(Aristide) Peter Maurin

Catholic social activist, born in S France. After a decade as a Christian Brother (1893–1903), he became an itinerant worker and emigrated to Canada and then to the USA (1911). In 1932 he met Dorothy Day in New York City and helped shape her views, and together they founded the Catholic Worker movement which promoted grass roots social action to aid the poor. He also wrote for the movement's newspaper.

Peter Maurin (May 9, 1877 - May 15, 1949 born in Oultet, France) was a Catholic activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with Dorothy Day in 1933.

Maurin was born into a poor farming family in southern France, where he was eldest to 21 siblings.

In the mid-1920's, Maurin was working as a French tutor in the New York Suburbs.

After the first distribution of the paper on May 1, 1933, Maurin began to see the paper as not quite radical enough. Maurin believed the Catholic Worker should stress life in small agricultural communities, especially as “there is no unemployment on the land.” Likewise convinced that protest would not bring true change, he withdrew from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania, where he worked on the Catholic Worker owned Mary Farm.

Following a seeming stroke in 1944, Maurin began to lose his memory, and his condition deteriorated until his death in 1949. A Staten Island Catholic Worker farm was named after Maurin following his death, which currently operates in Marlborough, New York. “Maurin, Aristide Peter.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Peter Maurin Biography and Photos