opportunity, I would visit the Catholic Worker headquarters at 115 Mott St., and see at first hand, the work being done. The opportunity presented itself on the return trip from the Crusade Convention, when we were permitted a brief stop-over in New York City.

 

Peter Maurin and the La Salettes

Untitled-3(from left) the Façade of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Phoenicia, NY in early 1900s; interior of this rural Church in the Catskill Mountains; Rectory with its La Salette Shrine.

 

When I told Peter where I was from, he said: "Yes, I know some of your Fathers." He then told me how, when he was at Kingston, he had frequently gone to visit our Fathers in the nearby town of Phoenicia, in the Catskills. "In fact," he continued, "I wanted one of them to open a house of hospitality on the west side of New York, to work among the Irish, to keep them from going 'red' (that is, Communist)."

As I said above, there were many things concerning the workings of the Movement of which I had little or no knowledge. Although I could not be classed among the skeptical, there were yet certain phases which required clarification or explanation. For example, I wanted to know if Peter had episcopal approbation for his work, or wasn't it necessary. "No," he replied, "we have no approbation," and added good humoredly, "I wouldn't know what to do with it if we had it."

This was somewhat of a surprise, so I asked why that was, the same time observing his deeply lined, mobile face, rugged nose, and clear eyes set in a network of wrinkles, crowned by a broad forehead and grizzled hair. His answer, quite unexpected, and accompanied by a peculiar quirk of his mouth, was: "Because they consider the hierarchy capitalistic and fascist." Here he tapped me on the knee, as indeed he did several times during our conversation whenever he registered a point which seemed to justify his social program and vindicate his methods.

 

A Fascinating One-Way Conversation

 

Untitled-4Conversation, though, doesn't seem to be the right word to use, because Peter does all the talking, and the most one can do, is slip in a word or brief question here and there, to lead him to speak of those things which the inquirer wishes to discuss.

It did not take long to realize that Peter's statements, made directly and to the point, are, as it were, the conclusion of well thought out and solidly grounded premises, based on his wide reading, and practical experience; the result of his favorite method for the clarification of thought, round-table discussion. And if the explanation for any particular statement were not immediately forthcoming, if it could not be gathered from any other related statement, one can rest assured that there are very definite arguments in support of his contention.

Peter anticipated my query as to who the "they" were, and added hastily – "the Communists, the unemployed, the workers, even Catholics, who think that the Catholic Church has no social program for them."

 

The Birth of the Catholic Worker Movement

 

Untitled-5Archbishop Frederick William Keating an early proponent of Catholic Action and social responsibility.So this was the purpose of the Catholic Worker movement – to carry the Church's social doctrine to the man in the street, to keep him from going "red," to win the "reds" over to the Catholic way of thinking, to prove to the worker and the unemployed that the Church has a solution for the evils of the present outworn system of which they are the unfortunate victims. Here I was reminded of those words of Archbishop (Frederick William) Keating (of Liverpool, England), "When a social system fails to feed the poor, it is time to look out for one that does."

Peter, as do most Catholic Economists, places the blame for these evils on the Manchester School of Political Economy, with its Industrial Liberalism, rugged individualism and survival of the fittest – in a word, the system of "Laissez Faire." "Liberalism took religion out of business, out of politics, out of industry. That's the trouble with society, religion must be put back into business, into politics, into industry." This is also the criticism of Glenn Frank, President of the University of Wisconsin, who says: "What ails modern society is the separation of the spiritual from the material."

 

An Equal-Opportunity Vocation

 

"But should not a movement like this be started by the clergy? Is this not the work of the priests?" "No," Peter replied emphatically, "it is the work of every Catholic." He had already written in his "Easy Essays":

"God wants us to be our brother's keeper. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to instruct the ignorant, at a personal sacrifice, is what God wants us to do."

I was interested in what Peter calls the return to Primitive Christianity. So I ventured, "Surely, you don't advocate the return of early Christian institutions, as described in the Acts of the Apostles ( 2:42-47; 3: 32-37) for this was something merely transitory, peculiar to that particular time and place."

