Catholic Workers meet in Worcester

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press 

WORCESTER – Catholic Workers looked inward as well as outward, at their recent gathering, for ways to address human needs and societal concerns.  

The Oct. 21-23 gathering brought together members of the Catholic Worker movement and others for the 50th anniversary of the Mustard Seed Catholic Worker community, known for serving free meals. The Mustard Seed and the SS. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker community hosted the events.  

Talks, workshops, a talent show and a dance party were offered at the College of the Holy Cross; worship and hospitality at Blessed Sacrament Parish, and Sunday breakfast at the Mustard Seed. 

Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, of the SS. Francis and Therese house, estimated that 150 people came, 50 of them locals. Participants were from more than 10 states, one from Puerto Rico and one from the Netherlands, she said. 

On Saturday Mustard Seed co-founder Frank Kartheiser recognized two of their deceased: his wife, Brenda Norton Kartheiser, and Mustard Seed co-founder Shawn Donovan. Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy added Tom Lewis, who “practiced the works of mercy and opposed the works of war.”  

She told The Catholic Free Press that Catholic Worker movement pillars which co-founder Peter Maurin communicated to the co-founder, Servant of God Dorothy Day, in the 1930s were: houses of hospitality, farming communities, and roundtable discussions that brought together scholars and workers.  

Those topics were highlighted at Saturday’s plenary session about the movement’s charisms: works of mercy, pacifism and “the Green Revolution,” with talks and table discussions. 

In her talk, Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy said she once saw doing the works of mercy as her ticket to heaven, but now considers them a practical “to do” list from Jesus.  

Catholic Workers are not interested just in their own salvation, but bringing others to heaven too, she explained. They want to change the societal order where violence is made possible by disregarding or de-humanizing others. 

“Hospitality, works of mercy, lessens the distance” between “’us and them,’” Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy maintained. She told of a man she called, “M,” former head of the Savak, the Iranian police dreaded for torturing opponents. Estranged from family and recovering from an injury, he was sleeping in his Mercedes Benz at UMass Medical Center. The SS. Francis and Therese house took him in. He did not know of their pacifist politics, but marveled at their hospitality, cooked them a Persian meal before re-uniting with his son, and sent them Christmas cards. 

“To sit with people like M … (is to) realize atrocities are carried out by people like ourselves,” Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy said. Sitting with others, one practices trust, which is not permissiveness or naïve cluelessness about the world, but is essential for nonviolent life, she explained. Hospitality is an antidote to despair, and a pushback against mercilessness. 

“We don’t walk past the world and its problems,” she said, quoting Catholic Worker Karl Meyer. “The world comes in with its problems and sits down for a cup of coffee and a word of consolation.” And, Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy added, “We who serve the coffee are also consoled.”  

Matthew Harper, of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, also spoke about works of mercy. He said if every group of 65 Catholics in his area housed one homeless person, all the homeless would have housing. He also told about advocating for money to be used for mental health centers instead of new jails. 

He asked whether new works of mercy might include distributing NARCAN to help overdose victims and supporting doctor-monitored safe injection sites for drug users. 

Someday we will need the works of mercy, and a system that throws anyone away will throw all of us away, he said. 

He said people need self-directed works of mercy too; they need to take care of themselves, a topic which generated discussion at participants’ tables.  

Presenting another charism, Dorothy Day’s granddaughter Martha Hennessy read from a piece Ammon Hennacy wrote about his conversion to Christian pacifism while imprisoned for refusing to register for the draft during World War I. 

“I had … mentally listed those whom I desired to kill when I was free,” he wrote. Now he glimpsed what Jesus meant by “the Kingdom of God is within you.” 

“I could love everybody … but the warden,” Hennacy wrote. “But if I did not love him, then the Sermon on the Mount meant nothing.” The warden, never imprisoned, hadn’t had a chance to know what Jesus meant. “I must not blame him. I must love him.”  

“We question how we can love folks if we’re killing them,” Theodore Kayser, who travels among Catholic Worker communities, said in his talk. He said he thinks younger Catholic Workers are concerned about government money being used for wars, but also about domestic problems like large policing budgets and “never enough money for human needs.” 

He also talked about looking inward, asking, “How can we live more peacefully, non-violently, in communities?” 

During table discussions, Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy's husband, Scott, told Holy Cross students that active violence includes being asked to kill someone, which they will not likely encounter unless they are in Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Passive violence includes paying taxes and not speaking out when your country tortures people, he said. 

Table member and local Catholic Worker Jo Massarelli suggested students could practice non-violence by praying for someone who annoys you and refusing to bad-mouth them.  

In his “Green Revolution” talk, Brian Terrell, from the Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Community in Maloy, Iowa, shared a way to live. 

“We raise dairy goats and chickens,” he said. His wife was teaching weaving – and not as a hobby.  

“We have to do this work ourselves, feed ourselves, cloth ourselves,” he said. 

He used a Peter Maurin quote: “When the bank account became the standard of values, people ceased to produce for use and began to produce for profits,” which led to producing too much wealth, then destroying it and human lives. 

That quote referred to World War I, but today things are worse because of the climate crisis, Mr. Terrell told The Catholic Free Press; much fuel is used to transport products. People need to make things to use, instead of for money, he said. 

In the other “Green Revolution” talk, Karen Gargamelli-McCreight, of Benincasa Community in Guilford, Connecticut, talked about the importance of being scholars and workers and supporting rights of migrant workers. 

“I think there was a lot of delight and joy people felt at being able to come together,” Ms. Schaeffer-Duffy said after the gathering. She said they gathered to “renew our commitment to trying to express the Gospel love of Jesus as it’s articulated through the Catholic Worker movement.”