From the Author: ""What I've aimed for... in this book is neither academic analysis nor a history of the Worker movement per se. Rather, my interest has been a theological exploration of the Catholic Worker vision in all its rich and resonating breadth. The goal has been to present and ... to promote that vision as what I am convinced the movement's founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, understood it to be: not, finally, a matter of political theory or philosophy ... but rather of profound religious conviction and insight."" ____________ ""Indeed, what is most striking about the now more...

In Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, Marc H. Ellis traces Maurin's life from his early years--as peasant, brother, and Catholic activist--through his meeting with Dorothy Day. Ellis' Chronicle focuses on the consequences of that meeting: the founding of the Catholic Worker movement and newspaper, the founding of hospitality, the farming communes. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century is the first biography to really examine Maurin's thought. A commitment to non-violent reform and to a life of poverty were chief tenets of Maurin's philosophy; it was...

On September 9, 1980, the Plowshares Eight entered a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and enacted the biblical command to ""beat swords into plowshares"" by hammering on the nose cones of two nuclear warheads and pouring blood on documents. Since that time, other small groups and individuals have entered manufacturing plants and military bases throughout the U.S., as well as in Australia, Germany, England, Ireland, Sweden, and Holland, to disarm components of nuclear and conventional weapons systems. As of Spring 2003 there have been over 150 people who, using hammers...

This collection of articles and talks are some ""personal favorites"" of the late Gordon C. Zahn, a founder of the U.S. Catholic peace movement, and fondly known as the ""dean of American Catholic pacifists."" The theme of these essays is imbedded in the title of the book: All Christians have a vocation of peace, a call to serve the cause of peace and to obey the obligation to oppose war and any support or participation in war. The first set of essays will challenge the reader to consider the role of conscience and the moral responsibility it holds for the Christian. The second set of essays...

The difficulty in realizing that a truth beyond culture exists is perhaps the greatest single barrier to the life of love. Our culture is permeated by violence, militarism, materialism, patriotism to nation right or wrong, the supremancy of force, racism, sexism. Most people, seeking approval of their peers, never see how destructive these false values are. Here you are challenged to be dissatisfied with this cultural reality; to resist custom, habit, tradition, mores, social environment, even heredity; to act on your own conscience, to reform reality, to return good for evil, to love your...

In The Time's Discipline. Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister offer us a chronicle of their community in Baltimore. They show us that for their nonviolent community, resistance to the nuclear arms race is not merely a political endeavor, but most profoundly a spiritual endeavor, rooted in fidelity to the Gospel. Thus the reporting of Jonah House's first fifteen years is formed around the Beatitudes, eight points of blessing at the outset of Matthew's presentation of the Sermon on the Mount. Invariably for Phil & Liz and those who have been part of their work at Jonah house and related...

The Reverend Richard McSorley, S.J. (1914 - 2002), was professor of peace studies at Georgetown University and writer of eight books on pacifism and social justice. As a Jesuit priest ordained in 1946, he completed his studies for his Ph.D. at Ottawa University. In 1970, he co-founded St. Francis Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. He served as a board member of the National Interreligious Board for Conscientious Objectors for 15 years and was a National Council member of Pax Christi, U.S.A. from 1983 to 1989. He has written five other books and is a nationally recognized newspaper...

""This is a deeply moving tale of the American we often read about but seldom run into: the independent spirit who speaks truth to power, no matter the consequences. Dave Dellinger, the oldest of the Conspiracy Eight, turns out to be the most obstinate. This book tells us why."" -- Studs Terkel ""Before reading this book, I knew and greatly admired Dave Dellinger. Or so I thought. After reading his remarkable story, my admiration changed to something more like awe. There can be few people in the world who have crafted their lives into something truly inspiring. -- Noam Chomsky ""Dave...

I first met Peter in December, 1932, when George Shuster, then editor of The Commonweal, later president of Hunter College, urged him to get into contact with me because our ideas were so similar, both our criticism of the social order and our sense of personal responsibility in doing something about it. It was not that ""the world was too much with us"" as we felt that God did not intend things to be as bad as they were. We believed that ""in the Cross was joy of Spirit."" We knew that due to original sin, ""all nature travailleth and groaneth even until now,"" but also believed, as Juliana...