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A sub-commission of lay leaders?

A day after meeting with the JOC, ACO and the FIMOC, Cardijn wrote on 27 September 1960 to Mgr Achille Glorieux, who had been appointed secretary to the new PCLA.

“We met in Paris yesterday with the leaders of the ACO, FIMOC and JOC Internationale to examine the possibility of international collaboration. We also considered how each movement itself and all together we could do useful work by sending to the Lay Apostolate Commission and even to other commissions one or more documents proposing a study of certain issues and experiences of solution in the field of the worker apostolate, both young and adult.

“During our discussions, we even asked if we could not propose the creation of a sub-commission comprising lay leaders and militants to submit to the Pontifical Commission their point of view, experiences as well as the wishes of the lay apostles themselves with respect to the apostolate to which they had devoted their whole lives.

“This sub-commission could work at international level or diversify into continental sub-commissions, which would examine the issue from an even more realistic perspective on a continent by continent basis.

“The issue of the worker apostolate seems to me to be so important within the ensemble of issues of the lay apostolate that I do not hesitate to ask you if it would be opportune to make such a proposal.

“If you could consult His Eminence Cardinal Cento on this subject, you could then suggest to use the right attitude to take. I am ready myself to come and speak with His Eminence if he judges it opportune.

“This collaboration of the laity themselves in the preparation of the coming Ecumenical Council seems highly opportune to me at the moment when the World Council of Churches in Geneva is preparing its own World Congress in New Delhi next year on the theme “Christ, Light of the World” and has issued an enthusiastic call to the faithful of all faiths, as well as at a time when Moral Rearmament has redoubled its activity in Africa with all African parties as well moreover will all people of colour,” Cardijn wrote.

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JOC leaders meet with Christian Worker movements

FIMOC-ACO-JOCI 25 09 1960

On 25 September 1960, JOC Internationale leaders, Romeo Maione and Maria Meersman, met for “Conversations” with leaders of the French Action Catholique Ouvrière (ACO) and the Fédération Internationale de Mouvements Ouvriers Chrétiens (FIMOC).

The three movements had been in contact and “conversation” since 1958. Discussions were under way about the possibility and the desirability of uniting the ACO, the member movements of the FIMOC and other JOC-inspired Christian Worker movements around the world in a broader international movement that would take the place of the FIMOC.

History of the FIMOC

In 1920, Dutch and Italian Christian democrats proposed to the Belgian Federation of Worker Leagues (Fédération des Ligues Ouvrières) the creation of an international structure.

Conferences in Cologne in 1929 and in Utrecht in 1931 and 1934 led to the creation of an “Association internationale sociale chrétienne” which brought together employers, workers groups, farmers groups and middle class (professional) groups.

According to Jacques Meert, eventually, only the worker wing remained. After World War II, a Swiss initiative sought to revive this leading to a first European meeting in 1948.

This led in 1952 to the foundation of the Fédération internationale des mouvements ouvriers catholiques.

Since then the ACO in France had also emerged as a Specialised Catholic Action movement but which was not part of the FIMOC.

This led eventually to discussion of the creation of a new international movement bringing together the various strands of the Christian worker movement.

Celebration of the 70th anniversary of Rerum Novarum

In the short term, however, the meeting looked into a proposal to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, which was due in May 1961, with an event that would take place in Rome coinciding with the anniversary.

SOURCE

Fédération des cercles ouvriers catholiques belges (Wikipedia.fr)

Jacques Meert, Note introductive sur l’évolution de l’action sociale chrétienne au niveau international (Archives Cardijn 1304)

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Need for a “clear view of the world”

On 24 September 1960, Yves Congar sent a 17-page untitled document to Fr Tromp and and other members and consultor commenting on various schemata of the Theological Commission.

“He urged that the Council undertake its view with a clear view of the world in which the Church was living: where one of every four people was Chinese and one of every three was under Communist domination, where divided Christians were nurturing hope for reunion, where practical atheism and technocracy were prevalent, where colonialism and paternalism were rejected, where women were seeking to advance themselves,” writes Joseph Komonchak.

“The schemata compendiosa, on the other hand, appeared to have been written for the world in which the First Vatican Council met.”

“He criticised their emphasis upon formal questions of authority, neglect of the substantive content of the Gospel, primarily negative view of the contemporary world, abstract and scholastic style, omission of crucial current issues, and lack of ecumenical interest.”

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, 233-34.

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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

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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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Archbishop Gabriel-Marie Garrone

Gabriel-Marie Garrone

An undated and unidentified press clipping in the JOCI Archives, probably from the French Catholic paper, La Croix in September 1960, notes the appointment to the Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate of Archbishop Gabriel-Marie Garrone of Toulouse, “one of the French prelates who had taken a very keen interest in the Action Catholique Ouvrière,” the Workers Catholic Action movement.

Press clipping (Archives JOCI)

Originally a priest from the Diocese of Chambéry in the French Alps, Garrone had been an early and ardent supporter of the JOC and other Specialised Catholic Action movements.

In 1958, he published a short book entitled “L’Action catholique,” explaining the importance of the Specialised Catholic Action movements.

SOURCE

Press clipping (Archives JOCI)

Gabriel-Marie Garrone, 50 years of Church life (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Gabriel-Marie Garrone (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Gabriel-Marie Cardinal Garrone (Catholic Hierarchy)

Gabriel-Marie Garrone (Wikipedia)

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Cardijn appointed to the PCLA

Cardijn’s planned five month trip to Africa had to be cut short, probably because of the Congo Crisis that was already under way.

This meant he was back in Brussels to receive his letter of appointment to the newly constituted Pontifical Commission on Lay Apostolate (PCLA) to prepare for the Council.

“I have just received from His Eminence Cardinal Tardini the announcement of my appointment as a member of the Pontifical Commission on the Apostolate of the Laity for the preparation of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,” he wrote immediately to Cardinal Cento.

“I will be so pleased to be able to collaborate in the work of this Commission under the presidency of Your Eminence.

“A few weeks ago, I wrote to Your Eminence to say how much the problem of the apostolate of the laity concerned me and how desirous I was to work to seek an increasingly effective solution to this important question.

“Events prevented me from continuing my trip to the Congo,” he explained. “I was unable to travel to the countries of East and Southern Africa and I had to return to Brussels via Brazzaville.

“I will shortly communicate a short report of my trip that I am drafting for the Secretariat of State and Propagande Fide,” Cardijn concluded.

SOURCE

Cardijn au Cardinal Cento 1960 09 07 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)