The Catholic Worker Movement started with the
Catholic Worker newspaper, created by Dorothy Day to advance Catholic social teaching and be a neutral,
Christian pacifist position in the war-torn 1930s. Day attempted to put her words from the
Catholic Worker into action through "
houses of hospitality" and then through a series of farms for people to live together on
communes. The idea of
voluntary poverty was advocated for those who volunteered to work at the houses of hospitality. Many people would come to the Catholic Workers for assistance, then becoming Workers themselves. Initially, these houses of hospitality had little organization and no requirements for membership. As time passed some basic rules and policies were established. Day appointed the directors of each of the houses, each of which operated autonomously and came to vary in size and character. In the 1930s, the St. Louis Workers served 3,400 people a day while the Detroit Workers served around 600 a day. The
Catholic Worker newspaper spread the idea to other cities in the
United States, as well as to
Canada and the
United Kingdom, through the reports printed by those who had experienced working in the houses of hospitality. More than 30 independent but affiliated communities had been founded by 1941. Between 1965 and 1980 an additional 76 communities were founded with 35 of these still in existence today, such as the "Hippie Kitchen" founded in the back of a van by two Catholic Workers on
Skid Row, Los Angeles in the 1970s. Well over 200 communities exist today, including several in
Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada,
Germany, the
Netherlands,
Mexico,
New Zealand, and
Sweden. Day, who died in 1980, is under consideration for
sainthood by the
Catholic Church. ==Beliefs==