Wednesday, February 04, 2009

I've just learned that yesterday was the centenary of the birth of Simone Weil - a strange lady, but one whose heart was in the right place, and whose loyalties were always to the poor and the disadvantaged.
There are some catholics who propose her for canonisation, but she was never a catholic. Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, was baptised a catholic, so he has more chance of becoming a saint than poor Simone.
On the same subject, Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement has also been proposed for canonisation. Dorothy, who spent her adult life helping the poor and opposing war and injustice, may have been a catholic but she's definitely not going to make it into the communion of saints - unlike Jose Escrivá, friend of Franco and founder of Opus Dei; or Maximilian Kolbe the anti-semite.

3 comments:

Kevin Fitzpatrick said...
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Jemmy Hope said...
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Jemmy Hope said...

When I first posted this I wrote the name Dorothy Parker instead of Dorothy Day. Mr. Kevin Fitzpatrick, of the Dorothy Parker Society of New York, pointed out my error in a comment, thus -

Kevin Fitzpatrick said...
That would be very humorous if Dorothy Parker was made a saint.

You must mean Dorothy Day.

I acknowledged his comment and thanked him for the correction, managing in so doing to refer to Dorothy Parker as Dorothy Day! I don't know what it is about these two ladies, both of whom I find admirable for one reason or another, but I keep referring to both by the surname Parker. I've done it before and no doubt I'll do it again. "Too late to worry" (Richard Anthony).
I decided, after a decent interval, to correct my mistake in the original posting, for the sake of exactitude.
Job done.