The Life of Friar Lawrence Rosebaugh

In 1968, Friar Larry Rosebaugh, 33, was a member of the religious community of Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and on staff at Casa Maria House of Hospitality in Milwaukee. After serving a year as a parish priest earlier in his life in St. Paul, he taught religious studies for three years in Duluth, then spent a year in the inner-city of Chicago.He took students to the South to help them register Blacks to vote through CORE.  He was involved in the Milwaukee 14 action in 1968, resistance against nuclear production and a powerful advocate for the poor in Central/Sough America.  In 2006, he wrote an autobiography called To Wisdom Through Failure: A Journey of Compassion, Resistance and Hope. 

Lorenzo was an Oblate priest serving the poor and marginalized in Guatemala City, Guatemala. His Memoir To Wisdom Through Failure is his journey through life that led him to prison, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and to live in Guatemala and be with the poorest of the poor. It is a story of compassion, resistance and hope. Lorenzo truly learned the “language of the poor”. 

I will be reading a letter Larry Rosebaugh wrote me in 1991 from Guatemala where he served as an Oblate Priest. The letter covers his reasons for early activist and burning draft card files in Milwaukee.  His sudden death from a carjacking in Ctl America was disturbing and ended a long life of service to Guatemala's poor and a man who was a model missionary to the Christian world.