Albertus Magnus College Hosts Free St. Catherine of Siena Lecture
Breaking the Silence of Fear: Naming and Undoing the Knots of American Catholic Anti-Blackness
Maureen O'Connell
Who: Maureen H. O’Connell, Professor of Christian Ethics, Department of Religion and Theology at La Salle University.
What: Breaking the Silence of Fear: Naming and Undoing the Knots of American Catholic Anti-Blackness.
When: Wednesday, April 3, 2024; 5:30-6:45 pm.
Where: Behan Community Room, award-winning Hubert Campus Center, 831 Winchester Ave., New Haven, Conn.
As a champion of engaging dialogue, Albertus Magnus College continues its annual St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture Series named after the Dominican scholar who challenged individuals to seek truth and knowledge. Since its founding in 1925 by the Dominican Sisters of Peace, the College has cherished the pursuit of truth in all its dimensions. Albertus uses this lecture series as a lens through which it “responds to the academic needs and ethical challenges of its students and society.” The series is made possible through the generosity of the Marie Louise Bianchi ’31 Fund.
In the spirit of the lecture’s namesake, St. Catherine of Siena, Professor O’Connell strives to “proclaim the truth and not be silenced through fear” about the history of racism in American Catholicism, which she discovered while excavating five generations of her family’s journey of faith in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
About the lecturer: Professor Maureen H. O’Connell is the author of Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in an Age of Globalization (Orbis Books, 2009) and If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (The Liturgical Press, 2012) — which won the CTS Book of the Year Award and Catholic Press Association’s Best Book in Theology Award. Her newest book, Undoing the Knots: Five Generations of American Catholic Anti-Blackness (Beacon Press 2021) explores the interplay of her Catholic and racial identities across her family’s history in Philadelphia. Through the duration of the Global Synod on Synodality, she is serving as Director of Synod and Higher Education for Discerning Deacons.
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About Albertus Magnus College
Albertus Magnus College, founded in 1925, is a coeducational Catholic College in the Dominican tradition. As New England's most diverse Catholic College, Albertus' values and liberal arts-based education is recognized by external rankings such as US News & World Report, Money Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education, and has been named a Top 10 Military Friendly School. For seven consecutive years, graduating classes at Albertus have achieved post-graduate employment and graduate school success at a rate of at least 95%. The College has an enrollment of approximately 1,300 students across its traditional undergraduate, accelerated adult undergraduate, and 11 graduate programs. Proud to enroll a student body where more than half of its students come from minority backgrounds with nearly the same percentage of undergraduates receiving Federal Pell Grants and being first generation college goers, Albertus is known for its innovative curricular offerings, recently launching new Bachelor’s degree programs in Game and Computer Arts, General Health Sciences, Interdisciplinary Studies, Project Management, Public Health, Social Media, and Supply Chain Management; among its graduate programs is the State of Connecticut's only Master of Arts in Art Therapy and Counseling program. Just two years from its historic 100th Anniversary Year, the College is implementing its Albertus 2025: Lighting the Way to a Second Century strategic plan, which articulates an inspiring, bold vision to "be a destination liberal arts-based college, distinguished in its interdisciplinary and experiential approach to education, rooted in Dominican values, that prepares students for lifelong civic engagement and success." To learn more, please visit albertus.edu.
Maureen O'Connell