The Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, and Exemplary Anarchism^47that apparently follows from the questionable assumption that moral
authority is “held to be unquestionable.” (62) Exemplarity, I believe,
offers the potential of differentiating authority and domination as
well as ensuring that exceptional people are able to exert a moral
influence without necessarily compromising anarchist principles.
- Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, 84.
- Former Catholic Worker Peggy Scherer attests to this influence: “I
feel that some people, at least, want to act as if Dorothy is the ongoing
authority. In my mind, that means they never do anything Dorothy
didn’t do, which means they’re not responding to anything that’s
happening now.” See Rosalie Riegle Troester, ed., Voices from the
Catholic Worker (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993), - Day’s lingering authority has proved especially consequential
in relation to controversial issues like homosexuality. One-time New
York Catholic Worker Richard Cleaver claims that the question of
tolerance for gays and lesbians at the New York branch is particu-
larly touchy because “Dorothy was not at all open to change on this
subject...I think there are people who feel that it would be an affront
to Dorothy to go against what were undoubtedly her wishes in this
question.” Voices from the Catholic Worker, 539. Feminism has also
been a contentious issue, as Sr. Anna Koop explains: “I wouldn’t ex-
actly say feminism permeates the Worker movement. Dorothy was
an incredibly traditional Catholic, and maybe we need more distance
from Dorothy for it to flower.” Voices from the Catholic Worker, 557. - Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, 84.
References
Aronica, Michele Teresa, Beyond Charismatic Leadership: The New
York Catholic Worker Movement (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 1988).
Brown, Peter, “The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity,”
Representations, 2 (Spring 1983), 1–25.
Chaplin, Jane D., Livy’s Exemplary History (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
Cort, John, “My Life at The Catholic Worker” Commonweal, 107
(1980), 361–7.