The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, and
Exemplary Anarchism
Benjamin J. Pauli
Kettering University, USA
The Catholic Worker movement’s fusion of anarchism and
Catholicism is one of the most unusual hybrids in the history of
the anarchist tradition and is sometimes dismissed as paradoxical
or contradictory. In arguing that the pairing of these influences is
not as counter-intuitive as it appears at first glance, this chapter
seeks to explain the elective affinity of anarchism and Catholicism
through the concept of exemplarity. The vision for the Catholic
Worker devised by its founders Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day
was, I argue, informed by interpretations of central Christian
figures like Christ, the saints, and the “holy fool” that placed
special emphasis on their exemplary qualities. Maurin and Day
saw in the Catholic tradition of exemplarity a means of exercising
leadership and authority through the power of examples and vol-
untary emulation rather than coercion, and within the context of
the Catholic Worker movement the exemplary influence of Day in
particular helped to reconcile the movement’s need for coherence
and direction with the autonomy and dignity of its members. In
highlighting the Catholic Worker’s “exemplary anarchism,” this
chapter not only reveals one of the ways in which the Worker’s
Catholicism actually enhanced its anarchism, but also points to
the broader relevance of the concept of exemplarity to anarchist
theory.“I’m like everyone else: I admire people who have become
outstanding.”
—Dorothy DayIf one wanted to illustrate the proposition, recounted by Noam
Chomsky in his introduction to Daniel Guerin’s Anarchism, that
How to cite this book chapter:
Pauli, B. J. 2017. The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, and Exemplary
Anarchism. In: Christoyannopoulos, A. and Adams, M. S. (eds.) Essays
in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1. Pp. 18–50. Stockholm: Stockholm
University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/bak.b. License: CC-BY