Photo by Susan Cedrone
Kathy Leary, coordinator of Pax Christi New Jersey, and Cassie MacDonald, coordinator of Sacred Heart Peace Community, Camden, stand with Msgr. Michael Doyle, who was honored with the Dorothy Day Peacemaker award at the Pax Christi New Jersey Fall Assembly, held at Sacred Heart Church in Camden Oct. 24.
Pax Christi New Jersey held its 2009 Fall Assembly at Sacred Heart Church in Camden on Oct. 24, helping others learn about the many ministries and outreach programs connected to the parish and awarding its Dorothy Day Peacemaker award to the pastor, Msgr. Michael Doyle.
The theme of the gathering was “Renewing the Face of the Earth,” and the day’s activities centered on the renewal going on in Waterfront South, which Msgr. Doyle has often called one of the most environmentally battered places in the United States. Speakers and workshops drew the connection between peace and environmental justice.
Many of the 80 participants, most of them from the northern part of the state, toured the neighborhood around the church, seeing signs of rebirth and beauty amidst Camden’s bleak landscape.
Kathy O’Leary, coordinator for Pax Christi’s New Jersey region, said this gathering was different from the usual annual assemblies.
“We tend to talk about themes and theology, here we could actually touch and feel what was going on and pray with our feet,” she said. “People are living here, doing peace and justice work. There are so many projects here, our assembly was much more interactive.”
Young people who have moved to the community to be part of its restoration showed attendees the peace monument and park where Broadway and Ferry meet, a maritime museum in a former Episcopal church, a new theater and a gym in an old movie theatre under construction, gardens and a greenhouse entered through a poets’ walk, and murals and mosaics on the sides of buildings. Houses around the church are being restored through the Heart of Camden and a former convent is being refurbished as a retreat house focused on faith and the environment called Center for Transformation which includes two classrooms for the school. In addition, renowned liturgical artist Brother Mickey McGrath has moved his Bee Still Studio to Jasper Street across from the church.
The assembly was cosponsored by the Sacred Heart Peace Community. “This is the first time Pax Christi had its assembly in South Jersey in a long time,” said Cassie McDonald, the peace community coordinator. “Here was an opportunity to not only address economic justice but to lift up Camden, its history and what we’re doing now.”
Pax Christi members Will and Lorna Henkel from Secaucus, who are involved in Habitat for Humanity, said that they were excited to see all the work going on in Camden and were even thinking of moving to the neighborhood in retirement. “It’s important for us to have community,” Lorna Henkel said.
Msgr. Doyle said that all his work had been done as part of a community and that he accepted the Dorothy Day Peacemaker award “on behalf of all the people who stood by me, and with them I could stand up.”
In his homily during the closing Mass, he said that connection to the earth is part of the sacramental tradition. The Eucharist, he said, “is the taste of God in a mouthful of consecrated wheat.”
The keynote speaker, Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest who is executive director of the environmental group GreenFaith, challenged those in the gathering to discern how they feel called to integrate environmental justice into their lives.
“Environmental justice for people calls for justice for creation,” he said.
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