Catholic New York - Looking Good, Doing Good
November 8, 2010
MORE THAN SKILL—Father Andrew O’Connor admires combination alb-chasuble made and given to him by seamstress Maria Rivas, right. They are in workshop at Holy Family parish in the Bronx where his company’s clothing is made; Ms. Rivas is full-time employee. Label, right, lets buyers know they’ve made an eco-friendly purchase that supports workers in Guatemala and the Bronx.
How did a parish priest of the archdiocese, now serving in a moderate-income Bronx neighborhood, end up launching a high-end clothing line? And how is the business intertwined with his parish and his ministry?
The tale hangs upon a thread—many threads, actually, that connect Mayan weavers in Guatemala, seamstresses in New York and customers around the country who are ecologically savvy as well as fashion-minded.
The priest-entrepreneur is Father Andrew O’Connor, parochial vicar at Holy Family parish in the Bronx. His clothing business, called Goods of Conscience, manufactures clothing and accessories for men, women and children. All of its products are made with a special cotton cloth that is woven by Mayans in Guatemala. The weavers use an ancient process that produces a particularly strong and lustrous cloth.
The cloth is shipped to the Bronx, where Father O’Connor employs expert seamstresses who make the clothing in a parish workshop. Father O’Connor, who has a background in art, designs everything that is produced by Goods of Conscience. Clothing and other items are sold on-site and online.
As businesses go, this one is small, roughly the fashion equivalent of a microbrewery. But it’s growing, and it’s affecting the lives of many people.
Father O’Connor said in an interview that part of his purpose in founding the company was to help tribal people in Guatemala earn a decent living and to preserve an ancestral art. But he is equally focused on people at home.
“One of my primary purposes,” he said, “is to help parishes in New York.”
He operates Goods of Conscience as a benefice, a means of generating income to support parish ministries and other pastoral works. That’s part of his vision for contemporary parishes; he said they need to find new ways to raise funds to supplement what parishioners are able to give, particularly in economically depressed areas. Father O’Connor strongly believes that small manufacturing operations, using local talent and eco-friendly methods, can help to bridge budget gaps and provide many spiritual benefits. He hopes that Goods of Conscience will serve as a model.
He developed the idea after making a retreat six years ago in Guatemala, where he was deeply moved by the story of Father Stanley Rother, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City who went to Guatemala to work with the indigenous peoples there and was murdered by government mercenaries in 1981.
Father O’Connor, whose family is from Iowa, said that he identified with Father Rother as a Midwesterner and admired his “American-ness”—the way he retained his own culture while serving those of another culture. He added that Father Rother sought ways to make the native people “self-sustaining.”
Father O’Connor also was influenced by a priest he met in Guatemala who founded and runs a benefice: Father Gregory Schaffer of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minn., who set up a business that sells coffee beans grown locally by native peoples.
At the time, Father O’Connor—then serving at Holy Trinity in Manhattan—wanted new albs for his altar servers. He decided to design them himself and have them made in New York. Through a parish connection, he arranged to have the cloth woven in Guatemala.
It was the beginning of his own benefice.
He had an idea to create a fabric with a reflective fiber in it that would shine when it was photographed, “so that when the kids had pictures taken of themselves,” he said, “they would see the way God sees—that there’s a saintliness that isn’t always apparent that you’re participating in on the altar.” He found a company that manufactures a high-tech fiber made of glass, and developed a way for Mayan weavers in Guatemala to incorporate the fiber into their fabric.
“It’s trademarked,” he said. “I invented a way of making cloth that can’t be counterfeited.” He named the cloth Social Fabric. For his company name, he borrowed the phrase “Goods of Conscience” from Father Schaffer’s talks on Catholic social teaching.
After the albs, Father O’Connor designed tote bags; he sold them and donated the proceeds to victims of Hurricane Katrina. The bags are unique: they are made in the shape of a cross, and they close by means of zippers on all sides.
Next Father O’Connor moved into designing casual clothing for men and women: jackets, tops, pants and shorts for both, as well as women’s dresses. The men’s collection includes a clerical shirt, an alb and a chasuble. Specialty items include a reversible coat with lines from James Joyce’s “Ulysses” handpainted vertically on one side. Father O’Connor, who has a strong background in literature and Irish studies, did the elegant calligraphy.
Goods of Conscience clothing is costly compared with what’s for sale in department stores. A casual white shirt for men is $295; a white peasant blouse for women is $225. Prices are higher for dresses and jackets. But customers get what they pay for: the fabric is strong yet butter-soft, and the workmanship is impeccable.
The cost reflects the quality of the garments, Father O’Connor said, but he sees a value in them that goes far beyond that. The clothing is made in New York by New Yorkers, and that proves that small, local businesses can survive, thrive and provide employment locally, he said. He also wants people to place a higher value on each other’s talent and labor.
“Approaching the work that we do for each other as gift is a more humane and Christian economy,” he said.
The ecologically friendly Social Fabric shows good stewardship of the earth and concern for people, and those values are part of Catholic social teaching, he added.
Goods of Conscience employs two seamstresses in New York, and as many as five when business is brisk. Monthly sales vary from under $3,000 to as much as $20,000. The profits support three ministries that Father O’Connor calls “missions.”
Mission Bronx consists of marriage counseling “to keep the social fabric together,” he said. Mission Green teaches children in the parish about sustainability and care of the earth; Father O’Connor planted a garden and started a beekeeping venture, and he teaches the children to sew and do silkscreen. All of it is interwoven with Catholic social teaching. For Mission Guatemala, Father O’Connor makes school uniforms for children in the villages where Social Fabric is woven; he also sends funds to the local parishes there for food and school supplies, as well as medical care for the elderly.
Goods of Conscience has drawn some high-profile attention. It was featured in Vogue magazine, where the clothing was modeled by the actress Cameron Diaz.
Father O’Connor would like to see parish-based, small-business operations take hold elsewhere. He said that some of his customers are priests from around the United States and Canada who are interested in his philosophy. He’s teaching it—on his weekly day off—as an adjunct professor at Mercy High School in Middletown, Conn.
Goods of Conscience garments can be purchased at the company’s workshop at 2158 Watson Ave., the Bronx, or at www.goodsofconscience.com.
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