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Archbishop Felici’s ‘pastoral orientations’

Secretary of the Roman Curia and Secretary-General of the Preparatory Commission for the Council, Archbishop Pericle Felici presented his understanding of John XXIII’s desire for a “pastoral” council in this speech delivered in Turin on 13 September 1961.

L’Osservatore Romano published the text of the address in its 29 September edition, which is marked in blue pencil by Cardijn.

Click on the above images to view full size.

SOURCE

L’Osservatore Romano, 29 septembre 1961, p.4. / Archives Cardijn 1579.

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The Layman and the Council… Does the Layman ‘Belong’?

Romeo Maione, a Canadian with long experience in the lay apostolate is currently international president of the Young Christian Workers. He sends this article from Belgium. He recently visited Rome for meetings in connection with the anniversary of the social encyclicals of Leo XIII and Pius XI. He will return to Canada at the end of this year to become assistant to the director of the Social Action Department of the Canadian Catholic Conference.

By ROMEO MAIONE

A few years ago, a small group of highly regarded theologians met to discuss the role of the layman in the Church. The principal result of their discussion nicely illustrates a central problem in the life of the Church today. For nothing like a consensus on the role of the layman came out of the meeting. The theologians could agree only that the layman is neither priest nor Religious. Around the world. hopes are running high that the Fathers of the forthcoming Ecumenical Council will have something positive to say about the role of the layman. And there is good reason to believe that these hopes are well-founded. In response to the calls of modern popes, laymen have begun to shoulder more and more responsibility for action. Indeed, the question is no longer whether laymen can bear the responsibility of carrying the Christian message into everyday life, but how far to go.

Lay apostles sincerely attempting to “restore all things in Christ” according to the mandate of Pope St. Pius X are asking for clarification of the limits of their responsibility and the extent of their autonomy. In the absence of a consensus on the necessary distinctions, too-easy solutions have often been provided. Those who have advanced near temporal-spiritual distinctions, and would limit the involvement of the Church in our time to the purely spiritual level, have learned that circumstances demand something more. Many questions are heard, but perhaps the most familiar and the most critical could be put this way; “How far can the lay apostolate go into the temporal order without committing the Church to detailed, debatable, political or economic programs?”

The failure to resolve this question led to the division of the vast and well-organized family movement in France in 1950. One element wanted to plunge into the political field to solve the pressing housing problems, while others insisted the movement remain purely educational. The movement finally split, and the French hierarchy set up a new apostolate to insure live spiritual development of the two movements. Other examples of how pressing this particular question can be have occurred in Australia, Italy and Spain. In Australia, a lay apostolate organization called simply “the Movement” did a very effective job of clearing the communists out of the trade unions, then tried to clean up the small minority of communists in the Labour Party The Labour Party asked the Movement to stop its activities. It didn’t. The Labour Party condemned the Movement and, in time, the Movement split the Labour Party. In Italy, the ACLI (Associazione Christiano Laboratore Italiano), one of the major Italian lay worker movements, is facing a crisis because many of its leaders are also members of parliament. The Church has called on the organization to get out of politics. An ACLI leader can no longer take a responsible job in the political field. The Temporal-spiritual division, it appears, is better made in books than in life. The average worker neither has the theological background nor the time to treat frontiers of action as textbook exercises.

He knows that as a lay apostle. he is called to be a good politician. As the leader of an organized movement, it is his job to develop an apostolic spirit among members, encouraging them to take positions on moral issues in political and economic life, the temporal order. 

At least in Europe, the question of the day is, how far can an apostolic movement go into the temporal order? It cannot escape the attention of the Council. 

In Europe, of course, the rural society in which the Church was actively present and very much involved is gradually giving way to a new and industrialized Europe. This evolution is much slower than in the U. S. In America, the “new ideas” about the lay apostolate came to a new country. In Europe, they germinated and grew in a well established order. Today, the Church in Europe is trying to free itself from the “old order” so that it can embrace and bring the good news to the developing new way of life. In an effort not to be identified with the old ways, some advocate that the Church completely remove itself from the temporal order. 

