32 Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1
What it came down to was that the Catholic Worker was an ex-
traordinary combination of anarchy and dictatorship.”^47 Michael
Harrington, a member of the movement as a young man, had a
similar impression: “we were living in a community where, when-
ever we made a decision, we all had a completely democratic,
anarchist discussion, and then Dorothy made up her mind. The
place was run on a führer concept, and Dorothy was the führer.”^48
Day ensured that “certain convictions (pacifism, personalism, the
centrality of the works of mercy) prevailed in the Worker publi-
cations as non- negotiable and publicly expressed values.”^49 It was
one of these convictions—pacifism—that inspired Day’s most am-
bitious attempt to exercise control, not only over the New York
Catholic Worker community, but over the movement as a whole:
unflinching in her commitment to nonviolence during World War
II, Day insisted that Catholic Worker communities throughout the
country adopt a pacifist position in their publications or disasso-
ciate themselves from the movement.
Furthermore, Day often used her influence to ensure that her
conservative orientation to Church theology and hierarchy pre-
dominated, in form if not in spirit. This was most evident, per-
haps, in Day’s approach to her role as overseer of the New York
Catholic Worker paper. Day used this privileged position to super-
vise the hiring and activities of editors as well as the contributions
of writers, closely monitoring the paper’s content: “Day allowed
her writers and editors creative freedom,” Nancy Roberts writes,
“but within what she perceived as Catholic Worker principles.
She usually screened everything that went into the paper, with
few exceptions.” Rather than risk a quarrel with the matriarch,
many writers resorted to “self-censorship.”^50 This meant, for one
thing, that no criticism of church officials was to be found in the
paper. It also meant that the paper carried many articles espousing
traditional roles for women and was prevented from becoming an
active advocate for women’s liberation after the emergence of the
women’s movement. Additionally, Day used the paper as a means
of promulgating a very conservative view of abortion and birth
control, labelling both “genocide.”^51
Finally, Day’s de facto authority as watchful “mother and
grandmother”^52 of the movement meant that “Certain behavioural