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The schema De Ecclesia

The final schema up for debate in the First Session was De Ecclesia with debate taking place from 28 November – 4 December was De Ecclesia.

Again, the Jocist bishops took the lead. In fact, trouble had begun inside the Doctrinal Commission when Léger and Garrone refused to endorse the proposed schema, Léger even threatening to resign from the Commission if he were not free to criticise it in the plenary.

SOURCE

Stefan Gigacz, The Leaven in the Council, Chapter 7, The Council opens without Cardijn (Australian Cardijn Institute)

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Council adopts Message to the World

At its Third General Congregation on 20 October 1962, the Council Fathers adopted a Message to the World, as originally suggested earlier by MD Chenu.

Chenu’s draft text, which he had discussed with his confrere, Yves Congar, was viewed by conciliar bishops as based too much on ‘natural morality.’

“[T]his was normal terrain for dialogue with non-believers, but it had no chance of being accepted by a Council,” according to Archbishop Emile Guerry.

“The draft made no mention of the Saviour. It therefore had to be discarded.”

The draft text was reworked by Cardinal Liénart, Guerry, Archbishop Garrone of Toulouse and Lyon Auxiliary Bishop Alfred Ancel, all jocist bishops.

Chenu was not satisfied, criticising its “division between nature and grace.”

The final version was “drenched in holy water,” he felt.

Congar agreed that the text was “more dogmatic” than Chenu’s draft and felt it suffered from shades of paternalism.

At this stage of the Council, though, the priority was to find a text acceptable to the Fathers. Thus, Council Secretary-General Archbishop Pericle Felici presented the revised message “as a proposal of the Council of Presidents approved by the Pope.”

This is an unofficial translation of the original Latin text:

We wish to convey to all men and to all nations the message of salvation, love and peace which Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, brought to the world and entrusted to the Church.

In fact, it is for this reason that we, the successors of the apostles, all united in prayer with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, forming one single apostolic body whose head is the successor of Peter, are gathered here at the invitation of His Holiness Pope John XXIII.

Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we intend in this meeting to seek the most effective ways of renewing ourselves and of becoming increasingly more faithful witnesses of the Gospel of Christ.

We will strive to propose to the men of our times the truth of God in its entirety and purity so that they may understand it and accept it freely.

Conscious of our duties as pastors, we wish deeply to meet the demands of those who seek God “and perhaps grope after him and find him though he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17: 27).

Faithful, therefore, to the mandate of Christ, who offered Himself a holocaust “in order that he might present to himself the Church in all her glory … but that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27) we shall devote ourselves with all our energies, with all our thoughts toward renewing ourselves and the faithful entrusted to us, that the image of Jesus Christ, which shines in our hearts “to give enlightenment concerning the knowledge of the glory of God” (II Cor. 4:6) may appear to all people.

We believe that the Father loved the world so much He gave His Son to save it; and that He freed us from the slavery of sin through this same Son, “that he should reconcile to himself all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens, making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20) that we might be called and truly be His sons.

Moreover, we receive the Holy Spirit from the Father that, living the life of God, we may love God and our brothers, with whom we are united in Christ.

We, therefore, the followers of Christ, are not estranged from earthly concerns and toils. Indeed, the faith, hope and charity of Christ urges us to serve our brothers in imitation of the example of the Divine Master who “has not come to be served, but to serve” (Matt. 20:28).

Neither was the Church born, therefore, to dominate but to serve. “… He laid down His life for us; and we likewise ought to lay down our life for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).

While we hope that the Faith may shine more clearly and brightly from the work of the council, we also expect a spiritual renewal which may provide a happy impetus for human welfare; that is, the findings of science, the progress of the arts and of technology, and a greater diffusion of culture.

United here from every nation under heaven, we carry in our hearts the anxieties of all peoples entrusted to us, the anxieties of body and soul, sorrows and desires, and hopes. We turn our mind constantly toward all the anxieties afflicting men today.

Our concern is directed especially to the more humble, the more poor, the weaker, and, in keeping with the example of Christ, we feel compassion for the throngs who suffer hunger, misery and ignorance.