This, of course, would reverse the whole movement of the lay apostolate to date. From a state of suspended animation, the laity has now been awakened, and responding to the Popes, is attempting to meet some of the serious crises of our age. And inevitably, the spiritual and temporal interests intersect. 

It would be difficult to pinpoint the moment in modern history when the laity was awakened. The lay apostolate itself is, of course, not a new thing in the Church. Pius XII pointed this out to exponents of the lay apostolate attending the First World Congress of the Lay Apostolate in Rome in 1950. The apostles used the Roman roads, and laymen in those times did an effective job of spreading the good news of the Gospels everywhere. 

Pius XII repeated the exhortation of Pius XI in asking laymen to exercise an active apostolate in the Church. The words of both these modern Popes gave new life to many traditional lay organizations, and at the same time gave birth to new lay movements like the Young Christian Workers, Young Christian Farmers, the Young Christian Students, the Christian Family Movement, and a host of others. 

This revival of lay activity was also marked by the creation of international coordinating bodies, based in Rome, designed to implement the work of lay movements. The Conference of Catholic International Organizations, whose main office is in Fribourg, Switzerland, and the Permanent Committee for the Organization of the Lay Apostolate Congresses, whose offices are in Rome, are both working to develop the lay apostolate internationally.

The Permanent Committee for the Organization of the Lay Apostolate, which has already organized two international conferences on the lay apostolate in Rome, is planning a third to be held just after the Ecumenical Council. 

Although preparations for the Council and the work of its various commissions are shrouded in silence, it is becoming clearer that one of the central themes of the Council will be the question of the lay apostolate. One of the commissions of the Council will address itself exclusively to the problems of the lay apostolate. (It is interesting to note that this commission is the only one which does not depend directly on any of the congregations making up the Curia.) 

The setting up of this commission of the lay apostolate was greeted with great joy by laymen active In the affairs of the Church, although some were less than joyful to find that no laymen are present on any of the commissions, particularly the lay apostolate commissions. 

At a recent international meeting a lay leader was overheard to say, jokingly, “Well, it was the men who discussed the role of women in society and finally granted them the right to vote; it is now the turn of the clergy to release the potential energies of the layman.”)

Many lay leaders, particularly in Holland and Austria, have been openly discussing the absence of laymen in the preparatory work of the Council —and some high Church authorities have promised to bring the matter up in Rome. 

While one may regret the absence of experienced laymen in the preparatory work, one can rejoice at the impressive array of internationally-known clerics with first hand experience of the lay apostolate who make up the Commission which will deal specifically with lay matters. 

Fernando Cardinal Cento, the president of the Lay Apostolate Commission, was once a nuncio in Belgium and has first hand knowledge of the lay movements, especially the worker movements. Monsignor Achille Glorieux, secretary of the commission, was once a Young Christian Workers chaplain in France, and is now chaplain of the Permanent Committee for the Organization of Lay Apostolate Congresses. Monsignor Joseph Cardijn, international chaplain and founder of the Young Christian Workers, and Bishop E. Larrain of Chile, vice president of CELAM, the Latin American Council of Bishops, are two others on the commission.

(It was Monsignor Cardijn, incidentally, who was the first to make the see-judge-act method which Pope John recommends in Mater et Magistra as a central part of the modern lay movement.) 

The general lines of the commission study are apparent; the role of the layman in the Church and the relations between the lay apostolate organizations and the hierarchy, the problem of the limit and extent of the autonomy of the lay apostolate in the temporal order, all these will certainly be on the agenda. 

Many well-informed laymen seem to be reasonably sure that the Fathers of the Council will set up a Congregation for the Laity which will play an active part in the Curia. In any event, the question of the laity in the Church is bound to be taken up by several of the Commissions. 

The Commission on Theological Studies will discuss the doctrinal position of the laity. The Liturgical Commission will discuss the participation of the laity in the liturgy. The Seminaries Commission will approach the problem under the heading of the necessary formation of priests who will be formers of lay apostles. The Missions Commission will surely study the question of the laity when it discusses the penury of the clergy in mission lands, and in a more particular way, Latin America. This will lead to a discussion on the pastoral role of the layman in mission countries. 

