NEW YORK (CNS) – More than 1500 people filled St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on December 8 to witness the formal end of the diocesan phase of the sainthood cause for Dorothy Day.
Following official protocol established by the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York stamped a hot wax seal onto red ribbon binding the final box of documents collected during the 23-year process.
Cardinal Dolan closed the diocesan inquiry with a decree. He and other officials of the inquiry took an oath attesting to its integrity and promised to safeguard the confidential testimony of those they interviewed in the process.
In response, the congregation offered cheers and a standing ovation. Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn in 1897. She worked as a journalist for several socialist newspapers and was an activist deeply interested in the plight of farmers and workers. She was received into the Catholic Church in 1927. In his homily, Cardinal Dolan said Day was dismayed at the lack of visible Catholic advocacy or witness when she covered a hunger march in Washington in 1932. On December 8 that year, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, she prayed at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (now a basilica), for God to reveal a providential plan for her as a Catholic to serve the poor and unemployed. Day was a daily communicant who practiced social justice, pacifism and charity. She was arrested multiple times for protesting in support of striking workers and against wars. She died in 1980 at a Catholic Worker house in New York City.
Photo: New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan addresses the congregation during a Mass marking the conclusion of the Archdiocese of New York’s investigation of Dorothy Day’s candidacy for sainthood Dec. 8, 2021, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. (CNS photo)
Farmers and workers are the backbone of Planet Earth, our Common Home. Dorothy Day is an inspiration to the community of journalists world wide.
Great.
“Day was a daily communicant who practiced social justice, pacifism and charity.”
She, like all Saints, shows that there’s no contradiction or tension between been sacramentalised, evangelized, and catechized, i.e. attending Mass and the sacraments such as Reconciliation, a personal relationship with God and charitable action, and been educated and knowledgeable in The Faith and Holy Scripture.