Comblin’s book on the setback to or failure of Catholic Action

On 2 November 1962, Delarge wrote to Fiévez asking if he could attend the celebration of Cardijn’s 80th birthday on 2 December.

He also addresses the problem raised by the fact that Editions Universitaires had published Joseph Combin’s book, Echec de l’Action Catholique?, and asks for details of Cardijn’s views of the book.

SOURCE

Archives Cardijn 1778

1962 11 02 – Delarge – Fiévez

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

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)

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.

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;