Catholic Worker Materials, Ade Bethune Papers

Ade Bethune was born in Brussels, Belgium on January 12, 1914. After World War I her family immigrated to the United States, settling in New York in 1928. Ade attended Cathedral High School in New York and later the National Academy of Design. Raised by progressive Catholic parents, from her earliest girlhood she was a devout Catholic who soon developed a strong feeling of social consciousness.

Ade first met Dorothy Day in 1933. She heard about the work the Catholic Worker was doing with the poor and also saw their newspaper, the visuals of which left her feeling unimpressed and rather let down. She quickly decided to help the struggling newspaper by making several black and white ink drawings and mailing them in, travelling herself to the Catholic Worker storefront the next day. She immediately found in Dorothy a lifelong friend and mentor who gave her an outlet for her feelings about social justice. Her work for the Catholic Worker was very influential, as her designs utilizing common, working class people to illustrate the Saints, the Catholic Works of Mercy, and Biblical scenes were very radical. They helped launch Ade’s artistic career and remain prominent in the Catholic Worker newspaper even today, though now the newspaper features many more prominent artists. Half a century later, in 1985, she redesigned the masthead which she had originally designed in 1934 to include a female worker. This illustrates both Ade’s artistic preeminence at the paper as well as her ability to adapt with the times.

The other founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Peter Maurin, also became a mentor and close friend to Ade. His philosophy, especially his easy essays, shaped her writing, her art, and her beliefs. It was Peter who encouraged Ade to speak in public, something she was very timid about at first. Ade eventually became a prolific public speaker, giving lectures not only for the Catholic Worker but also for many of her other causes and organizations.

Ade was a passionate advocate for the Catholic Worker beyond adding her artwork to the paper. She also became a public speaker, wrote articles, hawked the paper on street corners, and helped in the Houses of Hospitality. It is through much of this activity that she made contacts which she used in her businesses, developed her artistic voice and demonstrated her strong bent towards social justice. This commitment to the Catholic Worker stayed with her throughout her life, as she stayed active in the movement until her death in 2002.

The Catholic Worker movement was founded in New York City in 1933 by Dorothy Day, a radical journalist who had converted to Catholicism, and Peter Maurin, an itinerant French worker/scholar/philosopher with a vision to create a better world. It has evolved into an international faith-based, grassroots movement for peace and social justice through nonviolent direct action. While the movement encourages a variety of social justice programming and meetings, it is perhaps best known for its loosely-affiliated Houses of Hospitality, in which the poor and homeless are welcomed and served as guests and the Catholic Workers who serve them live in the same circumstances as their charges. The Catholic Worker newspaper, edited by Dorothy Day from 1933 until her death in 1980 and still published seven times a year by the New York community, remains the best known of numerous Catholic Worker publications. Day was proposed for sainthood in 1983, a process Ade Bethune was active in, and remains one of the most influential Catholic lay people of the 20th century.