October 6-9, 2023 Retreat - Saturday & Sunday Presenters

Saturday & Sunday Presenters

The retreat theme – Living in a New Creation – is given deeper understanding and expansion on Saturday and Sunday with presenters Maureen O’Connell and Robert Ellsberg.

Maureen O’Connell Ph.D., Theological Ethics, Boston College 

A recent presenter at the Maryknoll Sisters’ Mission Institute, is a member of Philadelphians Organizing to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild (POWER), an interfaith federation of 90 faith communities committed to making Philadelphia the city of “just love” through a more just wage for workers, fair funding for public schools, immigration reform, and decarceration.

Maureen’s current research explores racial identity formation, racism, and racial justice in Catholic institutions of higher education. She authored 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 College Theology Book of the Year Award in 2012 and the Catholic Press Association’s first place for books in theology in 2012.

Recently Bearded

Robert Ellsberg - author, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of Maryknoll that has launched some of the most important books – spiritual, theological, social – for our time. Robert is the son of Carol Cummings and Daniel Ellsberg, who died on June 16 of this year. At age 19, Robert dropped out of Harvard, intending to spend a few months with the Catholic Worker Movement. He ended up staying for two years and met Dorothy Day with whom he worked for the last five years of her life. Robert eventually returned to Harvard and earned a graduate degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School.

He is the author of several books, many of which have received awards; his Blessed Among All Women tied a Catholic Press Association record by winning awards for Gender, Spirituality, and Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith. He is the editor of the published diaries and letters of Dorothy Day. Robert is often called upon to give presentations throughout the country.