Date of Award
2022
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
Abstract
The central goal of this dissertation is to find a way to do theology otherwise; to emphasize the need for radical community within the publics of the Church, the academy, and wider society; and to take seriously what the developing genre of radical political theology has to offer the realm of theo-ethics at both a popular and academic level. Through my chosen lens of anatheistic theology and an emphasis on radical lay community, this work aims to evoke genuine conversation about how the Church, the Catholic Worker Movement, and postmodern critical theory might fit together to address the central concerns listed above. The main argument presented by this dissertation will be that the work of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, the French Personalists and the wider Catholic Worker ethos provides a bridge between the Catholic Church’s stated societal and interpersonal goals as presented in Catholic Social Teaching, the postmodern theological academy’s search for renewed meaningful dialogue on the Divine, and the real communities of faithful persons that have seemingly been abandoned by both as they navigate our current socio-political context. The intersection between the Catholic Worker program and those three disparate interlocutors may seem strange at first glance but I will begin to weave them together in ways that I hope are edifying not just for this dissertation and the academy, but in ways that impact all three dialogue partners within the realm of actuality.
Recommended Citation
Tomszak, Martin, "A Radically Weak (i)ncounter: Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker, and Overcoming Otherness, an Anatheistic Argument for a Political Theology Based in Community" (2022). Dissertations. 3950.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3950
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2021 Martin Tomszak
