Peter Maurin

Peter Maurin (May 9, 1877 – May 15, 1949) was a Catholic social activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Dorothy Day in 1933.

Biography

He was born Aristode Pierre Maurin into a poor farming family in the village of Oultet in the Languedoc region of southern France, where he was one of 24 children. After spending time in the Christian Brothers, he briefly moved to Saskatchewan to try his hand at homesteading, but was discouraged by the death of his partner in a hunting accident.^[1] He then traveled throughout the American east for a few years, and eventually settled in New York.^[2]

In the mid-1920s, Maurin was working as a French tutor in the New York suburbs. It was at that time Maurin ceased to charge for his lessons, and asked only that students gave any sum they thought appropriate. Though it is unknown for certain, this was likely prompted by reading about the philosophies of St. Francis of Assisi who viewed labor as a gift to the greater community, not a lever of self promotion.^{[citation needed]}

Maurin initially proposed the name Catholic Radical for the paper that was distributed as the Catholic Worker paper beginning May 1, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression. Maurin began to see it as not quite radical enough, as it had an emphasis on political and union activity. Maurin believed the Catholic Worker should stress life in small agricultural communities. As he liked to say, “there is no unemployment on the land.” Likewise convinced that protest would not bring about real social change, he withdrew from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania, where he worked on the first Catholic Worker-owned farming commune, Mary Farm.^{[citation needed]}

Following a seeming stroke in 1944, Maurin began to lose his memory, and his condition deteriorated until his death in 1949 at the Catholic Worker's Maryfarm near Newburgh, New York. The Staten Island Catholic Worker farm was named after Maurin following his death; it currently operates in Marlboro, New York.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Christian anarchism
• Personalism

External links

• Excerpts from Easy Essays by Peter Maurin
• Peter Maurin Papers

Bibliography

• Ellis, Marc H. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century. New York: Paulist Press, 1981
• Day, Dorothy. “Maurin, Aristide Peter.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. 2003.
• Peter Maurin Biography and Photos
• Works by or about Peter Maurin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

References

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