Dorothy DAY. On Pilgrimage: The Sixties. Edited by Robert Ellsberg. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021. pp. xix + 316. $28.00 pb. ISBN: 9781626984097. Reviewed by R. Zachary KARANOVICH, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.

In his edited volume, On Pilgrimage: The Sixties,Robert Ellsberg has brought together a collection of columns and articles written by Dorothy Day at a time when significant societal shifts are taking place in the United States and when significant shifts are also taking place in Day’s life. Many of the articles are drawn from her “On Pilgrimage” column, published in The Catholic Worker and detailing her national and international travel.

The book begins with an introduction by Ellsberg that provides a brief overview of Day’s life and the Catholic Worker. It situates her as one whose commitments to nonviolence and the rights of conscience were always constant and to whom the activists of the 1960s “caught up.” Unlike the revolution the younger generations were calling for, Ellsberg notes that Day’s was a call for a “revolution of the heart . . . that must start with each one of us”—highlighting Day’s deep personalism (xv). The articles contained in the book reflect her desire to, by her own example, inform and inspire that personal change necessary for the world she and the other Catholic Workers so longed for.

Many events were featured in Day’s writings, one of which was the Cuban Revolution, which illustrates just how countercultural—and personally challenging—her viewpoints were (41-47).  While she acknowledged that she too would be fearful of the revolutionaries’ stance toward religion (43), she also wrote that there “must be new concepts of property,” built upon “communes and cooperatives” (47). Recognizing her own paradoxical positionality, she acknowledged: “It is hard to say that the place of The Catholic Worker is with the poor, and that being there, we are often finding ourselves on the side of the persecutors of the Church” (43). But she admits: “We are on the side of the revolution. . . . God bless the priests and people of Cuba. God bless Castro and all those who are seeing Christ in the poor” (47).

Her reflections on Cuba highlight her deepest held commitments: love for the poor and love for the church. Other events detailed in her writings reflect this. She participated in a pilgrimage to Rome during the Second Vatican Council with the Mothers for Peace. They were there as pilgrims celebrating and affirming their commitment to the tenets of Pacem in Terris (88). Her time in Rome, marked by her chance to see Pope John XXIII at his last public appearance, revealed to her the disconnect between lay social movements challenging injustices and the clergy she met. This confirmed for her the work she was doing with The Catholic Worker and the goal of reaching “the man in the street” and writing “about the glorious truths of Christianity” that can transform individuals and the world (95). Later in the decade, she joined a picket line at three in the morning to support Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in their fight in Coachella Valley on behalf of grape harvesters (299). Her time there was not mere activism, but also included a memorial mass for Robert Kennedy, who had been assassinated just a year before (295). Her work was marked by an ardent activism buttressed by a profound spirituality—love for the poor and love for the church.

Whatever the circumstances, her teachings were constant. “Our salvation depends on whether or not we perform these works [of mercy]” (3). “We must love our enemy, not because we fear war but because God loves him” (7). “We cannot talk about these ideas without trying to put them into practice, though we do it clumsily and are often misunderstood” (28). And while her work might be considered by some as extreme or radical, she saw it as no more than “a practical response to a revolutionary gospel” (306).

For those familiar with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, her writings in this collection do not likely offer anything new. Though it does provide further insights into her peers, like Peter Maurin, her love for her grandchildren, and the diligent notetaker will be able to compile a fine list of book recommendations. But what might surprise the reader is the enduring relevance of Day’s thought. Whether it be about race (“The whites of this country are not used to this sudden doom, which has been inflicted upon the blacks over and over, year after year, and most often the deaths have been unhonored and unsung, and often unreported.” (273)), the U.S.’s position on the world stage (“Violence in the rest of the world more or less accepted as ‘a fact of life,’ inevitable in the struggle for a better world, but resulting in shocked grief and bitter tears by our own people when it happens to us.” (106)), or the media (“Newspapers and television bring to the public all the violence people think of as ‘action’ and have helped inspire more violence.” (303)). And these are only a few of the abundant examples.

Beyond admirers of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, this text is a valuable resource for all, especially those interested in activism and peacemaking, the history of the American Catholic Left and “Gospel perfectionism,” or a different viewpoint on major historical events (e.g., the Cuban Revolution, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, or the Vietnam War). But it could also serve well as a spiritual text with which to pray. She offers a challenging perspective for those struggling with current ecclesial polarization: “Somehow or other, I had always realized that the church was made up of every political viewpoint as well as of saints and sinners, that there was room for all, that people were the product of the environment. Then too I had my own family . . . religious bigots and racists undoubtedly. And yet one could not hate them” (126). And she reminds us of the delight and challenge of faith: “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It is not anything that we can take except with the utmost seriousness, and yet it is of course the greatest joy in the world” (272).

Day’s writings continue to challenge us as our world still faces the same problems, though the players have changed. In this collection, Day’s calm, but direct, voice can still be heard using the gospels to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”