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)