Friendship House

The Madonna House of today stands on the foundation of Friendship House, Catherine Doherty’s pioneering work among the poor and dispossessed begun in the 1930s in Toronto. Friendship House expanded to the US, into Harlem in New York City, and Chicago, pioneering a Catholic interracial apostolate carried out by the laity who lived among those they served. As an early reviewer of this book wrote, “Friendship House is the graphic and stimulating account of what one laywoman filled with a deep love of God and man, not only thought about doing but actually did.”

In these many stories, Catherine recounts what she and her Friendship House staff encountered every day in those who came to them for material and physical help. Formed by her experience of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, she worked against communist inroads among the poor in North America. But even more deeply, she and her staff welcomed all who came to them as fellow members of Christ’s Mystical Body—as Christ himself to be served—and this above all motivated them.

Many episodes come from the days in Harlem, but Catherine also tells stories from her own past in Russia, and as an immigrant facing poverty in the New World. Although this book is a product of its time in Catherine’s life and in the life of the Church, it yields treasure for those who read it with an open mind and heart. Or as another reviewer wrote, “For a literary treat and a tonic against tepidity read Friendship House.”

Publisher: Sheed & Ward

Year Published: 1947.0

SKU: 9781897145432.0

ISBN: 978-1-897145-43-2

Pages: 102 pages