Catholic Workers Movement Analysis

Generosity and the ambition to help other people are what the staff of Su Casa and the Catholic Worker Movement still share to this day. The Catholic Worker Movement was created by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, and their main goal was to provide justice and charity for those who are considered poor during the time. Though they had a wide description of who they called poor, they didn’t turn anyone away who needed help. Decades has passed since then, and Su Casa, a shelter to help women who have been victims of domestic violence, still display the ideas of helping those in need. Although Su Casa has diverged from many practices that the Catholic Worker Movement stood by in Dorothy Day’s Loaves and Fishes, Su Casa still has the same ideals

In Day’s book, Loaves and Fishes, she claims that, “But it was the community that was needed, a group of people who could take turns coping with difficult situations” (Day, 40). What Day and Maurin stressed while creating the Catholic Worker Movement is the importance of community to help those in need. The use of community helps unite the people together and creates bonds with others. This was the intent of houses of hospitality, as people who needed assistance could find comfort in others around them in similar situations. Su Casa still values community as they have house meetings every Wednesday to talk about any pressing issues or just to see how everyone’s doing. Additionally, even though Su Casa only focuses on Spanish-speaking women and mothers who have been victims of domestic violence, these women can not only bond over common ancestry, but also rely on each other who have gone through the same situation as all the women try to find a place to call home once more. Furthermore, Su Casa and the Catholic Worker Movement share another idea, the farming communes, or in Su Casa’s case, the gardening commune. At the start of the Catholic Worker Movement, Day and Maurin took a small plot of land in New York and along with a few other people, managed the

The Catholic Worker Movement believed that the poor is responsible for themselves instead of the state being responsible for the poor. Day mentions this when she declares, “The point we make of emphasizing personal responsibility, rather than state or organized responsibility” (Day, 33). The essence of Day’s point is that anything that the state can do, the poor can easily do for themselves instead of depending on the government to help them, which during this time, the government was too busy trying to fix itself after the Great Depression. Decades later, now looking at Su Casa you can still see that they still believe in personal responsibility, just differently in this case. The women at Su Casa are provided with housing and while they’re children are away for the day they have two options, either go to work so they’re able to get enough funds to move out of Su Casa, or go get an education. They are showing personal responsibility by taking action in their lives and improving it from what it was previously. They’re responsible for what happens to their families and them after they leave Su Casa. It’s that personal responsibility from the mothers that makes Su Casa so similar to the personal responsibility from the first people who needed the help from the original Catholic Worker Movement. Besides the fact that both