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DOROTHY DAY, UNION SQUARE SPEECH (6 NOVEMBER 1965) Sara Ann Mehltretter The Pennsylvania State University Abstract: Dorothy Day's 1965 speech at Union Square represented a defining moment for the Catholic peace movement. The speech justified the illegal burning of draft cards and the pacifist stance against warfare as a moral obligation of Christians. Day's words and the Union Square protest gained attention for the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement during the Vietnam War and contributed to the debate over modern war in the Catholic Church that continues today. Key Words: Antiwar Movement, Catholics, Catholic Church, Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day, Radicals, Pacifism, Peace Movement, Vietnam War It is not just Vietnam, it is South Africa, it is Nigeria, the Congo, Indonesia, all of Latin America. It is not just the pictures of all the women and children who have been burnt alive in Vietnam, or the men who have been tortured, and died. It is not just the headless victims of the war in Colombia. It is not just the words of Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Hannan. It is the fact that whether we like it or not, we are Americans. It is indeed our country, right or wrong, as the Cardinal said in another context. We are warm and fed and secure (aside from occasional muggings and murders amongst us). We are the nation the most powerful, the most armed and we are supplying arms and money to the rest of the world where we are not ourselves fighting. We are eating while there is famine in the world. Scripture tells us that the picture of judgment presented to us by Jesus is of Dives sitting and feasting with his friends while Lazarus sat hungry at the gate, the dogs, the scavengers of the East, licking his sores. We are the Dives. Woe to the rich! We are the rich. The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, nursing the sick, visiting the prisoner. But we are destroying crops, setting fire to entire villages and to the people in them. We are not performing the works of mercy but the works of war. We cannot repeat this enough. —Dorothy Day1 Dorothy Day was the leader of the "first Catholic group in the United States" to follow the ideals of pacifism.2 More than thirty years before the Catholic Church accepted pacifism as a legitimate Christian tradition, Day advocated the complete renunciation of war. From 1933 until her death in 1980, she led the Catholic Worker Movement radical movement that sought Sara Ann Mehltretter: sam536@psu.edu Last Updated: January 2006 Copyright © 2009 (Sara Ann Mehltretter). Voices of Democracy, ISSN #1932‐9539. Available at http://www.voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/.