We are constantly attentive to those who, deprived of the necessary assistance, have not yet reached a standard of living worthy of man.

For this reason, in performing our earthly mission, we take into great account all that pertains to the dignity of man and all that contributes toward the real brotherhood of nations. “For the love of Christ impels us” (2 Cor. 5:14); in fact, “He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17).

Here are two great problems facing us:

In his broadcast message of Sept. 11, 1962, His Holiness Pope John XXIII stressed two points especially. First of all, he recommended everything that favors peace among peoples.

There is no man who does not detest war and who does not ardently desire peace. This is the greatest wish of the Church who is the mother of all. Through the voice of the Roman Pontiffs, she has never ceased to proclaim not only her love for peace, but also her resolve for peace, always ready to give herself wholeheartedly and effectively to every sincere proposal.

She tends, furthermore, with all her strength, to unite all peoples and to create among them a mutual esteem of sentiments and of works.

Is not this conciliar assembly — admirable for its diversity of races, nations and tongues — a testimony of a community bound by fraternal love which it bears as a visible sign?

We proclaim that all men are brothers, irrespective of the race or nation to which they belong.

Secondly, the Pope urges all to social justice. The doctrine outlined in the encyclical letter, “Mater et Magistra” (Mother and Teacher), clearly shows how the Church is needed by the world today to denounce injustices and shameful inequalities and to restore the true order of goods and things so that, according to the principles of the Gospel, the life of man may become more human.

We have neither the riches nor the powers of the earth, but we place our faith in the strength of the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus Christ to His Church.

Therefore, we humbly and ardently invite all to collaborate with us to establish in the world a more ordered way of living and greater brotherhood. We invite all, not only our brothers of whom we are the pastors, but all our brothers who believe in Christ and all men of good will whom “God … wishes … to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4).

In fact, it is the divine will that the kingdom of God through the means of charity, shine even now, in a certain sense, upon earth, almost in anticipation of the eternal kingdom.

It is our ardent desire that the light of the great hope in Jesus Christ our only Savior may shine, in this world which is still so far from the desired peace because of the threats engendered by scientific progress itself — marvelous progress — but  not always intent upon the supreme law of morality.

Despite its limits, the message “played the very important role,” historian Andrea Riccardi noted, “of accentuating the Church’s expression of sympathy for the world” while several ecclesiological themes it raised “would become supremely important during the Council.”

SOURCE

Stefan Gigacz, The Leaven in the Council, Chapter 7, The Council opens without Cardijn (Australian Cardijn Institute)

Text of Council’s Message to World (Vatican II @ 50)

PHOTO

Catholic Press Photo / Wikipedia

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Election results announced

On 20 October 1962, the results of the elections for the conciliar commissions were announced.

In addition to the 160 elected bishops, John XXIII added nine appointed members bringing the total number in each commission to twenty-five.

Although there was no Jocist ‘ticket,’ the results revealed a significant representation of movement-linked bishops in nearly every Commission.

This was particularly so in the all-important Doctrinal Commission on Faith and Morals (Doctrinal Commission) and in the Lay Apostolate Commission (LAC), which now had the clumsy, formal title of Commission on the Apostolate of the Faithful, Press and Public Spectacles [sic], each of which each included at least eight such bishops.

Doctrinal Commission

Elected

Gabriel-Marie Garrone, longstanding proponent of the JOC
Joseph Schröffer, who participated in the IYCW Rome pilgrimage in 1957
Alfredo Scherer, a JOC supporter from Brazil
Paul Emile Léger, a Canadian proponent of the SCA movements
André-Marie Charue, who had links with the Belgian JOC back to 1924
Marcos McGrath CSC, Holy Cross father and JOC patron in Panama
Maurice Roy, pioneer JOC chaplain, cousin of Quebec JOC founder, Henri Roy

Appointed

Bishop Georges Pelletier, Canadian bishop closely linked to the SCA movements

Lay Apostolate Commission

Elected members

Manuel Larrain, pioneer of Specialised Catholic Action in Chile
Franz Hengsbach, bishop of Essen, seat of the German JOC/CAJ
Jacques Ménager, bishop responsible for Catholic Action movements in France
John E. Petit, an English bishop close to the YCW
Joseph Blomjous, of Dutch origin, supporter of the SCA movements in Tanzania
Paul Yu Pin, JOC pioneer in China before coming to Formosa (Taiwan)
Gerardus De Vet, director of (Specialised) Catholic Action, Breda, Netherlands

Appointed

René Stourm, an early JOC chaplain in France

This gave the Jocist bishops close to a third of the numbers in each of these commissions, with the former responsible for the future Lumen Gentium, and both responsible for the eventual Gaudium et Spes.

