“I’m convinced she is a saint for our time”
— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in 2012
Forty four years ago — on this date, November 29, in 1980, Dorothy Day died. The social activist, journalist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker newspaper and movement of the same name was 83.
Her cause for sainthood has been underway for a quarter-century.
In February of 2000 New York’s archbishop Cardinal John O’ Connor formally requested that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (CCS) consider her canonization and he personally appealed to Pope John Paul II.
The Holy See granted Dorothy Day the title “Servant of God.”
In 2012, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops unanimously voiced its support for her sainthood.
For those not familiar with the life of Dorothy Day — see the article pictured below — Mike Aquilina and I wrote the piece for Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly in 2013. As stated in the article, “To propose Dorothy Day as a model is not a trivial matter. She is unsettling — and not easily dismissed.”
What has happened in the eleven years since this article was published? A few highlights:
You might recall Pope Francis mentioned Dorothy Day as one of “four great Americans”1 in his history-making address to a Joint Session of the US Congress in 2015.
In 2016, the collection of testimonies by the Congregation for the Canonization of Saints began.
2017 saw the First Session of Diocesan Inquiry with Fr. Richard Welch named Cardinal's Delegate for the Cause. Officials of the Inquiry were appointed and the Historical Commission established. Theological Censors were chosen and the Roman Postlator established.
In 2021, Cardinal Timothy Dolan announced the completion of the local diocesan phase and the beginning of the Roman phase of the canonization process — which is where her cause now stands.
You can follow the cause for her sainthood at Dorothy Day Guild.
The others were Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln.