Unruly Saint: Dorothy Day’s Radical Vision and its Challenge for Our Times

In 1933, in the shadow of the Great Depression, Dorothy Day started the most prominent Catholic radical movement in United States history, the Catholic Worker Movement, a storied organization with a lasting legacy of truth and justice.

Day’s newspaper, houses of hospitality, and ministry of paying attention to the inequality of her world would eventually become world famous, just as she–a high-energy activist with a cigarette in one hand and a coffee cup in the other–would become a figure of promise for the poor. The ways in which Day and her fellow workers both found the love of God in and expressed it for their neighbors during a time of great social, political, economic, and spiritual upheaval would become a model of activism for decades to come.

In Unruly Saint, activist, writer, and neighbor D. L. Mayfield brings a personal lens to Day’s story. In exploring the founding of the Catholic Worker movement and newspaper by revisiting the early years of Day’s life, Mayfield turns her attention to what it means to be a good neighbor today.

Through a combination of biography, observations on the current American landscape, and theological reflection, this is at once an achingly relevant account and an encouraging blueprint for people of faith in tumultuous times. It will resonate with today’s activists, social justice warriors, and those seeking to live in the service of others.