Finally, the commission set up to deal with the unity of the Churches will be discussing the laity because of the increasing contacts between Catholics and non-Catholics in everyday life. So the laity will be very much present in the Council, sharpening the awareness expressed by Bishop de Smet of Bruges in a pastoral written in preparation for the Ecumenical Council. 

“Jesus continues His priesthood in the Christian community as a whole,” the Bishop wrote. “It is in it and by it that He offers sacrifice to the Father. It is by it and in it that He spreads His gospel. It is by it and in it that He will realize the consecration of the world. It is false to think that Catholic doctrine reduces the faithful to a passive state. It is inexact to pretend that they are but a flock of sheep, docile and forcibly resigned to being led by their pastors. If you have understood correctly. you will know that the Church is a cooperation of all the baptized who —together— form the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ.”

SOURCE

Romeo Maione, The Layman and the Council… Does the Layman ‘Belong’?, Pittsburgh Catholic, Thursday August 31, 1961 (Catholic News Archive)

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The International YCW

La JOC Internationale

At the request of the Prep Com on Lay Apostolate, Cardijn compiled a document – Note 5 – presenting the International YCW and its work which he sent to the Commission on 17 March 1961.

In Chapter I entitled, The Fundamental Content of the YCW, he presents its work under five headings:

  • a problem of pastoral work and lay apostolate;
  • an apostolic solution to this problem by lay people interested, formed and supported by the Hierarchy and mandated chaplains;
  • a method of formation, action, organisation and representation;
  • participation in a whole apostolate;
  • official relations with the Hierarchy.

In each instance, he backs up his presentation with citations from the speeches and writings of Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, often specifically addressed to the JOC and/or Cardijn himself. It is a perfect illustration of the success of Cardijn’s 35 years of advocacy with the Holy See.

The pastoral problem

“In each parish, in each diocese, in the whole Church, in the whole world, hundreds, thousands of young people each year enter into the life and milieu of work,” Cardijn begins. “They find themselves faced with the problems, dangers, influences, institutions to which it is impossible to face up to with a Christian and apostolic attitude if they are abandoned to themselves. This de facto abandonment is a disaster for themselves and the Church.

“They must be strongly united, to seek and find together a personal and collective solution to this grave problem: to be able to help and save the millions of their brothers and sisters at work. Thus, they bring a decisive cooperation for the future of the world of work.”

The solution

“All these young people who work are at the most decisive moment of their lives,” Cardijn continues. “They have an average age between 14 and 25 years, between school and marriage. This is why:

1. They must be formed themselves to discover the problems of their life, their human, religious and apostolic value; to themselves seek the solutions to all these problems.

2. They must learn to act as Christians and as apostles; to transform their specific life and that of their comrades, milieux and institutions of life; to create and develop an apostolic movement born from their life and their needs, thanks to which they acquire a sense of their responsibility both human and apostolic; to uphold on one hand solidarity with all young workers and on the other hand the indispensable collaboration with all institutions and organisations that must help them to resolve their problem.

3. They must learn to discover the supernatural, sacramental and liturgical sources which nourish the life of the apostolate, to discover the sense of the Church and the Hierarchy; to appreciate their terrestrial and eternal vocation in God’s plan of love, in Creation and Redemption.

This formation, a fundamental solution to the problem of working youth, it is the YCW which gives it to them.”

The method

He continues to outline the jocist method, beginning with the see-judge-act:

“The YCW teaches young workers to SEE the problems of their daily life and that of their comrades; it teaches them to JUDGE humanly and Christianly, and finally to ACT to provide a solution themselves — and first of all in their own life — to train their comrades in this transformation and to draw out the collaborations necessary for this.”

A life based method

“The jocist method of formation always starts from life, from its problems, needs and meaning; and it always come back (to life) in order to find and give a Christian response in all dimensions: personal, local, regional, national and international,” Cardijn emphasises.

“This formation is both active and doctrinal: it takes place through action in life, through responsibilities, based on enquiries, review of life, Gospel commentaries, talks which summarise, coordinate and enlighten these discoveries and realisations in life.