Other members of the LAC also supported the JOC and Specialised Catholic Action to varying extents, including Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez, the Salesian archbishop of Santiago, who admired Cardijn, Emilio Guano, a former International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-Pax Romana) chaplain from Italy, as well as Castellano and Luigi Civardi
from Italian Catholic Action.

The Doctrinal Commission also included Vienna Cardinal Franz König, who had known Cardijn for decades particularly through the Pax Romana network.

A notable absentee in the LAC, however, was Cardijn’s Belgian ally, Charles-Marie Himmer, whose nomination had been opposed by Suenens, who confirmed this in a 16 October 1962 letter to Veronica O’Brien of the Legion of Mary:In any event, the 65 Belgian missionary bishops are behind me – which is not the case for the seven here (i.e. the seven diocesan bishops)… I felt this in De Smedt’s manoeuvres which aimed to place Himmer on the list of candidates for the Catholic Action Commission (i.e. Lay Apostolate Commission). I told him privately that I did not agree with the idea but he publicly returned to the charge for him to be included on our list.

Indeed, Suenens was ‘very isolated among the Belgian bishops on account of his ideas of the lay apostolate,’ as Congar noted, although he remained undeterred in his campaign against the alleged ‘monopolisation’ of Catholic Action.

Other Commissions

Promisingly, every other commission also included a Jocist presence.

Bishops and Government of Dioceses

Emile Guerry, another French JOC pioneer
Pierre Veuillot, previously in the Holy See, connected to France’s Mission ouvrière

Discipline and Sacraments

Alexandre Renard, Liénart protégé, involved in the Ecole Missionaire du Travail in Lille

Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People

Guillaume Van Zuylen, bishop of Liège, Belgium
Agnelo Rossi, JUC/JIC chaplain from Brazil
François Marty, JOC/JAC chaplain in France
Thomas Cooray omi, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Religious

Gerard Huyghe, bishop of Arras, another Liénart protégé and promoter of SCA
Jean Janssens SJ, the Jesuit Superior General and close friend of Cardijn

Missions

Guy Riobé, bishop of Orleans, JAC chaplain and promoter of JOC and ACO
Jean Zoa, bishop of Yaoundé, Cameroon, former JOC chaplain
Cardinal Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, a Cardijn disciple since the 1930s

Liturgy

Henri Jenny, Sillon sympathiser from Lille, and auxiliary bishop to Guerry at Cambrai
Joseph Malula, JOC chaplain from Congo Kinshasa
Enrique Rau, former national chaplain of JOC Argentina
Bernardo Fey Schneider, former national chaplain of JOC Bolivia
Seminaries, Studies and Catholic Education
Ramon Bogarin, JOC founder in Paraguay
Denis Hurley omi, Cardijn disciple from South Africa
Emile Blanchet, participated in 1950 JOC Internationale congress, Brussels
Justin Simonds, Melbourne co-adjutor and long-time JOC supporter

Christian Unity

Christian Unity
Emile-Joseph De Smedt, former JOCF chaplain and close to Cardijn

, former JOCF chaplain and close to Cardijn

Oriental Churches

Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh

SOURCE

Stefan Gigacz, The Leaven in the Council, Chapter 7, The Council opens without Cardijn (Australian Cardijn Institute)

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Cardinal Liénart upends the Council agenda

The first business session, or First General Congregation of the Council, took place on Saturday 13 October.

The opening item was the election of sixteen Council Fathers to each of the ten conciliar commissions.

