Los Angeles Catholic Worker

Several years ago the Los Angeles Catholic Worker was blessed to have Cesar Chavez give a talk to the summer interns, volunteers and friends at our local Jesuit parish Dolores Mission.

Introduction by Jeff Dietrich
Cesar Chavez part 1
Cesar Chavez part 2

I had not had the oportunity to meet Ladon Sheats before he passed away, just a little over three years ago. I am not sure of the exact date of this recording, I assume it was some time in the 70’s. In it he recounts his early life as an IBM CEO in the 60’s and his call and conversion to a life of radical Christian discipleship. In the years after his conversion he carried all of his worldy belongings in a backpack, and traveled around the country, spending time at monasteries, Catholic Worker Houses, and commiting acts of civil disobediance. For those who, like myself, never met him I urge you to give it a chance, he starts out a bit slow, but I have found his talk to be very powerful.

Ladon Sheats Part 1
Ladon Sheats Part 2

Please excuse the pops and clips in the recording, the quality of the original was poor.

A little over a year ago Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, gave a talk to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, our friends, and our volunteers at, Dolores Mission, our local parish. The other day I took a break from working on the next issue of the Catholic Agitator and encoded the speech into mp3 format and uploaded the files. The speech is broken up into six parts:

1. Intrduction by Blase Bonpane
2. Presentation
3. Response to a question about voting for Kerry as a lesser of two evils.
4. Response to a question about keeping up to date about various issues.
5. Response to a question about U.N. sanctions on Iraq.
6. Conclusion

This talk was originaly made on October 20, 2004.

PS: Leave me a comment and let me know if you were able to listen to it, and if it didn’t work.

I am excited to announce a new Audio Archive section of our website. A while ago I found a box of audio tapes in the basement full of recordings of talks and presentations made at the LACW over the years, by people like Cesar Chavez, Ladon Sheats and others involved in the CW Movement. In the past we wouldn’t have been able to make these available online due to bandwidth and storage costs, however, ourmedia.org, a non-profit organization offers free hosting for multi-media content to encourage grass-roots publication on the internet. A list of the current recordings can be found at: http://www.ourmedia.org/user/81651