“The YCW does this formation first in the core groups of militants who are the leaven and the yeast among young workers and in the whole of working life; it also does this among and with the mass itself in order to drive it and change it. The YCW pursues this formation in view of a transformation, outside its daily action through multiple means:

  • meetings of militants; study circles, committees, recollections, retreats, etc;
  • mass meetings: assemblies and forums, team meetingsand events, evenings of life preparation, camps and workshops, clubs for games, etc;
  • Intensive formation sessions, study weeks, publications and campaigns;
  • educational services for the preparation of work, professional orientation, support during military service, preparation for marriage, holidays, leisure activities, etc;
  • collaboration with and activities with all interested institutions: public authorities, employers, trades unions, teaching bodies, etc.

Thus, the YCW is both and inseparably:

  • a SCHOOL OF FORMATION for working, Christian, apostolic and missionary life; 
  • a SERVICE or an ensemble of services to help young people in their daily problems, in their formation and their action:
  • an ORGANISATION or a stable and institutional union, open to all young people who work, and which coordinates all the activities and services mentioned above;

The YCW maintains its specific characters at the various levels of its development; on the local and parish level, on the regional or diocesan level, at the country level and at world level. All levels are united by a living and permanent link and make the International YCW  an organism, an institution of the Church, with the dimensions of the problem of working youth in the world.”

Catholic Action

After a section presenting the history of the movement and its achievements, Cardijn concludes by seeking to outline the more general application of the jocist methods:

1. It is an organisation (a movement) of lay apostolate, with a missionary character, directed and spread by lay people themselves, for the Christian solution of the problems of ordinary life. This organisation is ordinarily a school, a service, a representative body of the lay apostolate in life, in the milieux of life, in the institutions of lay life, and it transforms both this life, these milieux and these institutions of life. It takes root on the parish level and develops progressively to other levels, to the point where it becomes an international organism.

2. It is a lay organisation officially recognised by the Hierarchy, which gives it an official mission for the solution of a determined problem of the lay apostolate. The Hierarchy unndertakes with it (and vice versa) official relations which must aid it and support it in the accomplishment of the apostolic mission which is confided to it (statutes, nomination of chaplains, reports and consulations, etc.)

3.  Catholic Action is both specialised and coordinated. Specialised for the solution of problems that affect the person, belonging to a determined milieu, as a whole, with its whole life, its problems of life and their Christian solution. Coordinated for the collaboration between specialised organisations, and this, in view of the solution of the problems of the ensemble of the lay world, at every level: local or parish, diocesan, regional, national and international.

WISHES FOR THE FUTURE

And finally he sets out a series of desires that he would like the Council to take up:

  • May all priests, secular and religious, be better formed on all issues relating to the necessity and the importance of the apostolate of the lay person in the world today and in the collaboration to bring to the lay apostolage, at every level and at the dimension of the problems of the present world: The Church, light of the world!
  • May devoted and competent chaplains be liberated in each diocese and in each country for the organisations of the lay apostolate and more particularly in the most urgent and most strategic sectors of the present world.
  • May the official recognition of the apostolate of lay people (Catholic Action) and the mandate that is confided to it be more explicit and more formal and may one thus avoid incertainties, misunderstandings and competitive discussions.
  • May lay people be increasingly consulted by religious authorities and may their apostolate be more appreciated, in our concrete circumstances by the whole Church.
  • May a dicastery in Rome be charged with the study and assistance to bring to the apostolate of international organisations — both in the ICO and outside of it — and that international lay leaders take an effective part in this new institution.

SOURCE

French

Joseph Cardijn, Note 5 – La JOC Internationale (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

English

Joseph Cardijn, Note 5 – The International YCW (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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36 Belgians in the Prep Coms

La Libre Belgique 19 01 1961

The Belgian paper, La Libre Belgique reported on 19 January 1961 that 36 Belgians, including of course Cardijn, had been appointed to the various preparatory commissions for the coming Second Vatican Council.