Before Cardinal Tisserant, the session president, could begin, however, Cardinal Achille Liénart of Lille rose to make a statement that would upend the Council’s work.

Like many others, Liénart was unhappy with most draft schemas. As he later recalled, the objective, as defined by John XXIII, was not ‘to formulate new doctrinal definitions, but rather to present, in a form better adapted to modern minds, all the truths already established… that [the Church] had the mission of transmitting to every generation.’

This meant, Liénart believed, that the gathered bishops had to develop ‘une pensée commune’ – ‘a common way of thinking’ – as a basis for ‘the total revision of their pastoral attitudes and to engage the Church in the new way where its permanent mission called it today?’

Consequently, the choice of the ‘the most qualified’ commission members was of the greatest importance. But how to identify them if they did not know each other, he asked:

Abruptly, I leaned towards the Cardinal president to tell him in a low voice: ‘Eminence, it is truly impossible to vote like this… If you allow me, I am going to take the microphone.’ ‘I cannot give it to you,’ he replied… So, I said to him, ‘Excuse me but I am going to speak…’.


I rose… to request that a reasonable time be given so we could better inform ourselves of the best election candidates…. Cardinal Frings, archbishop of Cologne, who was sitting beside me at the presidency table, also rose to offer his support and the applause doubled.

This forced the hand of the presidency breaching the stranglehold that the Roman Curia had exercised over the Council. Although Liénart denied that his intervention was ‘a coup planned ahead,’ other bishops had approached him, and even provided him with draft texts for his intervention, including his compatriots Cardinal Joseph-Charles Lefebvre, Garrone and Ancel. Camara apparently also wanted a postponement, while others such as the South African Denis Hurley ‘knew what was brewing.’

SOURCES

Stefan Gigacz, The Leaven in the Council, Chapter 7, The Council opens without Cardijn (Australian Cardijn Institute)

Daybook, Sessions 1-2, 24: https://vaticaniiat50.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/council-daybook-vol-1-opening-general-congregation/

Achille Liénart, “Vatican II” in Mélanges de Science Religieuse, 33, Numéro Supplémentaire (1963): 63.

PHOTO

Le cardinal Liénart (à droite) avec Mgr Dubois pendant le concile Vatican II / Roman Catholic Diocese of Besançon / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0

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A proposed new chapter on lay apostolate

On 15 January 1962, Cardijn again wrote to Archbishop Garrone of Toulouse thanking him for his letter of 10 January and following up with further proposals.

“In an earlier note to His Eminence Cardinal Cento, I expressed the wish that the importance of the apostolate specific to the laity should be highlighted in the documents of the Commission with a special chapter, either before or after the chapter on the family apostolate,” Cardijn noted.

“I took the liberty of sending you a copy of that previous note.

“I have now attempted to draft the contents of this chapter in the note that I am now sending you – a copy is attached,” Cardijn continued, referring it seems to his Note 12 “The essential and irreplaceable apostolate of lay people.”

“I don’t know if such a chapter could find a place among the documents already proposed by the three Sub-Commissions.

“I am sending it to you, Excellency, in order to let you know how much the question haunts me. Please excuse me for daring to be so forthright.”

SOURCE

ORIGINAL FRENCH

Joseph Cardijn – Gabriel-Marie Garrone 15 01 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Joseph Cardijn – Gabriel-Marie Garrone 15 01 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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Garrone backs Cardijn

On 9 January 1962, French Archbishop Gabriel-Marie Garrone of Toulouse responded to Cardijn’s 29 December 1961 letter expressing his concerns over the draft documents of the Preparatory Commission.

“You were able to see how much I share your concerns during our last meeting,” Garrone began.

“I believe that everyone agreed on the effort to be made and the direction to go,” he continued, defending the members of the commission. “Actually, we are currently faced with the problem of implementation.”

Nevertheless, he said he agreed with Cardijn’s concerns.

“I think that all your remarks are justified, and I am also quite favourable to your conclusions, in particular on p.3, regarding social action: the opening statement concerning the apostolate of the laity obviously applies to the whole whole and this needs to be explicitly marked.

“This statement is expressed quite well theologically. However, it still needs to be given that impetus to make an impact, and also to show the application of these remarks to the whole field of work.

