Houses of Hospitality

Congrats to Claire and Scott Schaeffer-Duffy! Past recipients of the Paulist Center’s Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice include Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, Sister Helen Prejean, Father Fred Enman, and Paul Farmer.

Ken Hannaford Ricardi, Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy

Announcement:

The 2007 Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice will be presented to Claire and Scott on Sat., Sept. 29 during the 6pm mass. A reception will follow in the auditorium. The Schaeffer-Duffys founded the Sts. Francis & Therese Catholic Worker, a lay Catholic community which shelters the homeless, promotes peace and justice, prays and lives simply in community. The Schaeffer-Duffys’ lives have exemplified faithful living, risk taking, living in solidarity with the poor and leading others toward action on behalf of peace and justice.

Claire on TV

See also:

• Father Isaac Hecker at Wikipedia
• SS. Francis & Thérèse: The first 20 years
• T&G article announcing the award (scroll down)

Bruce, Scott, and a cake

The South Bend Catholic Worker today announced that they’re spinning off their drop-in center, Our Lady of the Road, as a nonprofit.

Mike Baxter announces the plans just before the end of mass at OLR.

They’re actively seeking donations to help them buy the drop-in center outright. You can’t make a tax-deductable donations at the moment, but you will soon be able to. Please contact peterclaverhouse@gmail.com for details.

OLR is open Friday and Saturday mornings, and is at 744 South Main Street in South Bend, Indiana. If you’d care to make a small donation right away, please bring by any of the following items:

• Coffee
• T-shirts
• Small canisters of shaving cream
• Dish soap
• Laundry soap
• Socks
• Trash bags (13 gal and 30 gal)

Grab yourself a cup of coffee while you’re there and hang out awhile.

Are you able to help the South Bend Catholic Worker with a donation?

They need the following items:

• Coffee
• T-shirts
• Small canisters of shaving cream
• Dish soap
• Laundry soap
• Socks
• Trash bags (13 gal and 30 gal)

I think they could also use a copy of the Joy of Cooking.

You can bring donations to their drop-in center, “Our Lady of the Road,” 744 South Main Street in South Bend, Indiana, Friday and Saturday mornings. If you’d like to volunteer at Our Lady of the Road, please stop by and say hello.

Your generous donation will keep Al fully caffeinated.

Last night I cooked dinner at the Catholic Worker here, and emerged from the kitchen to find a huge crowd assembled in the backyard for the meal. My heart filled with joy and I boomed out, “Happy Sunday!”

An Italian, in town for a conference, came up to me afterwards to remark that Buona Domenica is an established greeting, but that he’d never heard an English speaker say “Happy Sunday.” He said that Italians also say buona continuazione (happy continuance?), and buon proseguimento, which translates roughly as “happy follow-through” or “happy proceeding.” Also, they say buon lavorno for “happy work.”

I cooked pizza and white-bean-and-pasta soup. The pizza recipe is mostly from Cooks Illustrated. The soup is a white-bean-and-roasted-garlic soup from Isa Chandra Moskowitz, with a bag of pasta thrown in.

* * * *

This morning I attended the beginning of a Mennonite-Catholic theological conference at Notre Dame. It centers on the document Called Together To Be Peacemakers. This document does a good job comparing and contrasting the two faiths; I recommend it. The proceedings of the conference will soon be available at the conference website.

* * * *

You ever have one of those days when you’re hungover and sweeping out a soup kitchen, and feel like life is a burden, and then a ragged, weathered man sits down at the piano and riffs on “Let It Be” for 20 minutes, and the burden floats away? I love that.

On the front page of today’s Telegram & Gazette is an article about how Donna has closed the Mustard Seed Catholic Worker soup kitchen for a week, because she needs a break.

I don’t hang out at the Mustard Seed, but it’s my impression that closing the Seed is not news; it’s something she does several times a year. I talked to a couple Mustard Seed habitues today, and confirmed this.

“She closes all the time. Why are you asking me about this?”

It’s on the front page of today’s paper.

“You’re [kidding] me!”

So why does this make the paper? The article describes a note left on the door:

I would advise you to open up the doors for the hungry people who come there soon. Thank You.
[...]
If you don’t, I’m going to the newspapers and see what else can be done about this.

Hmm.

Obscenities have been omitted from this article in respect for the fine work done six days a week at the Mustard Seed.

Here’s a cable access interview with Catholic Worker Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, of Worcester’s Saints Francis & Therese community. You can watch it at the Archive, or download an mp3.

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Flash Video [ 28:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Reprinted from The Catholic Radical, April/May 2007

“You people make me sick!” our guest screamed. “You call yourselves Christians! You’re a bunch of hypocrites! I’ll sue you for throwing me out on the street!”

Although it’s our preference to feature heartwarming stories of guests who are grateful for our hospitality and leave us for a better future, it’s not honest to sugarcoat Catholic Worker reality. Some of those who stay with us have life-long problems which we hardly understand, much less resolve. Some are prevented by addiction or mental illness from making healthy choices. Some steal from each other or from us. A very small number, thanks be to God, fly off the handle.

We had just about every type of challenging guest in February. Several got drunk and lied to us about it. One got up in the middle of the night to smoke in the bathroom. Another relapsed on drugs. An alcoholic former guest tried to sneak into the house at five in the morning to “use the bathroom.” During a previous restroom stop, he stole a guest’s leather jacket. Several guests lied to us about their income and housing plans. One of them told a story so ridiculous that I felt like saying, “Do yourself a favor. Before you tell me another lie, run it by someone else to see if they would believe you.” It’s disrespectful enough that someone lies to me without treating me as a complete idiot.
Read the rest of this entry »

“There’s a saying that Theresa had this ‘T’ written in heaven. Well, I saw this ‘CW’ written in heaven!” (Nina Polcyn Moore, 1986)

Nina Polcyn Moore, one of the last of the Catholic Worker pioneers, has gone to her God. She died on Saturday, February 10, surrounded by family, former Catholic Worker Barbara Blaine (Chicago St. Elizabeth’s), and Dr. Peter Mayock. Fr. Bob Pawell had prayed with her in the afternoon, and she died peacefully and sublimely ready to join our great cloud of witnesses. On my last visit with her, she told me that her current mantra was “Wrap it up!” That’s just one of many samples of her unfailing good humor even as her body went the way of all bodies.
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A few days after Christmas, folks living on or near the streets in downtown South Bend started talking about a couple of guys who were missing. Mike Nolen’s family had been expecting him and his friend, Mike Lawson, for Christmas dinner, but they never showed up. This was unusual, not like them. Nolen’s mother put in a missing person’s report. We started calling local hospitals and jails.

A week later, with no word from either of the Mikes, their friends told police to check out an abandoned building where they were known to hang out, or down in the nearby manholes, in case something bad happened.
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South Bend, Indiana Tribune:

Lawson and three other men were found dead inside city manholes near Coveleski Stadium last week.

The deaths of Lawson, 53, Michael S. Nolen Jr., 40, Jason Coates, 29, and Brian G. Talboom, 51, have all been ruled homicides.

Authorities released no new information Friday regarding the deaths of the homeless men.

[Jerry] Eason spoke fondly about Lawson at the Mass held at Our Lady of the Road, a drop-in center at 744 S. Main St. About 80 people — primarily friends and a few family members — attended the Mass, which was followed by a potluck dinner.

The Mass was for Lawson, a Catholic who stayed at the Catholic Worker House, but all of the victims were prayed for.

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