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
Founded in 1925, Albertus is a coeducational Catholic College in the Dominican tradition. Albertus' values- and liberal arts-based education is recognized by external rankings such as US News & World Report, Money, and The New York Times, and has been named a Top 10 Military Friendly School. For ten consecutive years, at least 95% of Albertus graduates have attained employment or gone on to graduate studies within six months of completing their degrees. The College has an enrollment of approximately 1,300 students across its traditional undergraduate, accelerated adult undergraduate, and graduate program levels. Proud to enroll a student body where nearly half of its undergraduate students receive Federal Pell Grants and are first-generation college goers, Albertus is known for its innovative curricular offerings, recently launching new Bachelor's degree programs in Nursing, including BSN and Connecticut's first LPN-to-BSN; General Health Sciences; Interdisciplinary Studies; and Public Health.
Among its graduate offerings is the State of Connecticut's only Master of Arts in Art Therapy and Counseling program, and it is just one of three schools to offer a Master of Science in Human Services. In 2025-26, Albertus is celebrating its historic 100th Anniversary and completing implementation of the Albertus 2025: Lighting the Way to a Second Century strategic plan, with a 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