REVOLUTION OF THE HEART: The Dorothy Day Story. A documentary directed by Martin Doblmeier. Journey Films & Maryland Public Television (2020). ISBN: 7-11841-84051-8. $19.95. 57 minutes. Reviewed by Sarah Louise MACMILLEN, Ph.D. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA 15282.

 Martin Doblmeier’s documentary on Dorothy Day was produced by Journey Films and Maryland Public Television. It was funded by several initatives, including the Lilly Endowment, Catholic Communication Campaign, and the Franciscan Friars (among others).  In addition to archival documents and footage of Dorothy Day herself, it features Day’s granddaughters and prominent 20th-21st century intellectual figures including: Joan Chittister, Robert Ellsberg, Jim Wallis, and Cornel West, among others. 

The documentary relays the life story of Day (1897-1980) in the important political, social, and theological developments of the 20th century.  Born to atheist non-church goers, the energy of God pursued Dorothy Day like the “hound of heaven,” seeking her out even in times of despair and the “unholy.”  She was inspired by a wide range of literature—from Upton Sinclair, to the Psalms, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.  Day dialogued (sometimes fiercely argued!) with the noted intellectuals of her time, like playwright Eugene O’Neill and radical Leon Trotsky.  “How could one reconcile Catholicism with anarchism?” asked her once-pupil Robert Ellsberg.  Day answered: “never had any problem with that.”  Jesus can be found in the “works of mercy” of even the atheists—in The Long Loneliness Day suggests that even those who deny Christ can come to do His will.  The critique of capitalism was vital to her Christian vocation.    

 However, as the film portrays, Dorothy Day was not exactly a Socialist.  In her opinion the state was not the solution to capitalism’s social and economic problems. She saw this human institution as corruptible.  Her answer was rather we all must be engaged in the works of mercy, charity, and obligation while respecting the dignities of labor and individual human responsibility.  This requires a “revolution of the heart.” 

Day discussed and acted alongside the philosophical movement of Personalism and the trajectory of Catholic Social Thought following the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891).  These were guiding her through the “Spiritual GPS” of Peter Maurin, as Joan Chittister highlighted in the film.  Day and Maurin were engaged in the (sometimes impractical) pursuits of the “Agronomic” University.  There they sought to build a “new society where it was easier for people to be good” while preserving human labor and connection with the soil as meaningful.  Launched with Maurin, The Catholic Worker also fiercely stood against the evils of antisemitism, racism, and other fallout from capitalist exploitation. 

   This reviewer could not help but see how the documentary so profoundly relates to another project of Martin Doblmeier’s: the bio-pic of the German martyr and Protestant, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.   Quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s letter to Eberhard Bethge, July 21, 1944: (written the day after the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Adolph Hitler). 

“The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a man, as Jesus was a man—in contrast shall we say to John the Baptist—I mean [by this]…the profound this-worldliness characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection….it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.”

One repeated theme stands out from Doblmeier’s Revolution of the Heart: Dorothy Day’s lifelong rejection of the label of “sainthood.”  This “poverty” charism applies not only to material but spiritual humility in a radical “this-worldliness.” For Day as a Catholic convert, it was spiritual humility and discipline that began with at least three hours of daily prayer, meditation and Eucharist.  These, especially the Eucharist, were then vehicles for solidarity with justice for the marginalized—those who are “tied to the image of God” as observed by Cornel West in the documentary.  Theologically and liturgically conservative; but socially, politically and economically radical: Dorothy Day carried the message of Jesus from the Eucharist line, to the soup line and the picket line.   As Jim Wallis of Sojourners clarifies in the film, “blessed are the peacemakers… not peace-lovers”—pacifism is not passivism.  This took Day’s work into the political realm, speaking out about Nuclear War and Vietnam, and gave the grandmother a file with the FBI.

            The film’s concluding scenes show Dorothy Day’s 1980 funeral. She was laid out in a simple wooden box, and it was attended by bishops and homeless people, spiritual gurus and brawling drunkards alike. In Pope Francis’ September 2015 speech before the U.S. Congress, she was named as one of four Americans as “an example of the saints.”