Reflections on the Catholic Worker Movement V

The Catholic Worker Movement shared with the Apostolic Church the principle of pacifism. History suggests that early Christians often faced persecution precisely because they were unwilling to subject themselves to the hawkish whims of the state by participating in Roman wars. Christians, it would seem, were convinced that to serve the state as an armed soldier would be to somehow reject the Gospel value of love for one's neighbor that was a necessary element of the Christian life. While this particular sentiment seems to have changed relatively early in the Christian tradition, it appears to me that one should not glibly overlook the Catholic Worker Movement's own dedication to pacifism. It is that in Loaves and Fishes, Day comments about her pacifism, “I realized that one should not tell another what to do in such circumstances. We all had to follow our consciences” (Loaves and Fishes, 63). Apparently she, like the early Church, realized that war might be justifiable in certain circumstances. What she seems to have protested however, was the indignity that soldiers were forced to face -- the cruel and arbitrary draft process and the unquestioning loyalty demanded of the nation's citizenry. That war, it seems, stripped people of their dignity – an unconscionable act in the mind of a Catholic Worker. These seem to be her point in describing the “The War Years”in the chapter bearing the same title.