Others who were close to Cardijn, the JOC and/or other Specialised Catholic Action movements included:

Cardinal Jozef-Ernest Van Roey of Malines-Brussels, Cardijn’s own archbishop and a long-standing supporter, but now aged 87;

Bishop Emiel-Jozef De Smedt of Bruges, a dynamic young bishop (aged 52) who had worked with the VKAJ, the Flemish female JOC, and whose sister Livine, had been a fulltime worker for the VKAJ who had also helped launch the JOC in Germany;

Fr Bernard Botte osb, a Benedictine liturgist, who was prominent in the liturgical reform movement;

Fr Lucien Cerfaux, a Louvain theologian, New Testament scholar and expert in Paulinian theology, who had been advisor to Cardijn and the JOC during the late 1940s.

But others less sympathetic to Cardijn included the ambitious young auxiliary bishop of Malines-Brussels, Leon-Joseph Suenens.

A notable omission from the preparatory commissions was Mgr Gerard Philips, the Louvain theologian and author of an influential book Le rôle du laïcat dans l’Eglise, published in French in 1954, and in English as The Role of the Laity in the Church in 1955.

SOURCES

Archives JOCI

Cardinal Jozef-Ernest Van Roey (Catholic Hierarchy)

Bishop Emiel-Jozef De Smedt (Catholic Hierarchy)

Bernard Botte osb (Liturgical Leaders)

Stefan Gigacz, The liturgical movement and Catholic Action (Cardijn Research)

Lucien Cerfaux (Encyclopedia.com)

Lucien Cerfaux (Wikipedia.fr)

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A fatal partitioning

On 19 December 1960, Yves Congar wrote to Henri Caffarel, former French JOC chaplain and founder of the Teams of Our Lady, lamenting the division of labour among the various preparatory commissions.

“An unfortunate impression that I had in Rome is the fatal partitioning between the different bodies and, worse still, between the different topics of specific doctrines,” Congar wrote.

“It is clear that a real work, De Laicis, can only be presented in ecclesiological synthesis: it’s all of one piece.

“What is said about the laity will be worth as much as the presentation of the Church.”

SOURCE

Congar Archives

Joseph A. Komonchak, The struggle for the Council during the preparation of Vatican II, Chapter III, Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph Komonchak (eds);, History of Vatican II, Volume I, 197.

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Members of secular institutes are the only genuine lay people!

Another interesting comment from Congar, who had been talking to Mgr André Baron, the rector of the French church in Rome, Saint Louis des Français:

“He spoke to me a bit about the atmosphere. He is no longer on the commission for the laity but on the one for Religious.

“He told me that Opus Dei, which is spreading fantastically, is also spreading its own view according to which members of secular institutes are the only genuine laity!” Congar wrote, astonished.

Indeed, it was a view that Cardijn too would have completely rejected.

Congar adds, however, that Mgr Baron was full of praise for Cardinal Paolo Marella, who had just completed his term as nuncio in France (after also serving in Australia and New Zealand), and who therefore “had a good understanding and supported the French approach.”

Another potential ally at the Vatican!

SOURCE

Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, ATF Press, 2012, 25-35.

Yves Congar, Mon Journal du Concile, T. I, Cerf, Paris, 2002, 43.

“

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What a performance!

Cardijn’s friend and colleague, the French Dominican theologian, Yves Congar, who had just launched his own conciliar diary, has left us a colourful if not positively disdainful description of the launch ceremony for the newly constituted preparatory commissions:

“What a performance!” Congar wrote. “Papal gendarmes or Swiss guards in full uniform everywhere. The actual arrangements were impeccable. But what ceremonial, what a display of pomp! We were shown into a tribune, where I went and sat beside Fr de Lubac. The whole length of St Peter’s has been fitted out with tribunes, armchairs. A fantastic equipage of fellows in crimson uniforms, Swiss guards in helmets, holding their halberds with proud bearing. All the colleges in Rome have been mobilised and there were certainly a good ten thousand people present. Why? What a waste of time!

