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From Union Square to Rome
Dorothy Day
FROM UNION SQUARE TO ROME Preface by Robert Ellsberg With a New Foreword by Pope Francis “ Reading these pages by Dorothy Day and following her religious journey becomes an adventure that heartens us and teaches us how to keep a true image of God alive in ourselves.”― Pope Francis “A spiritual gem . . . essential reading for contemporary Catholics.”― James Martin, SJ Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, has been called “the church’s least likely yet most plausible saint.” From Union Square to Rome, first published in 1938, offers the first account of her dramatic conversion to Roman Catholicism, a story later expanded upon in her classic memoir, The Long Loneliness. In this concise and passionate work, Day’s purpose was to give an account to her comrades in the radical movement of how she came to embrace Christ and the Catholic Church. She reveals how God was present in all the steps of her in intimations of the sacred, in her experiences in the struggle for social justice, in times of loneliness and confusion, in her experience of love, her joy in the birth of her daughter, and even in the painful price she ultimately paid for her faith. Pope Francis in his address to Congress in 2015 held up Day, whose cause for canonization is in process, among “four great Americans” who speak to the needs of our day. And now in a new Foreword to this edition, he holds up her story for all people, and especially for “Her whole life was devoted to social justice and human rights, particularly for the poor, the exploited workers, and the socially marginalized. It exemplified what St. James said in his ‘Show me your faith without works and I by my works will show you my faith.’” Also in this edition, a selection of photographs that illustrate her text.
FROM UNION SQUARE TO ROME Preface by Robert Ellsberg With a New Foreword by Pope Francis “ Reading these pages by Dorothy Day and following her religious journey becomes an adventure that heartens us and teaches us how to keep a true image of God alive in ourselves.”― Pope Francis “A spiritual gem . . . essential reading for contemporary Catholics.”― James Martin, SJ Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, has been called “the church’s least likely yet most plausible saint.” From Union Square to Rome, first published in 1938, offers the first account of her dramatic conversion to Roman Catholicism, a story later expanded upon in her classic memoir, The Long Loneliness. In this concise and passionate work, Day’s purpose was to give an account to her comrades in the radical movement of how she came to embrace Christ and the Catholic Church. She reveals how God was present in all the steps of her in intimations of the sacred, in her experiences in the struggle for social justice, in times of loneliness and confusion, in her experience of love, her joy in the birth of her daughter, and even in the painful price she ultimately paid for her faith. Pope Francis in his address to Congress in 2015 held up Day, whose cause for canonization is in process, among “four great Americans” who speak to the needs of our day. And now in a new Foreword to this edition, he holds up her story for all people, and especially for “Her whole life was devoted to social justice and human rights, particularly for the poor, the exploited workers, and the socially marginalized. It exemplified what St. James said in his ‘Show me your faith without works and I by my works will show you my faith.’” Also in this edition, a selection of photographs that illustrate her text.
- GenresBiography
200 pages, Paperback
Published March 20, 2024
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February 21, 2026
In all honesty, this is probably not the best place to start if you’re interested in learning more about the life of Dorothy Day. My suggestion if that’s your interest is to read either a good biography of her (my favorite is All is Grace by Jim Forest) or Dorothy’s own autobiography The Long Loneliness.
But having said that, if you’re already broadly familiar with the parameters of Day’s life and are particularly interested in hearing about her religious conversion in her own words, this is a good book to read. It was written to try to explain to her former comrades on the left why she became a Roman Catholic. Here’s a brief taste:
"Let it be said that I found (God) through His poor, and in a moment of joy I turned to Him. I have said, sometimes flippantly, that the mass of bourgeois smug Christians who denied Christ in His poor made me turn to Communism, and that it was the Communists and working with them that made me turn to God."
If that paragraph interests you, this is well worth reading.
But having said that, if you’re already broadly familiar with the parameters of Day’s life and are particularly interested in hearing about her religious conversion in her own words, this is a good book to read. It was written to try to explain to her former comrades on the left why she became a Roman Catholic. Here’s a brief taste:
"Let it be said that I found (God) through His poor, and in a moment of joy I turned to Him. I have said, sometimes flippantly, that the mass of bourgeois smug Christians who denied Christ in His poor made me turn to Communism, and that it was the Communists and working with them that made me turn to God."
If that paragraph interests you, this is well worth reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review