Peter Maurin

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Peter Maurin (actually Aristide Pierre Maurin ) (born May 9, 1877 in Oultet in Languedoc , southern France , † May 15, 1949 in New York ) was the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement with Dorothy Day .

Life

Peter Maurin's birthplace in Oultet ( Lozère )

He grew up in a poor farming family in the south of France, the first of 24 children from two marriages. At 16 he joined the Teaching Order of Brothers of Christian Schools , which emphasized a simple lifestyle, piety and service to the poor.

The completion of the military service in 1898/99 interrupted Maurin's community life. During this time he became aware of the tensions between religious and political loyalties. In 1903 he left the order and became a member of the left Catholic lay movement Le Sillon founded by Marc Sangnier , which supported cooperatives and trade unions.

In 1909 he emigrated to Canada . Years as a migrant worker followed, first in Canada, then in the United States. Despite this hard-working ascetic way of life, Maurin found time to read theological and social works in public libraries and slowly develop his theories on how to reshape society. Above all, he was influenced by the thinkers of French personalism and their related authors ( Emmanuel Mounier , Jacques Maritain ) and the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin .

In 1932 Maurin met the Catholic convert Dorothy Day in New York , who had previously written as a journalist for socialist and communist newspapers and was looking for a way to live her radical social and political convictions within the Catholic Church. Together they founded The Catholic Worker newspaper , which gave birth to a lay movement that began to put Maurin's program of social transformation into practice: houses of hospitality and farm communes emerged.

Until his death in 1949, Maurin lived in houses and farms belonging to the Catholic Worker Movement. He traveled extensively to give lectures on the "green revolution" program; the “Easy Essays” have been published in book form in several editions and editions. His death was reported in the New York Times and in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano . The Time magazine noted that Peter Maurin was buried in a suit and stored in a donated grave, "sleeping in your own bed and not only suits wore that someone had given him" a reasonable arrangement for a man.

Green revolution

Peter Maurin saw the role model for his Green Revolution in the history of the Irish-Scottish wandering monks of the early Middle Ages, who had preserved culture and Christian values through a three-point program at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire :

  1. through "houses of hospitality" in which the works of mercy were practiced,
  2. through agricultural communities (which he called “farm communes” or “agronomic universities”), as well as
  3. through publicly held discussion rounds to "clarify thoughts" on all socially and religiously significant topics. Maurin spread these thoughts through his "Easy Essays" - succinct, poem-like texts that he read in streets and squares.

Works

Easy essays

  • Peter Maurin: Catholic radicalism - phrased essays for the green revolution . With drawings by Ed Willock. New York, Catholic Worker Books.

literature

  • Patrick G. Coy, (Ed.): A Revolution of the heart. Essays on the Catholic worker . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988
  • Dorothy Day , together with Sicius, Francis J .: Peter Maurin - apostle to the world . Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004
  • Marc H. Ellis: Peter Maurin - prophet in the twentieth century . New York: Paulist Press, 1981
  • Arthur T Sheehan: Peter Maurin - gay believer . Garden City, NY, Hanover House, 1959
  • Michele Teresa Aronica: Beyond charismatic leadership - the New York Catholic Worker Movement . New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Books, 1987
  • Mel Piehl: Breaking bread: The Catholic worker and the origin of Catholic radicalism in America . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006
  • William D. Miller: A harsh and dreadful love. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement . New York: Image Books, 1973
  • Bernd Büscher: The Catholic Worker Movement . In: Pax Christi - German Secretariat (Ed.): Wegweiser. Christian Communities for Peace and Justice . Idstein, KOMZI Verlag, 1995
  • Jim Forest: Peter Maurin - worker, scholar, saint . In: Bread and Roses - Diakonische Basisgemeinschaft (Hrsg.): Radikal Heilige. Charities of the Catholic Worker Movement . Hamburg 2001

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Maurin, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maurin, Aristode Pierre (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Oultet , Languedoc , France
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1949
Place of death new York