He made the following reply: "The early Christians gave of their goods to feed the poor, and there was no Untitled-6Logo of the newspaper, “The Catholic Worker”.one needy among them. It should be the same today. We must return to that same Spirit of Christianity.

 

Feeding the Poor - the Work of Every Christian

 

The common life they led was continued by the Monastic institutions, and if it is good enough for religious, it is good enough for us. The counsels of the Gospel are for everybody; and if everybody tried to live up to them, we would bring order out of chaos."

"This would seem to imply that present-day Catholicism is more concerned with the accidentals of religion," I objected. "The dogmas of the Church are essentially, the same now as they were then; surely the Church cannot have failed in her mission. Is it that Church-men have failed?"

"Some of them, yes," he answered pointedly enough. "No, 'Christianity has not failed' as Chesterton said, 'for the very good reason that it has not been tried.' Christianity has not been tried because people thought it was not practical. (People) have tried everything except Christianity, and everything (people) have tried, has failed. To fail in everything that one tries is not considered practical by so-called practical men. So, so-called practical (people) will be practical when they start to practice the Christianity they profess to believe."

 

Establishing Houses of Hospitality

 

Untitled-7Peter's program calls for the establishment of houses of hospitality for the immediate relief of the poor and the unemployed, where the homeless may go for food arid shelter, and no questions asked. His ideal is the voluntary poverty of St. Francis of Assisi. "St. Francis desired that (people) should give up their superfluous possessions, that (they) should work with their hands, that (they) should offer their services as a gift, that (they) should ask other people for help when work failed them, that (they) should go through life giving thanks to God for his gifts." All this and more can be done in a house of hospitality.

 

Here is the way Peter sums up the situation in his "Easy Essays": "We seem to think that poor people are social nuisances and not the Ambassadors of God. We seem to think that Lady Poverty is an ugly girl: not the beauty that St. Francis of Assisi says she is. And because we think so, we refuse to feed the poor with our superfluous goods."

Peter wants the scholar to become a worker and the worker a scholar. "This can be done in a house of hospitality by study and round-table discussion. Men can be rehabilitated. Scholars can work for the poor with their own hands. I am not afraid of work; I am a peasant," he said aggressively, referring to his humble French origin. No, Peter is not afraid of work, I thought to myself, looking at his gnarled hands, corded neck, and tanned, weather-beaten features.

 

We All Need Cult, Culture and Cultivation

 

He particularly stressed these three words: "cult, culture and cultivation" – cult, the worship of God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; culture, the harmonious development of the moral and intellectual faculties; cultivation, of the soil, a "back to the land" movement as the solution of the acute problem of unemployment.
Untitled-8Dorothy Day (1897-1980), co-founder of Catholic Worker Movement.
Peter's ideal of this simple formula is Ireland of a thousand years ago. "By cult, culture and cultivation," he said, "Ireland became the land of Saints and Scholars, so that the Irish were able to make men out of the Englishmen."

Again Peter anticipated my question – how should this sound social aim be effected? And in a few words, by way of conclusion, he reiterated the essential points of his Social Program. He reminded me that the late Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, had called for the social reconstruction of a Christian society, based upon the principles of justice and charity.

The Need for a Great Social Revolution

Peter believes that such a social order should be founded upon Catholic workers. There is need, then, of a social revolution. Peter's theory of social revolution is the Catholic Worker Movement, based on the teachings of Christ, the social philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, the traditional institutions of the Church, and the pronouncements of the Papal Encyclicals. Peter's revolution is primarily a personal one. It must start with each individual, and increase until the whole of society is leavened.
Untitled-9
An hour and a half had passed since I began talking to Peter. An hour and a half ago, Peter Maurin was someone I had read about and wanted to meet. Now I had had the privilege of meeting him, and hearing him discourse on his favorite subject. Was this the man whom I had heard called agitator and fanatic? Why, his devotion is the Mystical Body of Christ; his ideal, the Christianity of the Apostles; his gospel, voluntary poverty and the corporal works of mercy.

What matter, if people called his poverty and detachment, shabbiness; his zeal and determination, fanaticism; and his preaching, agitation? In truth, like another Peter, he is an Apostle, carrying the social message of Christ to the worker, in order to win the worker to Christ.