Catholic Worker community ideas

[Russell Kanning]

Sean brought up the idea of forming a catholic worker community in our area.
There is a group nearby in Worcester (Woustuh) MA that has intrigued him.
I have meant to look into them, since I have so many similar ideas as their group. I am checking them out and am interested in the concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Worker_Movement
http://www.catholicworker.org/
http://www.pieandcoffee.org/2006/06/22/ss-francis-rse-the-first-20-years/

[FrankChodorov]

Sean brought up the idea of forming a catholic worker community in our area.
There is a group nearby in Worcester (Woustuh) MA that has intrigued him.
I have meant to look into them, since I have so many similar ideas as their group. I am checking them out and am interested in the concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Worker_Movement
http://www.catholicworker.org/
http://www.pieandcoffee.org/2006/06/22/ss-francis-rse-the-first-20-years/

the catholic workers movement is part of the broader catholic distributist movement that is based on the pope's encyclics about catholic social teaching...the first having been written in the late 1891 by Pope Leo XIII's (called Rerum Novarum which was recycled Thomist economics, in which Leo was thoroughly steeped, but with special reference to "the worker question," and with refuting false modern doctrines advanced by George and McGlynn) in direct response to Henry George's book "Progress & Poverty" where the catholic head of NY most important parish Father McGlynn was preaching from the pulpit George's teachings on the single tax.

a delegation from Rome was sent to study what was been preached which resulted in the Pope's encyclic...McGlynn was later removed from his position within the church and excommunicated for 5 years.

http://www.progress.org/cg/geoglynn.htm

George later penned a letter in response to Pope Leo's Rerum Novarum called: "The Condition of Labor"

http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.us/library/e-texts/the-condition-of-labor-an-open-letter-to-pope-leo-xiii-by-henry-george-1891/

today the modern "bible" of catholic social justice teachings on distributism is e.f. schumacher's "Small is Beautiful"...many people are unaware that he converted to catholicism 3 years before his death...

http://www.godspy.com/issues/The-Education-and-Catholic-Conversion-of-E-F-Schumacher-by-Joseph-Pearce.cfm

the founder of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, calls himself a "distributist" although he is not religious...

http://www.ipgbook.com/showbook.cfm?bookid=0971828679

I think he is a combination of southern agrarian thought and catholic distributism - which btw developed independently of each other but both had a similar critique of capitalism and socialism.

Dorothy Day from the catholic workers movement was thought to be on the right...

http://tcrnews2.com/Daybuckley062.html

excerpt:
The Catholic Worker position on economics was expressed quite clearly:

[W]e favor the establishment of a Distributist economy wherein those who have a vocation to the land will work on the farms surrounding the village and those who have other vocations will work in the village itself. In this way we will have a decentralized economy which will dispense with the State as we know it today and will be federationist in character.... We believe in worker ownership of the means of production and distribution as distinguished from nationalization. This to be accomplished by decentralized cooperatives and the elimination of a distinct employer class.

[Caleb]

Don't take this the wrong way, Frank, but you have a knack for making the exciting terminally boring. 

[Russell Kanning]

Noonday Farm
PO Box 71
Winchendon Springs MA 01477

Phone: 508-297-1148

[Russell Kanning]

Thanks Frank ..... I think it took you longer to explain it than when those guys wrote down what Jesus said.

[FrankChodorov]

Don't take this the wrong way, Frank, but you have a knack for making the exciting terminally boring. 

having grown up a catholic and calling myself a distributist I have 5-10 years of thinking about the subject.

sorry if you find it boring as I find it fascinating stuff...maybe someone else will too.

[FrankChodorov]

Thanks Frank ..... I think it took you longer to explain it than when those guys wrote down what Jesus said.

I have no idea what Jesus said but I can recite for you what EF Schumacher said...

[Dreepa]

I saw this title and figured Frank had to post it.  This is soooooooo him.

[Caleb]

I would think that the Catholic workers would be less Frank, and more ... Tolstoy style pacifist Christians.

Caleb

[Pat K]

Beware anything invovling Nuns.

[CNHT]

calling myself a distributist

More like re-distributionist!       sorry I couldn't resist

[Caleb]

One night, after a long evening of drinking, PatK was thrown out of the bar.  On his way home, he spotted a nun in the road.

After looking at her twice, he ran over and tackled her, and then proceeded to beat the living crap out of her.

Some passers-by called the police.

As the police dragged Pat K away in handcuffs, he looked back and taunted the half-conscious nun:  "Not so tough now, are you Batman?"   

[Pat K]

LOL! hey  how did you find that out ? That record was supposed to be seal'd!!

[FrankChodorov]

I saw this title and figured Frank had to post it.  This is soooooooo him.

Tolstoy
George
Nock
Chodorov
Schumacher
Dorothy Day
Chesterton
Dewey

that's a pretty good starting line-up don't you think?

[Dreepa]

Tolstoy was Catholic? ???