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"I know someone with nowhere to stay..."

"Have you found a place yet? I know someone with nowhere to stay.”  “I wish the Catholic Worker in St. Louis was up and running, I’m aware of a mother and daughter in need of housing for a few nights.” Ever since we announced our plans to open a new Catholic Worker house in the St. Louis area we’ve received inquiries like these.   We live in a world where a handful of billionaires control as much wealth as 4 billion people and so people go without housing, without food and water, without healthcare. People die. In our own city those without housing have slept on the very doorstep of city hall, until they were unceremoniously evicted. Our city government mirrors that of our state and federal counterparts, they do not want to be confronted with these problems, they do not want to see the sufferers of an uncaring and inhuman system, but they are unable if not unwilling to offer any real and humane solutions. We at the budding St. Louis Catholic Worker know we cannot help everyone...
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Becoming Irresistible

 “We convert, if we do at all, by being something irresistible, not by demanding the impossible.”  Those words by May Sarton were posted in a Catholic Worker farm’s office. The sign originated at the homestead of Wally and Quanita Nelson who were early pioneers of the modern war tax resistance movement.  After the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski, people including Ammon Hennacy, an early member of the Catholic Worker, organized actions around tax day in 1946 with their refusal to pay for war and to raise awareness of the enormous amounts of taxpayer money going to war annually.    What drew me into the Catholic Worker and war tax resistance was the irrepressible joy of the people in these movements. They were able to look at the heaviness of militarism while also addressing the needs within their communities. My introduction to the Catholic Worker coincided with becoming a war tax resister. I was blessed by a community of support who instructed me ...
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Hope as Resistance

The first candle of Advent calls us to hope. The word Advent in Latin means “coming.” We wait for the coming of hope. Hope. How do we hope in today’s society? What does it mean to await hope? How do we believe hope will arrive? How do we hope when hundreds of children are murdered daily with missiles funded by our tax dollars – and made in our own backyard at Boeing in St. Charles? What does hope look like when the money making of war is valued more than human life? How do we believe in hope when the city of Atlanta is actively cutting down a forest so the police can learn to take up arms against civilians? How can we hope while everyday folks wait for over 11 hours in the emergency room for basic healthcare? What does hope look like when people make $1100 a month and rent is more than half of that? How can we await hope when we get weekly calls of human beings cold, sleeping in abandoned buildings and seeking shelter? What does it mean to hope when our own mayor has displaced camp aft...
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