April 23rd, 2010 
Kam Williams Professor Advocates Christian Social Activism in Keynote Speech Delivered at Medieval Studies Conference
What ordinarily comes to mind when one thinks of a lecture about medieval Europe is a talk a lot less relevant to present-day worldly concerns than the keynote speech recently delivered by Professor Celia Chazelle at a conference held at University College Cork entitled “Envisioning Christ on the Cross.” Chazelle, who chairs the Department of History at The College of New Jersey, had been invited to Ireland to speak about “The Mass and the Eucharist, ‘Image’ of the Crucified Christ, in the Christianization of Early Medieval Europe.”
While the bulk of her otherwise academic address certainly explored that topic at considerable depth, she prefaced her remarks by reading a poem by her Irish-born pastor, Father Michael Doyle, about the seeming futility of the never-ending fight to eradicate the suffering evident in his midst. For 35 years now, Doyle has presided over Sacred Heart Church in Camden, the poorest city in the US, where over 90% of the population is black and Hispanic.
With the assistance of volunteers like his dedicated parishioner Celia Chazelle, Doyle’s been directly ministering to the needs of the poor via a number of Sacred Heart-based organizations, among them the church’s St. Vincent de Paul Society and affiliated Heart of Camden. These sponsor a weekly dinner, a thrift store, building and home renovations, and a variety of other social programs. Another affiliated organization, the Center for Transformation, oversees a greenhouse, community gardens, and neighborhood cleanups, engages in environmental education and activism in the area, and is in the final stages of establishing a retreat center. All this is located right within Camden’s deteriorating exoskelton.
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