Kate Hennessey wins Christopher Award for “Dorothy Day"

Springfield, Vt.-based writer Kate Hennessy has received a Christopher Award for Dorothy Day: The World will be Saved by Beauty (Scribner/Simon & Schuster). It is one of 12 books for adults and young people by 19 authors and illustrators to be celebrated on May 17, 2018 at the 69th annual Christopher Awards in New York along with the writers, producers and directors of 9 feature films and TV/Cable programs.

Hennessy presents an intimate yet complex portrait of her grandmother, the Catholic social activist and possible future saint, who strove to balance her commitment to serving the poor with that of being a good mother. Day was also a writer and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Pope Francis named her an American icon of the stature of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

A writer and the youngest of Dorothy Day’s nine grandchildren, Hennessy's book was chosen best spiritual writing of 2017 by the Chicago Tribune and included in “Women Theologians You Should be Reading Right Now” on the blog Daily Theology. Hennessy has also collaborated with the photographer Vivian Cherry on "Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker: The Miracle of Our Continuance," (Fordham University Press, 2016), and her work has appeared in Best American Travel Writing.

Hennessy attended New York University and the School for International Training in Vermont and has traveled and worked around the world, including at an international summer camp in the former USSR, and as an English as a Second Language teacher in Guatemala and to Tibetan refugees in India. She has also walked 750 kilometers on the legendary el Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. Kate divides her time between Vermont and Ireland.

The Christopher Awards were created in 1949 to celebrate authors, illustrators, writers, producers and directors whose work “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” The Christophers, a nonprofit organization founded in 1945 by Maryknoll Father James Keller, is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition of service to God and humanity. The ancient Chinese proverb—“It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”— guides its publishing, radio, and awards programs. More information about The Christophers is available at www.christophers.org.