Called to Be Saints

Benjamin T. Peters spent three years in the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker community in South Bend, Indiana. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Dayton where he also participated in the “U.S. Catholic Experience” program. Dr. Peters is now assistant professor of Theology at University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, Connecticut.

1. In this incisive study of John Hugo and the Catholic Worker retreat, Peters puts contemporary public theologians on notice. “Jansenism” and “sectarian irresponsibility” fail to pass historical-theological muster as designations for either Hugo or Dorothy Day. In comparing Hugo’s recovery of the early modern Jesuit sources for the retreat to European ressourcement, Peters underscores Hugo’s contemporary significance as well as the deep connections among theologies of nature and grace, holiness, and political commitments. An indispensable contribution to contemporary Catholic radicalist thought!William L. Portier, Mary Ann Spearin Chair of Catholic Theology, University of Dayton2. Peters' book is so much more than a fresh look at a controversial figure who influenced Dorothy Day; it is a brilliant diagnosis of what ails American Catholic social ethics even today. By connecting Hugo not just to Day but to de Lubac and Blondel, Peters challenges a dominant strand of ""public theology"" that assumes the sufficiency of nature and the irrelevancy of the supernatural to public life. This book is well-researched, well-written, and wholly absorbing, and I hope it restarts some serious arguments.William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University 3. Peters’ painstaking research will give readers a new understanding of the theological support Fr. John Hugo provided to Dorothy Day as she both suffered ostracism and deepened her spirituality in the World War II era. By contextualizing the controversy surrounding Fr. Hugo’s retreats and unmasking the notion of the two-tiered Church then prevalent, Peters shows the true radicalism of Dorothy Day’s message. Rosalie G. Riegle, author of Voices from the Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her.