Draft Constitution on the Apostolate of the Laity circulated

On 21 May 196, the Prep Com Secretariat wrote to inform its members and consultants that the draft Constitution on the Apostolate of the Laity had been sent to the Central Commission for discussion in June.

The Secretariat further apologised for not having circulated the draft in advance to its members and consultants

It summarised the work of the Commission and its sub-commissions as follows:

“The Roman group of the First Subcommission held sessions on 27 February and 1, 5 and 7 March.

Next, each Subcommission held a special session, from 12-17 March, to prepare drafts that they could then be compared with each other in a common session.

“This session, in which two or three of the delegates from each Commission met, took place in the house whose name is “Domus Mariae,” for a whole day, morning and evening, from the 21 to 26 March,” the Secretariat explained.

It continued:

The first Sub-Commission had three additional sessions on the 27, 29 and 3 March.

Finally, from the 2-8 April, a Plenary Session was held in which the text of the “Constitution of the Apostolate of the Laity” was proposed to the Members for voting.

The Secretariat then prepared the copies which were handed over to the Central Commission for printing on 14 April.

Finally, the Secretariat congratulated Mgr Aemilio Guano on his appointment as a bishop.

SOURCE

Archives Cardijn 1584

REFERENCE

Bishop Emiliano Guano (Catholic Hierarchy)

Reflections on Proposals 50 and 51

These are the very concrete reflections on the life that Cardijn sent to Mgr Emiliano Guano regarding Proposals 50 and 51 from the Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate.

REFLECTIONS ON PROPOSALS 50 AND 51

De actione sociali familiali – De apostolatu a familia exercendo

The two texts need to be compared so that they complement each other and meet current needs:

       1. Many young people are prevented from founding a Christian home because of unemployment, lack of family housing, and thus live in an irregular marital life: it is the same for many newlyweds who, for lack of work or family home encounter insurmountable or almost insurmountable difficulties in having a truly Christian married life. The more privileged Christian families have a duty to promote testimonies of community mutual aid and the social institutions indispensable to a truly human and Christian social-family order.

       2. Heads of families – husbands and parents – who hire domestic workers (maids) for their families, have a grave obligation – especially in the case of minors – to take the necessary measures to safeguard their health, their moral welfare and their future and to monitor the conditions that could compromise them: comfortable and safe bedroom, organised work and salary. In some continents, statistics show that prostitutes are ex-servants, who have been poorly housed, badly treated and abandoned. Young domestic workers need protection and above all training appropriate to their profession and their life: protection and training which should be provided through belonging to the JOCF (Girls YCW), either one of its branches or services (1).

(1) This second proposition could be included in the chapter on women (De actione sociali in specie – Pr. 54)

SOURCE

FRENCH ORIG

Joseph Cardijn, Refléxions à propos des Propositions 50 et 51 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Joseph Cardijn, Reflections on Proposals 50 and 51 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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