The Los Angeles Catholic Worker community is part of the lay Catholic Worker movement founded over seventy years ago by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to “feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner” and offer a gospel-based critique of the dominant culture within the Catholic tradition but outside the institutionalized structures of the church.
Founded in 1970, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker is a lay Catholic community of men and women which operates a free soup kitchen, hospitality house for the homeless, hospice for the dying, a newspaper, and regularly offers prophetic witness in opposition to war-making and injustice.
“We believe that the Incarnation is the basis of the Christian message. We are called to make the Word of God flesh by responding to the suffering Christ incarnate among our poor and marginalized sisters and brothers. The homeless, the addict, the mentally ill, the AIDS victim, the infirm, the politically and culturally oppressed are the ones who Christ has told us will be first in His Kingdom. If we too desire to become citizens of His Kingdom, then we must live our lives in proximity to and in solidarity with those who are at the margins of our society.