Streiff appointed to the Lay Apostolate Commission

On 31 January 1963, Mgr Jean Streiff, the secretary for Catholic Action in France, wrote to Mgr Achille Glorieux informing him that Cardinal Liénart had forwarded him a letter appointing him as a peritus for the Lay Apostolate Commission.

Paris, 31 January, 1963

Monsignor GLORIEUX

Commission Secretary

Apostolatu Laicorum

Opizio S.Marta

Vatican City – ROME

Ref.63/47

Dear Monsignor,

His Eminence Cardinal LIENART, back from Rome, sends me a letter of appointment and a card of “Peritus” from the Council.

He asks me in his letter to place me at your disposal immediately, which I gladly do.

In a few days we have a meeting of the National Committee for the Apostolate of the Laity and we have included in the program  the remote preparation of the World Congress and the search for the best method to work usefully and efficiently on the texts that you kindly sent us.

Be assured, dear Monsignor, of the assurance of my prayers for your work which affects us so closely in the expression of my religious and very friendly sentiments.

Monsignor Jean STREIFF

Secretary General of Catholic Action

SOURCE

Archives Streiff St 11 467 (Institut catholique de Paris)

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

First preliminary meeting of Conciliar Lay Apostolate Commission

The new Commission on the Apostolate of the Faithful, as it had been named despite the protests of its secretary, Mgr Achille Glorieux, and others held a preliminary meeting on 22 November to discuss its new mandate to draft an abbreviated ‘Decree on the Laity’ – not on ‘lay apostolate’ – in place of the Constitution originally proposed.

Still informally known as the “Lay Apostolate Commission,” its mandate was to establish ‘general principles’ under three main headings:

a) the apostolate of the laity in the service (actio) of the reign of Christ;

b) the apostolate of the laity in charitable and social works;

c) societies of the faithful, based on a schema for a ‘Decree on the Societies of the Faithful’ which had been prepared by the Preparatory Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and Faithful.

These instructions clearly maintained the structure of the original schema that had frustrated Cardijn.

Worse, writes Stefan Gigacz, the change in name of the Commission from ‘Apostolate of the Laity’ to ‘Apostolate of the Faithful’ amounted to an unambiguous rejection of the line he had championed, although it continued to be known (in protest) as the Lay Apostolate Commission.

SOURCE

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

Thanks but no thanks

On 15 March 1962, Mgr Glorieux wrote to Cardijn acknowledging receipt of Cardijn’s notes containing his reflections on the latest draft documents from the Prep Com.

Although Glorieux thanks Cardijn, his answer cannot have given much encouragement to the founder of the JOC.

HE Cardinal Cento immediately passed me your latest letter, requesting me to thank you for it. I myself received the same documents in the following mail delivery, and I want to express our gratitude to you without delay.

We are in the process of revising the texts, first each SC separately, with two Members from each SC working together next week. Your suggestions were already mentioned while we were gathering comments; they take on even more force in your recent Note. As there will be very few of us to carry out the work, it is not necessary to send us other documents (which would moreover risk arriving too late). – Thank you also for the detailed remarks on the various documents

On behalf of His Eminence and the small Secretariat group, I also take this opportunity to send you our fervent and cordial good wishes for the feast of Saint Joseph. We will pray for you.

Be assured, dear Monseigneur, of my respectful attachment in Xo.

SOURCE

Original French

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn 15 03 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

English Translation

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn 15 03 1962 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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)

Copy to Cardinal Cento

On 8 August 1961, Cardijn wrote to Preparatory Commission president, Cardinal Fernando Cento, enclosing a copy of the letter he had sent a day earlier to Mgr Glorieux in relation to young domestic workers.

“I am taking the liberty of communicating to your Eminence the letter that I have just sent to Monsignor Glorieux concerning my intervention at the last session of our Conciliar Commission, as well as with respect to several other points that concern me,” Cardijn wrote.

Evidently, he was not satisfied with what was being done in response to his concerns and wanted to make this clear to Cento in his usual polite way.

“I apologise for disturbing Your Eminence in this way, bringing to your attention concerns of which You are very well aware, but which I again humbly submit to your authorised judgment,” Cardijn emphasises.

And he concludes with reference to the death the day before of Cardinal Van Roey, who was well known to Cardinal Cento who had been nuncio to Belgium from 1946 to 1953.

“Your Eminence certainly shares the mourning which has struck the Church of Belgium with the death of His Eminence Cardinal van Roey. I am struck by the unanimity expressed in this mourning, not only among Catholics, but also among the whole population and the whole of the press. Everyone recognises the righteousness and greatness of the Eminent Primate,” Cardijn concluded.