“In my opinion, it is here that what you are asking for at p. 4, paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 needs to be said,” he said.

More needed to be done, he agreed, however.

“I understand that Mgr GLORIEUX had sought to constitute a small team,” he noted.

“But in a somewhat private manner,” he added, in a clear indication of the delicate problems that existed in the Preparatory Commission.

“We could perhaps hope that there will be a more explicit investiture for the last phase of the work which will be final,” he concluded.

“See you soon, dear Monsignor. We must trust in Providence and speak with the total frankness that is required.”

SOURCES

FRENCH ORIGINAL

Gabriel-Marie Garrone – Joseph Cardijn 09 01 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Gabriel-Marie Garrone – Joseph Cardijn 09 01 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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Clergy “ignorant” of lay apostolate

On 29 December 1961, Cardijn wrote to Archbishop Gabriel-Marie Garrone of Toulouse, a long time supporter of the JOC and Specialised Catholic Action as well as a member of the PCLA, to express his growing concern over the failure of the latest documents from the Prep Com on Lay Apostolate to clearly explain the lay apostolate.

Significantly, Garrone had also published a book of his own entitled “L’Action Catholique” in 1958 in response to Suenens’ article criticising an alleged “monopoly” of Catholic Action by the Specialised Catholic Action movements. Now, just a month after Suenens’ appointment as archbishop of Malines-Brussels and therefore as Cardijn’s episcopal superior, Cardijn seeks Garrone’s aid.

“I’m sorry to trouble you by sharing the anguish I experience when, after a long absence in Latin America, I find on my desk the three documents from our Commission on the lay apostolate, social action and charitable action,” Cardijn began.

“Will the tone and arrangement of these texts produce the necessary impact to enable the Church and the world today to understand the importance that needs to be attached to the proper and irreplaceable apostolate of the laity in their secular life, in their living environments (milieux), in the face of the problems of our contemporary world and humanity as a whole, as well as in the indispensable organisations and institutions that must provide a positive solution to these problems?” he asked.

And he did not mince his words:

The older I get, the more I’m terrified by the ignorance and virtually the nonchalance of the clergy regarding the apostolate of the laity, as secular problems in the solution of which lay Christians are involved by their very character as lay people and which they must assume as Christians. This ignorance seems widespread to me, even if we can count some very beautiful exceptions.

In previous months, I sent several notes on this subject to the Commission.

The three documents that I mentioned above, even if they mention the apostolate proper to the laity in various places, they fail to highlight it, because they disperse the various aspects that they deal with too widely. The document “De Apostolatu Lalcorum” among others, does not present these in a chapter that provides a synthesis: notion of this proper apostolate, importance and necessity, essential formation, etc. One might almost say that the fish was drowned… 

While the family apostolate as described in Document TC 3 – chap. V does make more impression, even though it neglects certain aspects, this is because it is gathered in a single chapter. Should we not do the same for the apostolate of the laity as such and in its own domain: life, milieux, problems of life, institutions, etc. Moreover, the family apostolate is only one of the most important aspects of the lay apostolate.

“I have taken the liberty of sending these reflections that I am copying to you in this envelope to His Eminence Cardinal Cento,” he added. “I have also sent them to Monsignor Glorieux.

“Perhaps it’s too late?” he asked. “In any case, I felt that I had to unburden my conscience,” he added in a strong indication of the level of his concern.

Moreover, these were not the only documents that concerned Cardijn.

“I could have made the same remarks regarding the documents – which I received three days ago – on international life and Christian unity,” he noted.

“What a field for the apostolate of the laity, in their daily life, in their daily relationships with other Christians! What work and what field of action, for the formation of public opinion and the spirit of responsibility! And yet we are still only at the beginning,” finishing with a positive slant.

“In all of this, moreover, the international, national and local levels have become so inseparable today!” he concluded.

