The Appalachian Catholic Worker is part of a wider movement within the Roman Catholic Church. Learn more about our co-founders, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the history of the Catholic Worker, and other houses and farms around the world.

Appalachian Catholic Workers

DISCLAIMER: If there is any such thing as a “stereotypical” Catholic Worker Farm, this may not fit your impression of one.

As urban transplants from the flatlands, Bill and I greatly appreciate and rely on the community and interdependence we’ve found in Appalachian culture, and we love the quiet and simplicity of living in the mountains. With the same Aims & Means of the Catholic Worker, we do what we can to help our neighbors, and are lucky enough to be able to share it all with visiting groups of college students. As for farming, I raise a few animals and Bill does a little gardening, but overall, we’re just amateurs trying to be mindful, faithful stewards of this land for whoever comes after us. And, we encourage young folx to do the same wherever ‘home’ is for them.

Although our location is remote, we are in no way isolated or insulated. We actively engage with the world’s issues and advocate for social change, starting locally at the grassroots. Our views are influenced by philosophers and mystics we’ve met in as many books and classrooms as on front porches and city sidewalks. Our spirituality is rooted in encounters with nature and those on the margins which give us the clearest views of God’s face.

It is our hope that your experience with the Appalachian Catholic Worker feels all-inclusive and leads you to greater self-understanding, worldly love, and a oneness with creation and its Creator.