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The schema De Ecclesia

The final schema up for debate in the First Session was De Ecclesia with debate taking place from 28 November – 4 December was De Ecclesia.

Again, the Jocist bishops took the lead. In fact, trouble had begun inside the Doctrinal Commission when Léger and Garrone refused to endorse the proposed schema, Léger even threatening to resign from the Commission if he were not free to criticise it in the plenary.

SOURCE

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

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Schema on Social Communications

The discussion on the schema on social communication took place over three days from 23 November and was the least controversial topic to be discussed, writes Stefan Gigacz.

Indeed, René Stourm, introducing the discussion, joked that it was introduced to provide an opportunity for relaxation! But he was completely serious in his proposals.

‘There are three things that we have always kept in mind,’ Stourm noted:

a) We wanted to affirm that the Church has a duty to teach that it cannot fulfil … if does not place the press and other means of communications at its service;

b) We wanted to affirm the Church has a right to educate, and thus the duty to encourage the press… and the duty to remind all those … concerned by these obligations of their obligations and responsibilities…

c) We wanted to affirm that the work of the Church in this field must be coordinated… (Emphases added)

Such an organisation needs to be established at international, national and diocesan levels.

In other words, the Church’s work in the field of social communications must serve, educate and represent (or be coordinated), Stourm proposed, explicitly following the old Jocist formula.

Moreover, a major criticism of the schema, coming from those with a Specialised Catholic Action background, such as Cardinals Tarancon and Léger was that the media was an area more suitable for lay people than priests.

SOURCE

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

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Ottaviani introduces schema on Revelation

On 14 November 1962, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani presented the schema on Revelation for debate.

He lauded the pastoral value of the schema since it was based on truth, which remained always and everywhere the same.

Pushback from the Council floor was immediate, led once again by Liénart’s immediate non placet, supported by Alfrink, Frings, Bea, König, Suenens, Léger, Ritter and Patriarch Maximos IV.

Stefan Gigacz sums up the debate:

As deadlock emerged, it was Ancel who proposed that Pope John might appoint additional experts from the opposing school of thought to prepare a completely new schema.42 Now another Cardijn ally took the floor, namely De Smedt, who criticised the lack of ecumenical spirit in the draft schema. In a statement that met with thunderous applause, he warned that ‘if the schemas prepared by the Theological Preparatory Commission are not drafted in a different manner, we shall be responsible for having crushed, through the Second Vatican Council, a great and immense hope.’

It was during this debate that a purported opposition between ‘doctors’ (teachers) and ‘pastors’ began to be articulated. This drew a swift response from the French bishops, who, aware that they were regarded as favouring the pastoral approach, wanted to eliminate any misunderstanding. ‘The separation between doctrine and pastoral is inadmissible,’ stated Archbishop Guerry in an interview with La Croix:


It is a mistake. It weighs like an ambiguity on the Council because it risks ending up by dividing the Council Fathers into two groups: on one side, those who faithfully safeguard and defend doctrine; on the other, pastors concerned primarily with fulfilling their pastoral (mission)…’


Or to put it in terms of the Cardijn dialectic, the point was not to oppose ‘truth of faith’ and ‘truth of reality’ but to identify a method to reconcile them.

SOURCE

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

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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)