About the Catholic Worker Movement

The mission of the Catholic Worker Movement is to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, and work to expose and eradicate the injustices that plague the vast majority of our human family. The Catholic Worker Movement is about the belief in the sacred dignity of each and every creature on the planet. In a culture that worships the immediacy of technology, material success, and comfort, Catholic Workers seek to embrace a type of simplicity, a reverence for all of creation as a way of growing closer to God and of all God’s children.

Our founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, met each other in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression, and decided to live with and among the poor, to provide hospitality for them adhering to the aforementioned works of mercy, and to be tireless advocates of a Catholic social teaching that applies the words of Jesus to the numerous social injustices in our own communities and around the world. In the words of Dorothy Day: 

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” - Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin