REVOLUTION OF THE HEART: THE DOROTHY DAY STORY

This documentary gives you an entertaining and often inspiring introduction to Dorothy Day, a Catholic activist whose faith moved her to serve workers, homeless people, and the poor. It highlights her newspaper, houses of hospitality, concern for civil rights, opposition to war, and commitment to private charity, brotherly love, and volunteer work.

The film’s weakness is its limited analysis. It touches on Day’s personalism and distributism without fully explaining them, and it remains noncommittal about her opposition to all war. It also does not adequately examine her silence regarding the horrors of international communism.

If your family can discuss those gaps with discernment, this is worth watching. The practical answer: watch it with middle schoolers and older viewers, then talk about Christian compassion and the film’s unanswered questions.

This TV documentary traces Dorothy Day’s life from childhood through her career as a journalist and social activist. It follows her movement from communism toward Catholicism and then into a life of service.

The film explores how Day and Peter Maurin began The Catholic Worker newspaper and Houses of Hospitality during the Great Depression. It also examines her advocacy for workers, the poor, civil rights, and peace.

Three stars means this is a solid, worthwhile documentary with real inspirational value, though it does not fully develop every important issue. It sheds light on a woman who influenced many people and continues to influence others today.

The documentary includes interviews with Day’s granddaughter, her friend and biographer Robert Ellsberg, actor Martin Sheen, Jim Wallis, and Cardinal Dolan. Its strongest material focuses on Day’s Christian concern for the poor and needy. Its treatment of her controversial social activism needed more depth.

The documentary presents a strong Christian moral worldview from a Catholic viewpoint. It celebrates faith, prayer, civil rights, respect, the dignity of human life, and taking care of the poor and needy. It portrays Christian faith, expressed through brotherly love, as the force animating Day’s concern for workers, homeless people, social justice, and the violence of war.

The film also presents Day’s support for personalism and distributism. These ideas emphasize what individuals can do to help others and argue that wealth, private property, and power should not be concentrated in the hands of only a few people. The documentary briefly touches on these theories but does not explain them in sufficient depth.

It is less satisfactory in addressing Day’s pacifism, including her rejection of the Christian idea of just wars, even during World War II. It also fails to examine her continued friendships with communists and her lack of strong criticism of communist and socialist leaders, including leaders of totalitarian regimes. The film’s inclusion of perspectives from leftist Christian activist Jim Wallis and conservative Cardinal Dolan offers contrasting viewpoints, but does not resolve these tensions.

At its center, the film calls Christians to respond personally to the needs of the poor. Scripture says, “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed” (Proverbs 19:17).

This is an entertaining, often inspiring introduction to Dorothy Day’s Christian compassion for the poor and needy. Its content is manageable for older children, but its treatment of communism, pacifism, and social activism needs thoughtful discussion. For that reason, WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP.