A Catholic Worker Movement member, Roger Allen LaPorte, protesting against the Vietnam War, sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building.
Roger Allen LaPorte (July 16, 1943 November 10, 1965) was a protester of the Vietnam War who set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in New York City on November 9, 1965, to protest the United States involvement in the war. A former seminarian, he was a member of the Catholic Worker Movement at the time of his death.
The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the United States in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ". One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on the margin of society, based on the principles of communitarianism and personalism. To this end, the movement claims over 240 local Catholic Worker communities providing social services. Each house has a different mission, going about the work of social justice in its own way, suited to its local region.
Catholic Worker houses are not official organs of the Catholic Church, and their activities, inspired by Day's example, may be more or less overtly religious in tone and inspiration depending on the particular institution. The movement campaigns for nonviolence and is active in opposing both war and the unequal global distribution of wealth. Day also founded the Catholic Worker newspaper, still published by the two Catholic Worker houses in New York City, and sold for a penny a copy.