“At about ten minutes past eleven, the Credo was intoned and the Pope came in on foot. It was a good moment. But then the Sistine choir sang a theatrical “Tu es Petrus’: mediocre opera. The 10,000 people, the forty cardinals, the 250 or 300 bishops, said nothing. One only will have the right to speak. As for the Christian people, they are there neither by right nor in fact. I sensed the blind door of the underlying ecclesiology. It is the ostentatious ceremonial of a monarchical power.

“The Pope read a text in Italian which I did not fully understand, but which seemed to me very banal…

“Alas! After giving his blessing (alone, always alone, to the 10,000, the 300, the 40…), the Pope got up and departed, enthroned on the sedia;- stupid applause. The Pope made a gesture as if to say: alas, I can do nothing about it,” Congar concluded.

We have no record of Cardijn’s own feelings about the ceremony but Congar’s comments probably offer a good proxy – except that the JOC founder would, as always, have sought to focus on the positives of the event.

Moreover, Cardijn would have quickly latched onto the fact that among the large number of bishops and priests who were present, he did have allies, beginning with Congar.

These allies, whose presence is noted by Congar, also included the sociologist, Canon Fernand Boulard, the Belgian Dominican, Jérôme Hamer, Cardijn’s publisher Jean-Pierre Dubois-Dumée as well as Cardinal Liénart, Archbishop Emile Guerry and Gabriel Garrone, the latter of whom who had written a book explaining the concept of Specialised Catholic Action and defending it from critics including the Belgian, Léon-Joseph Suenens, an auxiliary bishop in Cardijn’s own diocese of Malines-Brussels.

SOURCE

Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, ATF Press, 2012, 25.

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John launches the Preparatory Commissions

On 14 November 1960, Pope John delivered a major speech to the cardinals, bishops, prelates, priests and religious who had been called to take part in the ten Preparatory Commissions for the Council.

He began by noting that “the Ecumenical Councils of the past responded mainly to concerns of doctrinal accuracy, various and important about the lex credendi, to the extent that heresies and errors tried to penetrate the ancient Church in the East and the West.”

He highlighted the contributions of five previous major Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Trent and Vatican I. He added that “the occasion for the gathering of the other fifteen Ecumenical Councils… was offered by various circumstances, and by the concern to safeguard, yes, the purity of the Church’s teaching on various points of doctrine, but also to the affirmation and direction of consciences disturbed in the face of events of a religious and political nature, in different nations or contingencies, referring however almost always to the supreme tasks of the ecclesiastical magisterium, at the service of order, balance, and social peace.”

Now, he continued, Vatican II needed to face the challenges of the modern world:

“In the modern age of a world with a profoundly changed physiognomy, and struggling to sustain itself amid the charms and dangers of the almost exclusive search for material goods, in the oblivion or in the languishing of the principles of the spiritual and supernatural order, which characterized the penetration and ‘to expand over the centuries of Christian civilization, in the modern age, therefore, rather than to one point or another of doctrine or discipline that should be referred to the pure sources of Revelation and tradition, it is a question of restoring value and splendor , the substance of human and Christian thinking and living of which the Church has been the custodian and teacher over the centuries.

“On the other hand, the deploration of the deviations of the human spirit tempted and pushed towards the sole enjoyment of the goods of the earth, which the modernity of scientific research now places easily within the reach of the children of our time, is certainly serious and even necessary. God guard us, however, not to exaggerate its proportions, to the point of making us believe that God’s skies are now definitively closed above our heads, that truly tenebrae factae sint super universam terram , and that there is nothing left to do but sprinkle our tiring journey of tears.

“Instead, we must take courage,” he said.

Great things were expected in fact, he continued:

“Great things indeed – we love to repeat – We expect from this Council, which wants to be able to reinvigorate faith, doctrine, ecclesiastical discipline, religious and spiritual life, and also a great contribution to the reaffirmation of those principles of the Christian order, on which the developments of civil, economic, political and social life also inspire and govern. The law of the Gospel must reach there and envelop and penetrate everything, everything, even what comes to us de rore caeli et de pinguedine terrae(11). Yes: to go there, which involves a conscious, elevated, sincere participation of all the components of the social order – priesthood and laity; established authorities; intellectual activities: work – social order completely occupied by the concern for the perfect union of the relations between heaven and earth: between uncertain and dangerous present life, and future eternal and very happy life in the proportion of our correspondence as men and Christians to the gifts of mercy of the Lord.’