SOURCE

FRENCH ORIGINAL

Joseph Cardijn – Gabriel Garrone 29 12 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Joseph Cardijn – Gabriel Garrone 29 12 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

REFERENCE

Gabriel-Marie Cardinal Garrone (Catholic Hierarchy)

Archbishop Gabriel-Marie Garrone

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Italian domination of the Sub-Commissions

Cardijn faced yet another problem when the members appointed to the three sub-commissions of the Prep Com on Lay Apostolate were announced.

Sub-Commission I: General notions and aspects more directly concerning evangelisation

Thirteen members were appointed to Sub-Commission I on Evangelisation (SCE), including Cardijn.

There were six Italians:

Bishop Ismaele Mario Castellano, the national president of the Italian Catholic Action movement, who was appointed as president of the SCE;

Mgr Luigi Civardi, the author of a well-known Manual of (Italian) Catholic Action;

Mgr Emilio Guano, who also had long experience with Italian Catholic Action but who was also deeply involved with the Pax Romana movements for students and intellectuals;

Archbishop Evasio Colli, who had been director-general of the Italian Catholic Action movement from 1939-43;

Roberto Tucci SJ, a Jesuit who specialised in communications;

Fr Aurelio Sabbatani, a canon lawyer and auditor at the Sacred Roman Rota.

There were three from France, all of whom had experience with the Specialised Catholic Action movements:

Archbishop Gabriel Garrone of Toulouse, who had been a promoter of the SCA movements since at least the early 1930s and who had recently published a book on the subject;

Fr Henri Donze, who had been national chaplain of the Action Catholique Indépendent (ACI), a movement for middle-class and business people;

Fr Henri Caffarel, a former chaplain with the French JOC national secretariat, who later founded the Equipes Notre Dame (Teams of Our Lady).

In addition, the Lebanese priest, Fr Antoine Cortbawi, had been a JOC chaplain, although he had difficulties with the movement and with Cardijn himself, who wanted him replaced.

Finally, there were Bishop Gabriel Bukatko from Croatia and Fr Cyril Papali OCD, an Indian expert on Hinduism and missiology teaching at the Urbanium in Rome.

Thus, Sub-Commission I on Evangelisation was numerically by the Italian participants, most of whom were from the Italian Catholic Action movement.

Once again, this was a huge step backwards from the 1951 and 1957 World Congresses on Lay Apostolate, which were organised by committees that were far more globally representative.

Sub-Commission II: Social action

From Cardijn’s point of view, the situation was somewhat better in Sub-Commission II on Social Action.

Here the president was German Bishop Franz Hengsbach of Essen, where the headquarters of the German JOC (CAJ) movement was located, and a strong supporter and ally of Cardijn.

Vice-president was Mgr Pietro Pavan, an expert on Catholic social teaching and a close friend of Cardijn, albeit lacking in direct experience of Specialised Catholic Action.

The other members were the American TV evangelist, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Fr Joseph Géraud, a professor of moral theology from the Specialised Catholic Action stronghold of Lyon , the Italians Mgr Santo Quadri and Agostino Ferrari Toniolo, French Fr Georges Jarlot, all experts on Catholic social teaching, plus Frs Portier, Ponsioen and the German Jesuit Johannes Hirschmann.

Sub-Commission III: Charitable action

The president of Sub-Commission III on Charitable Action was the Italian Bishop Ferdinando Baldelli of the Pontifical Mission Assistance.

Members were American Bishop Allen Babcock of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Fr Gasbarri, the French former JOC chaplain and founder of the aid organisation, Secours catholique, Jean Rodhain, the Austrian Catholic Action chaplain, Ferdinand Klostermann, the Catalan priest and Fr Albert Bonet y Marrugat, who had founded the FJCC, a precursor movement to the JOC, and finally the Spaniard, Fr Lopez de Lara.

Thus, while Cardijn certainly had allies in each sub-commission, it had been a tough few days in Rome. Not only did the Italians dominate numerically, there was only one non-European member of the whole commission.

It was clear that the road ahead would be difficult.

SOURCES

Achille Glorieux, Histoire du Décret ‘Apostolicam Actuositatem’ sur l’Apostolat des laïcs” in A. Glorieux, R. Goldie, Y. Congar, H.-R. Weber, G. Hasenhüttl, J. Grootaers, M-J. Beccaria, P. Toulat et H. Küng, L’Apostolat des Laïcs, Décret “Apostolicam actuositatem” (Sous la direction de Y. Congar), Séries Unam Sanctam 75, Cerf, Paris, 1970, 91-140.

