Michael Sprong: Catholic Worker Extraordinaire

By Beth Preheim, for publication in the New York Catholic Worker newspaper

On October 16, 2024, Michael Sprong passed away. This marked the end of a Catholic Worker run of 43 years.

You can literally say that Michael would give the coat off his back to someone in need. He once even gave away my winter coat! I soon found another one at a second-hand store. As a Catholic Worker, I really had to resist my urge to be annoyed by this. I share this vignette because it illustrates Michael’s gift of compassion at any cost.

I really loved this man. We shared a Catholic Worker life together for four decades. I hopped on the carousel of the Michael Sprong story first in 1984 at an action at the Strategic Air Command in Omaha and then later as friend, wife and life partner.

He lived by a phrase he coined early on: “Even if it turns slowly, it’s still a revolution.” In this way, he spent four decades practicing the principles of the Catholic Worker movement and his Anabaptist faith.

To say that each person comes to the Catholic Worker in a unique way is a bit cliché. Michael’s path, like a few others, could be described as upwardly mobile. He started at the “bottom.” He was a homeless teenage guest turned community member.

If you met Michael in his 40s, it could have been easy to jump to an assumption: white, male, Midwestern, eloquent, well-versed in history, politics, and religion. His transformation from street kid to erudite Catholic Worker was so complete that he felt at times type-cast as a college-educated liberal from a middle-class background – something he most definitely was not. He used it as a reminder that each guest may also be different than they first appear.

So, dear reader, this tribute will include a list of well-deserved accolades of a lifetime of Catholic Worker endeavors. But first, I’ll cover the context of his upbringing to show the full life of Michael Sprong.

Born in 1963, he began life in an intact family, a version of an American Dream of the 1960s. Then furniture started disappearing. Dad left. Mom and the kids moved into “The Projects” in a time full of racial tension and sporadic violence. Michael was repeatedly mugged for his lunch money. A car bomb explosion damaged the family car and apartment building. In one terrifying incident he was abducted and tortured.

Then the family ended up living in a car for a while until they were taken in by an intentional community of Mennonites and given shelter for a month.

The next tragedy hit at age nine. While riding his bike, Michael was hit by a car. In the first days after the accident, Michael lay in a coma. His mother was told that the internal injuries were severe and that Michael may not live. Two days later, so near death, he opened his eyes, blinked, looked at his mother and said: “Jesus took care of me.”

He spent months in recovery, first in traction, then a body cast. The family lived off the small settlement for a year.

Then for the next few years there was more precarity: evictions, sketchy caregivers, and food scarcity. At the age of 15, in order to create a safer life for himself, Michael left home and legally separated from his parents. And he was essentially without secure housing for the next three years. He managed to graduate from high school and then drifted off to Chicago where he scrounged for food and found a place to sleep in a dumpster.

Michael never forgot that being hungry for a day or even a week is different than the grip of hunger for years with no avenue for relief. It allowed Michael to provide hospitality without judgment, without the urge to fix the “wrecks of capitalism.” All his life, every day, he thought about how to make good use of food.

There were two notable experiences in this challenging childhood. First, after the car accident, he woke up not only in a broken body, but also with a different personality: one primed to be a Catholic Worker later in life. From that day forward, he had an intense drive to be compassionate to those in need and to those facing discrimination or injustice. He would later say that he went from being a scared little boy to a person with nearly reckless courage.

During this same time period another event happened that would change his life. While in elementary school, Michael read a story in the local newspaper about a young Mennonite man, David Rensberger. He was just 22 years and about to serve three years in prison for refusing alternative service to the draft during the Vietnam War. This young man explained his actions: “To the government are due taxes, respect and obedience to laws until they come in conflict with God’s law. To God belong our lives.”

This was the story that changed everything. Even as he was mocked by his family, Michael now had conviction in his heart.

This is such a Catholic Worker moment. How could David imagine that for 50 years his witness would shape the life of Michael Sprong. Michael was eight and would spend the next decade experiencing violence, insecurity, homelessness, poverty and pain. However, Michael did not give up on this seed of conviction which was later firmly planted into the Catholic Worker garden.

At the age of 18, Michael caught a ride with friends heading out west in search of a California dream. Fate intervened. His friends abandoned him at the Des Moines Catholic Worker, DMCW. And in this way, he was delivered into his life’s vocation as an activist in humanitarian service.

He was a teenager with nowhere to go and nothing to lose: no money, no possessions ‘cept the clothes on his back, and few skills other than those of street survival. At first Michael slept on a couch near a noisy furnace in the basement and scooted away an occasional mouse. So it was not exactly prime real estate.

