psychology dector

Jeff Dietrich embodies the vow of poverty.   Since the early 1970s, he has been the driving force of the Catholic Worker organization here in Los Angeles.   His work follows in the tradition of Catholic Worker founders Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin .   Currently, he and his band of volunteers live in a communal house with homeless and terminally ill invited guests while running the Catholic Worker Hospitality Kitchen on Skid Row and participating in protests against a variety of sociological and political sins of the city, state, and country.   He publishes a newspaper, The Catholic Agitator , and serves as both editor and columnist.   His recent book, Broken and Shared:  Food, Dignity, and the Poor on Los Angeles’Skid Row (Tsehai/Marymount Institute Press, 2011) collects forty years of The Catholic Agitator columns, letters, and journal entries composed by Dietrich. His book is equal parts memoir, political analysis, and scriptural teaching documenti...

Until I read Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz’s chapter from her book, Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Orbis Books, 1996), my ideas about solidarity came from my knowledge of well-known political movements, namely the Solidarity Movement originating in the Gdansk shipyard in Poland during late summer 1980, and the International Solidarity Movement of 2001 advocating nonviolent support of the Palestinian cause in the conflict with Israel.   In addition to the word, solidarity, I was familiar with two names:   Lech Walesa in Poland who, after leading the labor movement, went on to become president of that nation; and Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer as she attempted to block the destruction of a Palestinian home. These were the first thoughts to come to mind when I read the title of Isasi-Diaz’s book chapter, “Solidarity:   Love of Neighbor in the Twenty-First Century.”   I also did not know that love of neighb...