Distributists, Catholic Workers, and La Leche League

So what do all of the above have in common? Well, for one thing they all read Chesterton and seemed to quote him frequently in the past (some Catholic Workers no longer do and LLL doesn't seem to anymore either). The movements all got started by people who were familiar with papal encylicals like Rerum Novarum and embraced Catholic social teaching. The Catholic Workers movement of today seems to encompass a real diversity of viewpoints, some of them not Catholic at all (despite the name). La Leche League also embraces a variety of viewpoints and claims no connection with Catholicism at all (again despite the name). Yet, the Catholic worker movement and La Leche League still retain some of the philosophical positions that they began with. Catholic workers are still devoted to hospitality to the poor and La Leche League is still trying to help enhance the mother baby relationship (you can't get more small and local than that).

I've spent a lot of my time lately reading about the Catholic Worker movement. The most recent book I'm tackling is Mark and Louise Zwick's The Catholic Worker Movement, Intellectual and Spiritual Origins. I'm finding this one really helpful, almost even more than The Duty of Delight (which is the edited journals of Dorothy Day). It's helping me get some perspective on the founding principles of the movement and to understand the ways in which critics have frequently misunderstood both Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. They were not Communists, nor even Socialists. Despite the impression given in "Entertaining Angels," Dorothy Day was not even particularly interested in the movement for women's suffrage (and in fact never voted herself). I'm still not sure I always agree with them, and I continue to believe that some of the ways in which the Catholic Worker branches have sometimes moved away from the Church have to do with the way that things were set in motion at the beginning (and particularly as pacifism became such a prominent feature of the movement).

I must say the more I read both about the Catholic Worker movement and about Catholic social teaching on economics the more Chestertonian I become. I have also found of late that when I'm struggling with the muddled thinking of some people around me (even when it has nothing to do with theology, philosophy, or economics directly) that reading Chesterton has the same effect as splashing cold water on your face when you're sleepy. His very lucid thinking has a way of waking you up and helping you think clearly.

This is a post from a while back, but it seemed apropos to post it again. I went looking today for links between distributism and La Leche League and low and behold my own blog post came up in first place.