A divorced Fidel Castro fan who had a string of affairs, an abortion and spoke up for Ho Chi Minh: The VERY unusual American Catholic 'saint' praised by the Pope

• Dorothy Day was mentioned by Pope Francis in his speech to Congress
• The pontiff described her work as being 'inspired' by the Gospel and saints
• She spent her life championing workers' rights through The Catholic Worker
• Early life saw her engage a string of love affairs and have an abortion
• Became a passionate Catholic and officially converted during her twenties 

By Ruth Styles For Dailymail.com

Published: 10:56 EST, 24 September 2015 | Updated: 13:43 EST, 24 September 2015

She was a committed Communist turned Catholic newspaper editor and, if moves to have her canonized prove successful, Dorothy Day is in line to become a very modern American saint.

Whether that happens or not, there's no denying that Day, who died in 1980, is held in high regard by the Catholic Church - and Pope Francis himself.

Today, in a speech made to Congress on Capitol Hill, the pontiff mentioned her in the same breath as Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln, before going on to hail her achievements.

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Early years: Day was born into a nominally Christian family but became fascinated by religion in her teens and was baptized into the Episcopalian church

'In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement [newspaper],' he said.

'Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith and the example of the saints.'

But while her later life might have been divinely inspired, her early life was not - not least her youthful devotion to Communism, a political ideology that eschews religion.

And, despite describing casual sex as 'demonic' in later writings, she had more than one racy skeleton in her closet - including an affair with writer Mike Gold and an abortion.

Indeed, Day didn't even convert to Catholicism until her twenties and was born into a 'nominally Christian' family, then living in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

The child of an Irish Scot and his English wife, her earliest years were, in the words of one biographer, 'solid, patriotic and middle class'.

In 1904, when she was six, her family moved to California where her father had a job as a sports writer on a local paper but relocated to Chicago in 1906 after the San Francisco earthquake.

Speech: In the talk, Pope Francis mentioned Day in the same breath as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King

Example: The pontiff also used the occasion to speak of the example provided by Day and her activities

Packed: The House and Senate were packed with politicians waiting to hear Pope Francis speak

Latter day saint: Dorothy Day was praised by Pope Francis during a speech made to Congress today

Despite her parents' marked lack of enthusiasm for religion, Day was always fascinated by the Bible and was later baptized in an Episcopalian church as a teenager.

She also adored books, in particular those by Russian writers such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy - some of which became the inspiration for her socialist beliefs.

In 1914, she enrolled on a course at the University of Illinois but was left unenthused by the experience and, two years later, dropped out and moved to New York's East Village.

It was there that her life as a journalist and socialist activist really began, with Day taking jobs at such titles as The Masses, The Liberator and The Call.

Her political views pinged from Communist to anarchist and then socialist and back again, with Day later saying she found it hard to make her mind up as a teen.

'I was only eighteen, so I wavered between my allegiance to Socialism, Syndicalism and Anarchism,' she revealed.

'When I read Tolstoy I was an anarchist. My allegiance to The Call [newspaper] kept me a Socialist, although a left-wing one, and my Americanism inclined me to the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] movement.'

But while social justice and activism were already playing a major part in her life, Catholicism was not and the Day of the early 1920s was a far cry from the woman she would later become.

Living in Greenwich Village, Day became 'close' to playwright Eugene O'Neill and embarked on a passionate affair with Jewish writer Itzok Isaac Granich who wrote under the pseudonym of Mike Gold.

Granich, who later became a prominent Communist, was the first of several affairs, including one with reporter Lionel Moise.

During the affair, Day became pregnant and was, as she later put it, 'bullied' into having an abortion - something that she bitterly regretted.

After the relationship ended, she went on to marry wealthy businessman Berkeley Tobey with whom she spent a year traveling around Europe before that too foundered and the couple divorced.

On her return to New York, she moved into a cottage on Staten Island and there became involved with a fellow activist and biologist named Forster Batterham.

In 1926, Day gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Tamar, and had the baby baptized as a Catholic and converted to the faith herself - much to Batterham's fury.

Pacifist: As well as socialism and Catholicism, Day (center) is most famous for her anti-war stance

Helping out: Deeply religious Day is pictured here serving seminarians at St. Francis House in Detroit

Batterham, an atheist, found Day's increasingly passionate Catholicism and demands for Catholic marriage unbearable and, in 1929, the couple split for good.

But while Day's romantic life was in crisis, her professional and religious existence was about to step up a gear with the launch, in 1933, of The Catholic Worker.

Founded by Day and French émigré Peter Maurin, the paper championed the rights of workers, ethnic minorities and women and reiterated the work done on their behalf by the Catholic Church.

As the publication grew, so did the quality of the editorial team with literary greats Michael Hannington and Thomas Merton, who was also a mystic, among those to join.

The paper also spawned a 'house of hospitality' for the poor on the Lower East Side and a series of farms which were run as co-operatives, Communist style.

More controversial was Day's strident pacifism which saw her and The Catholic Worker oppose first the Spanish Civil War and then World War II.

Speech: Day's activism, her pacifism in particular, frequently proved controversial and she is seen here at a draft card burning in New York's Union Square in November 1965

Meeting of minds: Day met Mother Theresa for the last time in 1979 - shortly before her death

Prisoner: Day holds up the dress she wore during her 10 day spell in a Californian jail in 1972

As a result, circulation plummeted and Day faced widespread censure - in particular after she publicly described going to war as something that didn't live up to American principles.

Never one to back down and even less keen on compromise when it came to her most fervently held beliefs, Day's later life saw her repeatedly raise hackles among wider society.

In 1951, she fell foul of Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York, after siding with archdiocesan workers who had gone on strike.

Later, she declared her support for Fidel Castro and his regime in Cuba and, in 1970, when the Vietnam War was at its height, praised Viet Cong leader Ho Chi Minh as a 'man of vision' and a 'patriot'.

Her views hardly mellowed at all in later life, either in religious or political terms, and in 1971, she paid a visit to Leonid Brezhnev's Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.

The following year, she joined Cesar Chavez's campaign for better treatment for Californian farm laborers - and, during the protest, was arrested and spent 10 days in jail.

For all that, she was also becoming something of a national treasure and, during the final years of her live, picked up a slew of awards.

In November 1980, Day died of a heart attack at home in New York and was remembered at a well-attended funeral mass before being buried in a Staten Island cemetery.

Although never far from controversy in life, Day was honored by the Catholic church after her death, with a pastoral letter issued by the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1983 noting her contribution to the cause of peace.

Today, with the Pope hailing her 'tireless work' on behalf of 'the oppressed', it appears that a sainthood for Day is now a case of when rather than if.

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