00:03in many ways Dorothy Day was a typical grandmother I see my grandmother as
00:10someone who was very ordinary but also very extraordinary I mean I understood
00:15that she was different different because Dorothy Day was so often on the front
00:21lines protesting war and nuclear buildup creating houses of hospitality for the
00:27hungry and homeless and earning her place on the FBI watch list as a dangerous
00:33American yeah Dorothy Day is a big troublemaker as a young journalist Dorothy
00:38Day campaigned for those in need her work keeps putting her front and center in
00:43the social movements of the time she wrote about workers rights child labor she was
00:50attracted to communism believing it was a way to improve people's lives all part of
00:55a chapter in her own life that would leave its scars but with the birth of her
01:00daughter Dorothy Day turned from communism and converted to the Catholic faith there
01:06she discovered a path that for nearly a half century led her to become one of the
01:11greatest champions for the poor America has ever known she thought if
01:16communism is radical why shouldn't Christianity be right this is wrong my
01:22grandmother always said that she never meant to start houses of hospitality she
01:25never meant to open up soup lines but what happens when you start writing
01:29about these things people show up at the door she wanted the people to exercise
01:34their own sense of personal responsibility you see something that needs to be done you
01:38do it but accepting the biblical challenge to be peacemakers also compelled her to
01:43become a pacifist without compromise to use her Catholic worker movement and the
01:49newspaper she founded to resist America's intervention in any war many believed her
01:55behavior was un-american she did describe herself as an anarchist there's an anarchist
02:01dimension to her Christian witness some of the most profound and most rewarding
02:07demonstrations getting culminated in arrests were with the Catholic worker community I
02:12think of Dorothy day as a firecracker that never goes out now this grandmother and anarchist may
02:20well be declared a saint we'd love to see Dorothy made a saint for both American middle-class people and
02:27for
02:27Catholics they recognized that something extraordinary was going on they weren't
02:31quite sure what to do with it she annoyed people because she challenged him she was
02:37saying don't call me a saint I don't want to be written off that easily I think if
02:43you take the Lord's words you'll find they're pretty rigorous the Sermon on the
02:47Mount may be read with great enjoyment but when it comes to practicing it it really is
02:53an examination of conscience to see how far we go
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