SOURCE

Address of the Holy Father John XXIII to the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, prelates, priests and religious, called to be part of the preparatory commissions and secretariats of the II Vatican Council, Vatican Basilica, Monday 14 November 1960 (Vatican website)

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Seven lay people, all Italians

Lay people

With the various preparatory commissions beginning their work, the Vatican announced the appointment of seven lay men, all Italians, as “members of the administrative secretariat” for the Council. They were to carry out “important roles in the Vatican offices,” the announcement added.

This administrative secretariat was to be managed by “Count Galeazzi.” This appears to have been Enrico Galeazzi (photo above), an architect and engineer who had been responsible for Vatican restoration works, who had also been close to Pope Pius XII. He was also the director of the Knights of Columbus in Rome.

The other laymen were Messrs Menini, Musa, Quadrani, Seganti, Spadani and Vacchini.

SOURCE

Unidentified press cutting (Archives JOCI)

New Light on Pius XII Cause? (National Catholic Register)

Count Galeazzi with Pius XII
Count Galeazzi with Pius XII

PHOTO

Pope Pius XII talks with Count Enrico Galeazzi, the director of the Knights of Columbus in Rome, in this undated photo in an exhibit at the Capitoline Museum in Rome on the activities of the Knights of Columbus in the eternal city. (photo: CNS photo/courtesy of Knights of Columbus)

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Belgian Christian Worker movements send questionnaire to members

LOFC-MOC

On 7 October 1960, Emilie Arnould, a former JOCF leader, wrote to members of the Ligues des Ouvrières Féminines Chrétiennes (Christian Women Workers League) and of the Mouvement des Ouvriers Chrétiens (Christian Workers Movement) to invite them to respond to a questionnaire in preparation for Vatican II.

“The JOC Internationale and the FIMOC (Fédération Internationale des Ouvriers Chrétiens) are interested in this preparation,” she wrote.

The questions were:

1. – Quels sont les principaux obstacles à la pratique de la Foi dans le monde ouvrier ?

2. – Que souhaiteriez-vous voir s’améliorer dans la collaboration “prêtres-laics” pour ce qui concerne l’apostolat des militants ouvriers dans le monde des adultes ?

3. – Quels sont, en général, les autres voeux que vous voudriez exprimer pour le monde des travailleurs, compte tenu des différentes Commissions du Concile :

– liturgie,

– sacrements,

– enseignement de la religion ( enfants

( adultes

– accueil des convertis dans les paroisses,

– formation dans les séminaires, etc…etc…

4. – Autres réflexions.

English translation

“1. What are the principal obstacles to the practice of the faith?

2. What would you like to se improved in the collaboration between “priests and lay people” with respect to the apostolate of worker militants in the adult world?

3. In general, what are the other wishes that you would like to express regarding the world of workers, taking into consideration the various Conciliar Commissions:

  • Liturgy
  • Sacraments
  • Teaching of religion (children, adults)
  • Welcoming converts in parishes
  • Seminary formation, etc.

4. Any other reflections.

SOURCE

Archives Himmer (Diocèse de Tournai)

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Theological Commission

The initial members and consultors of the Theological Commission were named in three tranches, concluding on 16 September 1960.

Members of the Commission with experience of the JOC and/or other Specialised Catholic Action movements included:

Bishop Lionel Audet, auxiliary of Quebec Archdiocese, who was also president of the Catholic Action Commission of the Canadian bishops;

Bishop Joseph Schroffer of Eichstätt, Germany, who had participated in the 1957 JOC Pilgrimage to Rome.

Archbishop Alfred-Vincent Scherer of Porto Alegre, Brazil, was also sympathetic to the movement there.

There were also two Belgian theologians in the Commission both from Louvain:

Mgr Lucien Cerfaux had been a chaplain to the JUC, the Specialised Catholic Action movement for university students;

Mgr Gerard Philips had been a chaplain to the Flemish YCS movement and had often worked with Cardijn although he did always see eye to eye with the JOC founder.