SOURCE

FRENCH ORIGINAL

Joseph Cardijn – Cardinal Fernando Cento, 08 08 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Joseph Cardijn – Cardinal Fernando Cento, 08 08 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Social and economic defence of young workers

On 7 August 1961, Cardijn wrote to Mgr Glorieux expanding on his proposal for action on the issue of young domestic workers.

“Prior to receiving your letter, I had written the attached short note on Proposals 50 and 51, on the subject of the family,” Cardijn wrote. “The secretariat will decide whether it should still be taken into account.”

“Note Ri 55 seems to address my concerns about the plight of domestic workers, especially younger ones. We should perhaps add the social and economic defence of these young employees. An organisation which brings together and helps young domestic workers, in which they themselves are trained to train and support each other, seems to me very advisable. The JOCF in Chile and Brazil have taken the initiative to launch such an organisation, within the JOC movement itself, with excellent results.”

Moving on, he raised questions – indeed perhaps frustration – about the method of work being followed by the Preparator Commission.

“At the point the work of the Commission has arrived at, would it not be useful to provide its members a copy of all the proposals adopted so far? This would help us to gain an overview of these Proposals in order to be able to evaluate and add to them.”

And he again returned to his primordial concern for the “apostolate of the laity.”

“Personally, I am very concerned with the apostolate of the laity – individual, but above all organised – in their lay life, in their lay environment, at the heart of the problems and institutions that influence them; I am referring to the proper and irreplaceable apostolate that the laity must exercise personally or through their organisations with respect to secular problems.

“Can we not highlight even more the importance and the necessity of this and underline the formation which the laity need, as well as the indispensable collaboration with the Hierarchy, as much for their formation as for their action?” he asked.

And it is an issue that he sees as important in the ecumenical or even inter-religious context as well.

“The problem seems so important to me for the years to come! Catholics and non-Catholics alike expect a clear and definite declaration from the Council on such a fundamental point. This statement needs to make an impact, both inside and outside the Church.

“I apologise for returing to this point so often. I hope that after the International Council of the YCW in Rio (November 1 to 23), I will find more time to put on paper a few moer concrete observations concerning the distinctions to be made regarding the direct and indirect apostolate as well as, apostolic, social and charitable action, collaboration between chaplain and lay leader, relations between the Hierarchy and the laity.

“I will be in Rome from 23 to 28 October and will leave from there directly to Rio de Janeiro. Do not forget us in your prayers!” Cardijn concluded.

SOURCE

FRENCH ORIGINAL

Joseph Cardijn – Achille Glorieux 07 08 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Joseph Cardijn – Achille Glorieux 07 08 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Domestic workers issue to be addressed

On 28 July 1961, Mgr Glorieux sent a card to Cardijn enclosing documents from the recent Prep Commission meeting where Cardijn had raised the issue of young domestic workers.

“In the last line,” Glorieux informs Cardijn, “mention is made of your important intervention on domestic workers and the suggestion by Cdl Cento: not to decide anything at the moment regarding the most suitable place to discuss this; however, it will be done.”

SOURCE

ORIGINAL FRENCH

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn, 28 07 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn, 28 07 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Ecumenism and the lay apostolate

On 11 July 1961, Prep Com secretary, Mgr Achille Glorieux, wrote to Cardijn acknowledging receipt by Commission president, Cardinal Cento, of a letter “forwarding him the Declaration of the Executive Committee of the International YCW on Ecumenism on the day before the General Session of our Commission.”

“He already thanked you in person during your stay with us; but he would like me to emphasise again the significance he attaches to this document and that you, Mr Maione, and Miss Meersman, receive an expression of his gratitude,” Mgr Glorieux wrote.

“This question of ecumenism undoubtedly also concerns the apostolate of the laity; various projects are under way regarding this issue. It was also good that we also had the point of view of the JOC on this: by inviting all local, federal and national YCWs to make an effort in this area, you are greatly contributing to this mutual understanding without which we cannot hope for rapprochement.

“I am pleased to transmit these thoughts of the Cardinal to you, dear Monsignor. I add my personal gratitude for the document received and, even more, for everything that you contributed to the last General Session, both during the meeting at the Vatican and during the Chancellery meetings.”

SOURCE

ORIGINAL FRENCH

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn, 11 07 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Achille Glorieux – Joseph Cardijn, 11 07 1961 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)