Acclaimed actor Martin Sheen was the guest speaker and received an honorary doctor of letters degree when Marquette University dedicated the new John P. Raynor, S.J., Library recently.

It would be fair to say that Sheen’s speech made some in the audience uncomfortable as the actor focused on a variety of social justice issues in an uncompromising fashion.

A Catholic, Sheen works tirelessly as a humanitarian and social activist. He credits the Catholic Worker Hospitality House in New York, operated by Dorothy Day, with helping him through a period of poverty as a young person. Day and the people associated with the Catholic Worker Movement had a profound effect on him. Sheen has been a supporter of their efforts ever since.

The $55 million library is named in honor of the Rev. John P. Raynor, S.J., who served as president of Marquette from 1965 to 1990. Sheen, an award-winning actor, director and producer, is currently a cast member of the Emmy Award-winning NBC television drama The West Wing, where he portrays President Josiah Bartlet.

Marquette University preserves the archives of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, now housed in a state-of-the-art archive facility in the new Raynor Library. Marquette’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives has held the Dorothy Day-Catholic Worker Collection since the 1960s as part of its mission to collect in the areas of Catholic social action.

Sheen’s acting roles include portraying Peter Maurin (one of the founders of the Catholic Worker Movement) and Mitch Snyder (a Vietnam veteran who fought for America’s homeless by staging hunger strikes and protesting various government agencies).

Off screen, Sheen promotes social justice as a parish volunteer in soup kitchens and youth programs, as a nonviolent demonstrator against activities such as nuclear testing and the former School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., and as spokesperson for such causes as the United Farm Workers and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.