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Commission on Bishops and Diocesan Government

L’Osservatore Romano announced the members of the Commission for bishops and government of dioceses on 30 July 1960.

Three bishop members of the Commission had direct experience of the jocist movements:

Archbishop Emile-Maurice Guerry of Cambrai, who had helped found the JOC and other movements in Grenoble, his diocese of origin. He had also written widely on the theology of Catholic Action.

Bishop Georges-Léon Pelletier of Trois Rivières had been a Catholic Action in Montreal prior to his appointment as a bishop;

Bishop Pierre Veuillot of Angers had worked with Montini at the Vatican Secretariat of State before becoming a bishop.

The sociologist-priest Canon Fernand Boulard had long experience with the French JAC and carried several famous sociological enquiries on the Church.

The consultors included:

Archbishop Justin Simonds of Melbourne, a longstanding champion of the YCW, who had first learnt of the movement while studying at Louvain during the late 1920s;

Bishop Helder Pessôa Câmara, auxiliary of Rio de Janeiro, who had been an early JOC chaplain in Brazil as well as responsible for Catholic Action in the nation;

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International Catholic Organisations meet in Munich

Marguerite Fiévez - L'action des OIC

The Conference of International Catholic Organisations held its General Assembly in Munich, Germany from 26-30 July 1960.

Marguerite Fiévez presented a 25-page report entitled “L’action des O.I.C.” to the meeting.

This was based on responses from 15 out of the 35 ICOs that belonged to the conference.

SOURCE

Marguerite Fiévez, L’action des O.I.C. (Archives Cardijn 1314)

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Mgr Achille Glorieux

Secretaries

On 15 July 1960, the Sunday Examiner reported on the appointment of Mgr Achille Glorieux as one of five secretaries appointed to the Preparatory Commissions.

“For several years, he served as Apostolic Delegate for missions in Africa dependent on the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and later as Apostolic Delegate to British East and West Africa,” the Examiner noted.

“Mgr. Glorieux, 50, was born in Lille, and was for a time ecclesiastical assistant of Permanent Committee for the Apostolate of the Laity. At present, he is director of the French edition of L’Osservatore Romano, and Rome correspondent for La Croix, the great Catholic daily published in Paris.”

SOURCE

Press cutting (Archives JOCI)

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Four draft schemata

At the request of Cardinal Afredo Ottaviani, the president of the Preparatory Theological Commission, the Jesuit Fr Sebastian Tromp had prepared three draft schemata:

a) De Ecclesia: On the Church

b) De deposito: On the deposit of faith

c) De rebus moralibus et socialibus: On moral and social issues.

At the request of Pope John, Tromp with the help of S. Garofolo now added a fourth outline:

d) De fontibus revelationis: On the sources of Revelation.

SOURCE

J.A. Komonchak, Chapter III, The struggle for the Council during the preparation of Vatican II, in Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak (ed.), History of Vatican II, Vol. II, Peeters, Leuven, 1995, 229.

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Central Commission

On 6 July 1960, L’Osservatore Romano published the names of the members of Central Commission responsible for coordinating the work to be done by the ten preparatory commissions.

Cardijn knew and had good working relationships with three of the most senior of these men, all of whom were officials of the Roman Curia:

Pietro Sigismondi, Secretary of the S.C. of the Propaganda Fidei;

Antonio Samoré, Secretary of the S.C. for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs; and

Angelo Dell’Acqua, Substitute at the Secretariat of State.

Although Cardijn may well have known or had contact with some of the other officials of the Central Commission,