The Yale and New Haven communities are invited to a public conversation with Father Michael Pfleger, Senior Pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago and a noted activist who has been a leading voice against gun violence, racism, and other social ills. The event will take place on Friday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Common Room at Yale Divinity School and available on the YDS LiveStream channel. (link is external)
In conversation with Associate Dean Bill Goettler and the audience, Pfleger will draw from his 30 years of ministry experience at St. Sabina to discuss what it means to maintain a faithful presence in the midst of controversy and engagement with deeply entrenched social problems. Pfleger will be at YDS to guest lecture in the School’s program in Transformational Leadership for Church and Society—the first of the program’s six speakers this academic year. Pleger’s weekend-intensive course is titled “Peace Starts Here: Congregational Leadership and Social Justice.”
The holder of an M.Div. degree from the University of St. Mary of the Lake and an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from North Park Theological Seminary, Pfleger has completed post-graduate studies at Mundelein College and the Catholic Theological Union. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1975 and, in 1981, at the age of 31, he became the youngest full pastor in the diocese when he was appointed Pastor of Saint Sabina Church.
Father Pfleger has lived and ministered in the African-American community on both the west and south sides of Chicago. He spent two summers working in a Native American community in Oklahoma and did his seminary internship as a chaplain at Cook County Jail. His awards and honors include Distinguished Service awards from both Rainbow/Push and the Nation of Islam; the Thurgood Marshall Award of the National Black Prosecutors Association; and the Rosa Parks Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Council.