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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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Members and consultors of the PCLA

L’Osservatore Romano published the full list of members and consultors for the new Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate in its editions of 1 and 16 September 1960.

In this initial round of appointments, Pope John named twenty-nine members and nineteen consultors to the PCLA, including many who had previous involvement in the 1951 and 1957 World Congresses on Lay Apostolate and/or one or other of the Specialised Catholic Action movements.

This is the list:

Archbishop Evasio Colli of Parma;

Archbishop Ismael-Marie Castellano, titular archbishop of Colossae;

Archbishop Gabriel Garrone of Toulouse;

Bishop Allen-Jacques Babcock of Grand Rapids;

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, auxiliary of New York;

Bishop Gabriel Bukatko, eparch of Krizevci;

Bishop Primo Gasbarri of Velletri;

Bishop Franz Hengsbach of Essen;

Bishop Ferdinand Baldelli, titular bishop of Aperle;

Mgr Aurèle Sabbatini;

Mgr (Bishop) Luigi Civardi;

Mgr (Bishop) Emile Guano;

Mgr Pietro Pavan;

Mgr Augustin Ferrari Toniolo;

Mgr Joseph Cardijn;

Joseph Géraud;

Mgr Santo Quadri;

Mgr Ferdinand Klostermann;

Mgr Jean Rodhain;

Mgr Antoine Ramselaar;

Fr Albert Bonet Marrugat;

Fr Antoine Cortbawi;

Fr Henri Donze;

Fr Cyrille-Bernard Papali, O.C.D.;

Fr Jena Hirschmann, S.J.;

Fr Paul Lopez de Lara, S. J.;

Fr Robert Tucci, S. J.;

Fr Georges Jarlot, S. J.;

Fr Jean Ponsioen, S.C.J.

CONSULTORS:

Archbishop Emmanuel Trindade Salgueiro of Evora;

Archbishop Owen McCann of Cape Town;

Archbishop Ambroise Rayappan of Pondicherry and Cuddalore;

Archbishop Bernardin Gantin of Cotonou;

Bishop Emmanuel Larrain Errâzuriz of Talca;

Bishop Joseph Blomjous of Mwanza;

Bishop Boleslas Kominek, titular bishop of Vaga;

Bishop Bryan Gallagher of Port Pirie;

Bishop Benedict Tomizawa of Sapporo and Apostolic Administrator of the Prefecture of Karafuto;

Bishop Joseph Armand Gutierrez Granier, auxiliary of La Paz;

Bishop Reginald-John Delargey, auxiliary of Auckland;

Mgr Ferdinand Lambruschini ;

Fr Henri Caffarel;

Fr Victor Portier;

Fr Raymond Spiazzi, O.P.;

Fr Salvatore Lener, S.J.;

Fr Peter Pillai, O.M.I.;

Fr Wiliam Ferrée, C.M. ;

Fr Vincent de Vogelaere, O.P.

Among the members of the Commission with jocist links – apart from Cardijn himself – we can identify Gabriel Garrone, Jean Rodhain, Henri Donze, chaplain to the French Action Catholique Indépendent, Henri Caffarel, a former JOC national-secretariat chaplain who founded the Teams of Our Lady from France, Franz Hengsbach from Germany, Albert Bonet, founder of the JOC affiliate in Catalonia, and Antoine Cortbawi from Lebanon.

The consultors also included several with close ties to Cardijn, the JOC and the Specialised Catholic Action movements, notably Larrain but also McCann, Gantin, Blomjous, Gallagher, Gutierrez Granier, Delargey and Pillai.

SOURCES

J. Bouvy, “Composition des Commissions préparatoires du II Concile oecuménique du Vatican,” in Nouvelle Revue Théologique 82 N° 8 (1960): 861-869.

Stefan Gigacz, Vatican II bishops with links to Cardijn, the JOC and other SCA mvts