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“Apocalyptic Sectarianism”: The Theology at Work in Critiques of Catholic Radicals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2013
Abstract
This article examines contemporary critiques of Dorothy Day and other Catholic radicals that portray them as world-denying sectarians. Such critiques are then traced back to earlier ones made against American Catholic radicals during the years surrounding World War II, suggesting that all of these critiques stem from important shared theological claims held by both contemporary critics and their neo-Thomists predecessors. But such depictions are a caricature of the radical Christianity put forth by Day and others. I argue that far from denigrating human nature and history, Day and other radicals sought engagement with American society and culture that was neither an outright rejection nor a blanket affirmation. Rather, it was a form of ongoing and critical engagement in light of one's ultimate destiny. Thus Catholic radicals present an approach to social engagement which seeks to discern what is holy in American life and to perfect or abandon what is not.
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References
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53 Ibid., 130.
54 Ibid., 136.
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76 Ibid., 63.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid., 116.
79 Ibid., 148.
80 Ibid., 138.
81 Ibid., 132.
83 She wrote, “To become a Catholic meant for me to give up a mate with whom I was much in love. It got to the point where it was a simple question of whether I chose God or man” (ibid, 145).
84 Ibid., 256.
85 Mize, Sandra Yocum, “‘We Are Still Pacifists': Dorothy Day's Pacifism During World War II,” in Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: Centenary Essays, ed. Thorn, William, Runkel, Phillip, and Mountin, Susan, Marquette Studies in Theology (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 465–73Google Scholar, at 472.
86 Day wrote that she preferred the term “libertarian” as less offensive than “anarchist” (The Long Loneliness, 267).
87 Ibid., 256.
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