August 15: Roundtable Discussion - Oscar Romero, Catholic Social Teaching, and Land Reform

Location: Centro Romero (6216 N. Clark Street)
Date: August 15
Time: Snacks/refreshments at 6 PM. Discussion at 6:30 PM

We have a housing crisis in Chicago. We see it in our streets, in our shelters, and in the homes of countless folks sleeping on couches of friends and family. Centro Romero has been a tireless housing advocate for recent arrivals from Latin America and understands how scarce housing is an obstacle to the stability of recently arrived immigrants.

As Archbishop of El Salvador, St. Oscar Romero worked tirelessly for justice in the distribution of land on behalf of the poor. He was assassinated March 24, 1980. A major cause of the civil war that rocked El Salvador from 1979 to 1992 was the concentration of agricultural land and the exclusion of the majority from access to land to farm.

Many critics wrongly understood Romero’s calls for land reform as a communist-inspired assault on private property. But St. Oscar Romero relied on Catholic Social Teaching to respond to land injustice. He paid with his advocacy for the poor and the landless with his life. Please join us to discuss how Oscar Romero’s work, thought and ideas can address our own housing issues in Chicago and how we might use Catholic Social Teaching to work for housing justice in our own time and place.

Speakers include: José Torres from the Oscar Romero Canter, Martha Hennessy, from the New York City Catholic Worker community and granddaughter of Servant of God Dorothy Day.

Co-sponsored by Canterbury House, a ministry of Mary, Mother of God Parish

Questions? Contact James Murphy, director of Canterbury House.