Denver Catholic Worker Closes
After nearly fifty years, the Denver Catholic Worker is closing, the community announced in a letter to fellow Catholic Workers. Jennifer Haines and Sr. Anna Koop, who have been with the house since its beginning in 1978, are stepping back after several years of efforts to attract new stewards for the community did not work out.
The Denver Catholic Worker, founded in July 1978, has announced it will close, according to a letter sent to fellow Catholic Workers by Jennifer Haines and Sr. Anna Koop, both of whom have been with the community from the beginning. “For years the two of us old-timers have been doing everything we could to find or create a way forward that would survive our own mortal selves,” the pair wrote. Despite opening a second house in 2022 and attempting to find long-term Catholic Workers to take over, nothing has panned out. “We ourselves are rapidly approaching the point when we’ll have to retire, without any co-workers to whom we can pass on the vision and work.” The pair have partnered with Angelica Village, a vibrant community with young leadership and similar values, to provide for the Denver CW’s current guests. The Catholic Worker house itself will be rented to a low-income family through Emmaus Housing. Read the letter from Jennifer Haines and Sr. Anna Koop at CatholicWorker.org, or read a 2018 profile of the community with photos at Denverite.com.
Here’s the letter announcing the closing:
Dear Friends,
We’re sorry to have to share with you the sad news that the Denver Catholic Worker House journey is coming to a close. For years the two of us old-timers have been doing everything we could to find or create a way forward that would survive our own mortal selves. The second house we attempted to start in 2022 was, we were sure, a God-given step in that direction. But it didn’t attract any workers with more than short-term commitments, and nothing else has either. We’ve finally concluded that the kind of CW hospitality house that grows up around one or a few individuals with lifetime commitments is becoming rare in our world. We ourselves are rapidly approaching the point when we’ll have to retire, without any co-workers to whom we can pass on the vision and work.
Providentially, we’ve found a way to provide for all our current residents. An exciting community called Angelica Village has grown up in Denver over the past eight years with a vision, values, lifestyle and mission remarkably similar to ours. It is strong, caring and vibrant, with young leadership and a heart for the same populations of disenfranchised people we’ve always invited to live with us. We and Angelica Village have agreed to merge. We’ll share our resources with them, and our residents will move into their housing over the next month or so. Our kind of personal and egalitarian hospitality will continue, but no longer under our name.
Our current little Catholic Worker house is legally owned by Emmaus Housing, the low-income rental community that surrounds it. Emmaus is a 501(c)(3), founded 25 years ago by a group of us CW-connected folks, whose bylaws protect its property to serve low-income people in perpetuity. It will rent the house to a family.
We’re eternally grateful for the 46-plus years of Catholic Worker life that’s been the core of our personal reality since the house began in 1978 (Jennifer came four years later), for all the wonderful people who’ve lived with us and supported us, and for the whole Catholic Worker movement that carries the vision into the future.
Anna Koop
Jennifer Haines
