Two to Receive St. Catherine of Siena Distinguished Layperson Award During Conference in Boston continued

“Catherine of Siena’s deep faith propelled her to care for those labeled as least in her society,” said Mary Freeman of Saunderstown, R.I., award committee chair. “Neither hardship nor schism, war nor persecution detained her from being about the Lord’s work. Through her convicted faith, she was an innovator who was led by the Spirit and an agent of change in the tumultuous events of her lifetime. The Church ultimately recognized her contribution by proclaiming her both a saint and a Doctor of the Church.”

O’Callaghan, an historian, educator, philosopher, lecturer, author and activist, has exemplified such service as a champion for the wounded and victimized. “As a founding member of VOTF in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., Freeman said, “he personifies the virtues of courage and honesty, humbly speaking truth to power while seeking justice for survivors, support for priests of integrity and change in the hierarchical Church.”

O’Callaghan is a professor emeritus of medieval history at Fordham University, New York, N.Y., and former director of Fordham’s Center for Medieval Studies. He is past president of the American Catholic Historical Association and the Academy of American Historians of Medieval Spain. His articles have been collected in several volumes and have appeared in the American and Catholic Historical Reviews and several Spanish-language publications.

In his involvement with VOTF in Bridgeport, O’Callaghan has written “Who We Are and How We Came to Be,” a history of VOTF in the Bridgeport Diocese; “Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned,” a dramatization of court documents from priestly sexual abuse trials; and “Electing Our Bishops: How the Catholic Church Should Choose Its Leaders.”

“I am deeply honored to be a recipient of the St. Catherine of Siena Distinguished Layperson Award,” O’Callaghan said. “I want to share it, however, with my sisters and brothers of Voice of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport. Each one of them has unselfishly contributed his or her special gifts to the reform and renewal of the Church that we love. Everyone is essential to the well-being of the Body of Christ. No one’s gifts may be spurned. Let us pray that our bishops will soon realize that, by themselves, they are not the church. Let us pray that they will actively encourage all the faithful to share their gifts in the task of building up Christ’s kingdom here on earth.”

O’Callaghan’s nomination for the award read, in part: “We nominate Joseph O’Callaghan for the St. Catherine of Siena Distinguished Layperson Award because of his courageous and unflagging devotion to the suffering and the disenfranchised, to the Church he loves and to those whose faith is daily challenged by a Church out of touch with its people.”