Dear Father:
In your instruction about writing
you told us that the best way
to learn to write
is to write letters
because a letter is a message
from someone to somebody
about something.
So this is a message
from an agitator to another agitator
about a discontented world
which begins to realize
that things are not good enough
to be left alone.
The Catholic Worker thinks
that you are a wonder.
We know what good work you are doing
among Catholic college youth.
But Catho1ic college youth
is a small proportion of Catholic youth
and all Catholic youth needs you.
Not only all Catholic youth needs you
but all youth needs you.
And not only all those who
are in their first youth
but all those who are getting
in their second youth
and also all those who have
reached the age of maturity
without having reached the
state of maturity.
That is to say,
we all need you.
We all need you
because you have the knack
of getting at the core of things
and of presenting your findings
in a vivid and dynamic form.
In one of his editorials Father Gillis says
that this age is very much like
the age of the fall of Rome
and that we could use one another
St. Augustine.
Father Gillis adds
that we need men to stir things up
and that we have too many
who try to smother them down.
You certainly can stir things up
and you can do that with
much ease.
It is said that Abbe Chardonnel,
who was a poet,
became a priest
so he could be more of a poet.
You, who are a born agitator,
have become a priest,
which makes you more of an agitator.
In St. Louis University
you turn out Masters of Arts,
but as Diego Rivera says:
“All art is propaganda.”
And as all propaganda is agitation,
it behooves St. Louis University,
one of the best American universities,
to turn out Masters of Agitation.
So The Catholic Worker suggests
that you, our Master Catholic Agitator,
start in St. Louis University
a School of Catholic Agitation
for the popularization of Catholic Action.
Yours for Catholic Action,
For The Catholic Worker,
PETER MAURIN