His Catholic Worker superpower came in handy: he was indefatigable when it came to housework: washing dishes, cooking, doing laundry. He really could make himself useful when he rolled up to any Catholic Worker house, retreat, or event.

While initially he had no plans to stay at the DMCW, another twist of fate sealed the deal. The young men there were using the Worker as an organizing hub to resist registering for the draft. Already primed in conviction from elementary school, Michael jumped in. He had natural hutzpah and a gift for organizing.

During his four years in Des Moines from 1981 to 1985, he had immersed himself in Catholic Worker teachings while putting them into practice on a daily basis. He studied and practiced, wrote and acted, prayed and marched.

And from that start, he never stopped. In a dizzying array of retreats, campaigns, actions, and hospitality efforts, he forged himself into a central position in the Catholic Worker movement. He also branched out to the CW sister movements like the Socialist Party, Jonah House, the Community for Creative Nonviolence, Nukewatch, Christian Peacemaker Teams, the War Resisters League, and Pax Christi.

By the time Michael and I connected, I had a degree in English and was full of academic knowledge even if short on life skills. He was my equal in every sense of the word. I came from a Mennonite background. We joined forces and called ourselves both Catholic Workers and Anabaptists, such a wonderful pairing of both our traditions and our personalities.

As an organizer, he was known for being able to speak extemporaneously and distill complex topics into apt soundbites for the media. So he often got “volunteered” to be media spokesperson at actions.

His innate street sense made him really good at keeping cool in tense moments that crop up when doing hospitality. He could also keep the peace at actions and prepare people in nonviolence trainings. And he could talk to so many people from different walks of life. “Wow, how does he do that?” I would wonder. The short answer: He was brilliant!

Yet, he didn’t just ride the wave on luck and talk, he did his homework even when no assignment was due. Michael was diligent. He read slowly and retained deeply. He prepared thoroughly without being plagued by procrastination. In his spare time, he listened to “right wing” talk shows to understand arguments and perspectives. He read newspapers from around the world. He listened to NPR news by day and BBC world news by night. I had no tolerance for this for myself! So when we sat down for supper each night, I would say, “Tell me what’s going on.” And off we went. He could practice his summaries and soundbites on me.

Eventually in our life together we found the magic. He kept home life running smoothly. I developed a more conventional career for bread money which freed Michael up to travel, join campaigns, and take risks that might result in jail time. And we spent years living with folks in community to extend the work.

Here is a short summary of his associations in his long life as a Catholic Worker:

1981 – 1985 Des Moines Catholic Worker: hospitality and resistance

1985 Community for Creative Nonviolence: homeless advocacy and supporting work for a 1,000-bed shelter

1986 – 1989 Short stints to help support hospitality at Catholic Workers in Columbia, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Moorhead, Minnesota

1987-2009 Rose Hill Farm: peace and justice organizing, organic gardening, and running Rose Hill Books featuring distribution of books and publications about the Catholic Worker and peace activism

1990 Housing Now: a field organizer for a massive march on Washington for housing

1990-1991 Newton Area Peace Center (Kansas): coordinating peace activities during the Gulf War

1992 Election observer in war zones in the Philippines

1994 Election observer in war zones in El Salvador

1995: War Resisters League (New York City): organizing events around the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing

1998-2000 Des Moines Catholic Worker: a revitalization effort in hospitality and fundraising

2000 Anathoth Catholic Worker Farm and Nukewatch: a nuclear weapons disarmament (plowshares) action—cutting down poles at Project ELF with a trial and 60-days in federal prison

2003-2018 Yankton Catholic Worker: running Emmaus House, a hospitality house for women and children visiting loved ones in prison

Over 40 years Michael consistently worked on issues of peace and justice: resisting war, nuclear weapons and the military-industrial complex; working to end the death penalty; advocating for resources for those in poverty; working on racism and indigenous and tribal rights, and protecting the environment.

On Michael’s death certificate his official government occupation is listed as humanitarian activist. This sums up Catholic Worker, homemaker, gardener, public speaker, book publisher, editor, organizer, lobbyist, and a dreamer of all sorts.

In the decades in which we both did frequent press interviews, nearly every reporter would ask some form of the same question: “Is this effective?” Of course, they implied in the question that our actions were most certainly not effective. On the surface, we were the champions of lost causes.

The greatest gift of being around Michael Sprong was the elimination of this doubt. He could always find the beauty and meaning in our small efforts. He understood through his own life experience that, in transcendent and mysterious ways, inspirational acts change people. And then, changed people transform the world. This Catholic Worker life made us so much better. All the other good works are gravy.

Michael Sprong, with ever so humble labor by his heart and hands, did indeed help create a world in which it is easier to be good.