Inside the Core - Romero-King and the Catholic Worker
Monday, April 14, 2025
The Seton Hall group with Roger Alfani and Martha Hennessy at the Catholic Worker House in New York City.
Inside the Core, we are grateful for two very special events celebrated on April 4, last Friday: the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the culmination of our Romero-King Week and, also in the evening, a talk by Core fellow Roger Alfani at the Catholic Worker Maryhouse in New York City.
The morning began with a breakfast in Bethany Hall, where the Reverend Forrest Pritchett, who coordinated the event, spoke, and faculty and administrators read aloud from the writings of both King and St. Oscar Romero, as we usually do in our Vigils on the Green. We had one of these vigils at the beginning of Romero-King Week (and a half) on March 24, the anniversary of Oscar Romero’s assassination. This year, the Reverend Pritchett felt it was warranted to go beyond a second vigil to have this special breakfast and, following the food, speech and readings of quotes, each table had discussions based on questions distributed to them. It was a rich and wonderful morning. The Reverend Pritchett had this to say about the event:
Romero-King Refelection
It was a pleasure to continue our commitment to the legacy and sacrifice of these two “warriors of God.” We all live at the intersection of faith and justice, but the hard question will be, what would we do if the social system began to distort, oppress and destroy? These are the realities that these two clergy members faced, and ultimately they realized that — as we read in Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. As the Reverend King realized his ultimate destiny, he stated: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will." The Reverend King also visualized the attitudes and type of community that we should build toward. He called it the “Beloved Community.” The table facilitation exercise captured our thoughts on how we can achieve it.
Nkosi Anderson, Africana Studies; Roger Alfani, Core; and Elizabeth Redwine, English and Core, at the Romero-King event.
That evening, several individuals continued the celebration of the day by heading to Maryhouse, the Catholic Worker House on East Third Street in New York City, to hear a talk by Core fellow Roger Alfani on “The Struggle for Freedom and Human Dignity While Considering the Case of Patrice Lumumba.” Lumumba, a subject of scholarly and personal concern for Roger Alfani, was prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo briefly in 1960 but was assassinated in a violent coup that brought in a rival leader. Roger Alfani’s talk also focused on how the issues impacting the instability of the DRC at that time continue today — a legacy of colonialism and exploitation of the region.
How he came to give the talk is the result of another event, held at Seton Hall on November 6, 2024, when the Core hosted Martha Hennessy, Dorothy Day’s granddaughter, to give a talk on her grandmother. When she was here, Martha met Roger Alfani, and they began talking about Lumumba, as Martha Hennessy had recently seen a film about him, Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, released in 2024. She invited Roger Alfani to give the talk that day, and Martha Hennessy was, of course, at Maryhouse to introduce him and to welcome all of us to Maryhouse, where we went to the chapel where Dorothy Day was waked. Monsignor John Radano visited there in November, with Martha Hennessy graciously giving us a tour of the House, where we saw Dorothy Day’s room, where she died.
The group who went this time included Francesca Zaccaron, Sister Mary John Bosco Amakwe, the Reverend Forrest Pritchett, Barb Pritchett and Stephen Adubato, along with Roger Alfani and Nancy Enright. All of them either teach in the Core or have done so, and it was truly a wonderful way to end the day. Roger Alfani gave a deeply significant talk, and it was inspiring to think that Maribel Landrau, whose passing we recently talked about in Inside the Core, is the person who first reached out about inviting Martha Hennessy to Seton Hall. We are so grateful to her for this suggestion that lives on, and to Martha for continuing the connection with us. Romero-King Week and a half closed in a very special way.
Categories: Arts and Culture, Faith and Service