Among the consultors, the French Dominican Yves Congar had worked closely with the JOC since the early 1930s while his confrere Michel Labourdette was also close to the movement.

The French Jesuit, Henri de Lubac, had been in close contact with the French JEC (YCS).

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Liturgical Commission

L’Osservatore Romano announced the appointments to the Commission on the Liturgy on 26 August 1960.

Members included Bishop Joseph Malula, a former jocist chaplain from the Belgian Congo, now auxiliary bishop of Léopoldville (now Kinshasa).

The Belgian Benedictine Bernard Botte OSB, who had also worked closely with the JOC, became a consultor.

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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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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,

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Cardinal Cento the president

On 9 June 1960, Cardijn wrote to congratulate Cardinal Fernando Cento, who had just been appointed as the president of the Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate.

“I cannot prevent myself from expressing to Your Eminence my very great joy at this remarkable appointment as the head of a Commission which will study what seems to me to be one of the most serious problems for the future of the Church,” Cardijn wrote. “I address my warmest and most warm congratulations to Your Eminence.

Cardijn had known Cardinal Cento since his time as nuncio in Belgium. Indeed, Cento had assisted Cardijn and the JOC when the movement faced criticism at the time of the holding of its 25th anniversary rally and international congress in Brussels in 1950.

Cento was thus also certainly very aware of Cardijn’s key role in the negotiations leading up to and including the holding of the First World Congress on Lay Apostolate in Rome in 1951.

Cento’s appointment must therefore have come as a great encouragement to Cardijn. Moreover, it meant that Cardijn’s longstanding Vatican nemesis, Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo, was not in charge.

Cardijn evidently wanted to assist as far as he was able. Yet even at the age of 77, he continued to undertake a punishing travel schedule. As he explained to Cento: “I also take this opportunity to let Your Eminence know the program of my trip to Africa. I intend to visit a large number of countries, but above all to attend the Pan-African Congress and the National and Regional Congresses of the YCW in the Belgian Congo.”

But he confirmed his later availability: “I will be back by the end of October or soon after and if I can give Your Eminence some collaboration in studying one or the other issue (e.g. the apostolate of working youth), I will be very happy to be able to place myself at His disposal for the work of the Commission.”

All things considered, it was a relatively promising beginning for the Commission.

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Pope John launches the preparatory commissions

On 5 June 1960, Pope John published a Motu Proprio entitled Superno Dei creating ten specialised commissions to work on preparing for the holding of Vatican II under the supervision of a Central Commission.

The proposed commissions were:

a) Theological Commission: To deal with issues relating to the Scriptures, sacred tradition, and the faith;

b) Commission for the Bishops and diocesan Governance

c) Commission on formation of the clergy and the Christian people;

d) Commission on religious principles;

e) Commission on the Sacraments;

f)  Commission on the Liturgy;

g) Commission on studies and seminaries;

h) Commission on the Eastern Churches;

i) Commission on mission;

i) Commission on the Apostolate of the Laity.

This tenth commission on lay apostolate was to deal with all issues relating to “Catholic Action as well as religious and social action.”

The Antepreparatory Commission under Archbishop Tardini had actually proposed six preparatory commissions. Now, however, Pope John had finally fixed the number at ten, including a commission on lay apostolate that the pope had decided upon himself, describing it as a “real innovation.”

Indeed, it was the first time that an Ecumenical Council had specifically addressed the issue of the apostolate of the laity.

According to Commission secretary, Mgr Achille Glorieux, a former JOC chaplain from Lille, France, this decision exercised “a great influence on the whole Council, contributing to highlight the place of lay people in the Church and the importance of their role in the apostolic mission of the Church.”

Did Cardijn himself have any particular influence on the pope in coming to this decision?

Although we have no documentation to clarify this point, it is significant that Cardijn had raised the issue of “the confusion” over lay apostolate issues in his audience with the pope less than three months earlier.

In any event, it is clear that the issue of lay apostolate was also a personal preoccupation of John himself.

SOURCES

Pope John XXIII, Superno Dei (Vatican website)