All events are free and open to the public

Drawing from items in the University’s Adé Bethune Collection, this exhibition commemorates the centennial of artist, writer, and activist Adé Bethune. From her early association with the Catholic Worker, Bethune went on to become a pioneering liturgical artist as well as a driving force for social justice and community change. The exhibition will highlight her contributions to art, especially liturgical art, and social action initiatives.

September 18, October 9, and November 18, 6:30 p.m.

Visual Arts Building Lecture Hall

Reception following

The lecture series is co–sponsored by: the Myser Initiative on Catholic Identity, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province, Alumnae Council Lifelong Learning Committee and Friends of the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery.

September 18

"The Work and Works of Mercy: Learning from Catholic Worker Artist Adé Bethune"

Julia A. Upton, R.S.M., Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Theology, St. John’s University, NY
Julia Upton explores the life of Adé Bethune. Born into the Belgian aristocracy as World War I was beginning, Bethune witnessed the end of that era and beginning of another when her family immigrated to the United States in 1928. A passion for social justice and "the work and works of mercy," as she titled one of her articles, characterized her whole life, down to her dying day. As Dorothy Day wrote in The Long Loneliness, "Whenever I visited Ade I came away with a renewed zest for life. She has such a sense of the sacramentality of life, the goodness of things, a sense that is translated in all her works whether it was illustrating a missal, making stained–glass windows or sewing, cooking or gardening." This is a life worth emulating!

October 9

"Liturgical Design, Art, & Community: Adé Bethune’s Evolving Mission to Transform Church Space"

Rebecca M. Berru–Davis, PhD, Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Theology, St. John’s University, MN
Berru–Davis examines the ways in which Bethune’s liturgical design projects reflected her vision of church, acted to support and enrich the experience of worship for the faithful in the pews, and coalesced to shape the larger Liturgical Movement.

"Work and Worship: Adé Bethune and the American Liturgical Movement"

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., Lecturer in Theology, Marian University, Indianapolis, IN
Harmon will discuss Adé Bethune’s contribution to and leadership in liturgical renewal in the United States in the years prior to the Second Vatican Council. Harmon will highlight how Bethune’s advocacy for the arts intersected with the liturgical movement’s goal of uniting the intelligent, active participation of the lay faithful with worship in the Roman Catholic tradition.

November 18

"Adé Bethune, Renaissance Woman: Creative Living and Aging"

Judith Church Tydings, Ph.D.
Tydings will talk about how she knew and experienced Adé Bethune during the last 10 years of her very active life. Bethune was particularly taken with Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and she applied that construct to her own life and to the design of the community housing for elders that she founded in her eighties, Harbor House in Rhode Island.

Thursday, December 4, 2014, 11:30 a.m.

Ada Bethune Lecture Series Wrap-up Luncheon

Alumnae are invited to gather in Coeur de Catherine for lunch and discussion of observations from the Ade Bethune lectures. Archivist and Bethune specialist, Deborah Kloiber, will join the group.
COST: $20.00 per person, includes lunch and lecture. Click Here to Register
Questions? Contact Ruth Brombach at rcbrombach@stkate.edu or 651-690-8665.