Posted on

36 Belgians in the Prep Coms

La Libre Belgique 19 01 1961

The Belgian paper, La Libre Belgique reported on 19 January 1961 that 36 Belgians, including of course Cardijn, had been appointed to the various preparatory commissions for the coming Second Vatican Council.

Others who were close to Cardijn, the JOC and/or other Specialised Catholic Action movements included:

Cardinal Jozef-Ernest Van Roey of Malines-Brussels, Cardijn’s own archbishop and a long-standing supporter, but now aged 87;

Bishop Emiel-Jozef De Smedt of Bruges, a dynamic young bishop (aged 52) who had worked with the VKAJ, the Flemish female JOC, and whose sister Livine, had been a fulltime worker for the VKAJ who had also helped launch the JOC in Germany;

Fr Bernard Botte osb, a Benedictine liturgist, who was prominent in the liturgical reform movement;

Fr Lucien Cerfaux, a Louvain theologian, New Testament scholar and expert in Paulinian theology, who had been advisor to Cardijn and the JOC during the late 1940s.

But others less sympathetic to Cardijn included the ambitious young auxiliary bishop of Malines-Brussels, Leon-Joseph Suenens.

A notable omission from the preparatory commissions was Mgr Gerard Philips, the Louvain theologian and author of an influential book Le rôle du laïcat dans l’Eglise, published in French in 1954, and in English as The Role of the Laity in the Church in 1955.

SOURCES

Archives JOCI

Cardinal Jozef-Ernest Van Roey (Catholic Hierarchy)

Bishop Emiel-Jozef De Smedt (Catholic Hierarchy)

Bernard Botte osb (Liturgical Leaders)

Stefan Gigacz, The liturgical movement and Catholic Action (Cardijn Research)

Lucien Cerfaux (Encyclopedia.com)

Lucien Cerfaux (Wikipedia.fr)

Posted on

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).