In his reflection, posted on 18 March, Stefan Gigacz shared with us the story of Blessed Marcel Callo (1921-1945), a leader in the YCW. What impressed me about Blessed Marcel was how he treasured his relationship with Christ, which he shared with others, an intentional faith shared courageously. He came to realise that it was his mission to bring out the best in those who suffered with him in the concentration camp in Mauthausen.
Fr Joseph Cardijn spent his adult life training young workers to be leaders who would seek to transform their fellow workers and their families. In his Keynote Address to the World Congress for the Lay Apostolate, held in Rome, 1951, which he titled “The world today and the apostolate of the laity,” Cardijn spoke about “the consciousness of, and will for, solidarity and interdependence in the world of workers themselves who become more numerous every day.”
Repressive regimes, such as that established by the Nazis, set out to destroy the creative energy and spirit of those who seek to unite and celebrate all that is good in life and in the world. Ultimately, the oppressors fail because of the solidarity of those who live to give glory to the Creator. The life of Blessed Marcel gives testimony to the truth of this view. The oppressors failed to crush his spirit.
I was taught at an early age that faith without actions is useless (James 2:20). Being arrested for being “too Catholic” did not deter Blessed Marcel from continuing to give witness to his faith through how he lived his life, especially in captivity. The Gospel reading for Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent presents Jesus’ teaching about faith in action promises eternal life (John 5:31-47). By his word and his example, Blessed Marcel demonstrated his commitment to the transformation of those he worked with in the concentration camp. And that transformation was accomplished through simple activities that united people in faith and in comradeship. None was more precious to him and his comrades than the celebration of the Eucharist.
The transformation sought by Cardijn and the young leaders in the YCW, was made possible through faith. In that concentration camp and wherever leaders committed themselves to following Christ, the actions built on faith brought together the temporal and the eternal: it was a foretaste of their destiny. How can this be achieved in our present age? Which actions bring heaven to earth? Which actions “reach out ahead” and pull the future into the present so that both are experienced simultaneously?
Like every saint before him, Blessed Marcel Callo drew on his faith in Christ for the strength he needed to draw people together and in the midst of the suffering that they shared, he involved them in creating pockets of happiness that enfolded them like shields of love. Small actions carried out in response to the signs of the times come from recognising and rejoicing in the presence of God in what is celebrated, or what is endured. Such actions may seem trivial, but they carry within their execution the seeds of transformation. They are the work of God carried out by those who seek to be God’s instruments of salvation.
Have you read Challenge to Action: Forming Leaders for Transformation? It is a collection of talks or lectures by Fr Joseph Cardijn, the founder of the Young Christian Workers. The original English edition was edited by Fr Eugene Langdale who was a pioneer of Catholic social work in England and a close friend of Cardijn.. Ordained in 1934, Fr Langdale was instrumental with others in bringing the YCW Movement to England. You can obtain a copy of the ebook from the Joseph Cardijn Digital Library.
The focus of Cardijn’s work was young workers, specifically the formation of leaders, who would be apostles to the masses of young workers in the world. The genesis of his mission was his experience of the negative impact of factory work on his peers. When he entered the junior seminary, they went out to work. He reported much later: “They were intelligent, decent, God-fearing. When I came back for my holidays they were coarse, corrupted and lapsed from the Church—whilst I was becoming a priest. I started to make enquiries, it became the obsession of my life. How did it come about that young lads brought up by Christian parents in Christian schools should be lost in a few months?”
The young priest Joseph Cardijn worked to empower young Christian leaders to transform the world of all workers. His mission is every Christian’s mission. It is the mission Jesus gave to his followers after his Resurrection and before he ascended to heaven. As with all good that is done in the world, evil is always present and more often than not, in the form of the status quo, the patterns of our lives that we protect from disruptive influences … and Cardijn was certainly a disruptive element in the Church and in the world.
We hear this story being told in the Gospel for Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent (John 5:1-16). In the Jewish society of the time of Jesus and the birth of the Church, work on the sabbath was forbidden. A man, who had been ill for 38 years, was lying on his mat in one of the five entrances to the pool of Siloam in the Temple precincts. It was the sabbath and the man was too slow to reach the pool when one of God’s angels stirred the water so that he could be cured. Jesus listened to the man’s story and healed him. When he picked up his mat, he was stopped by people who were scandalised by his sinful action – Jews are forbidden from working on the sabbath and carrying one’s mat constituted work, just as Jesus broke the law because he healed the man on the sabbath. Blind obedience to the letter of the law constituted the evil present in the Temple.
Our world is full of “good news” stories, which are told to teach people about the good in our society and to encourage them to be doers of good also. Rarely are stories told about “loving God.” It is as though faith is a very private thing and we should never give voice to the part that God plays in our good works. It would be politically incorrect to do so in our society.
Surely, therefore, there is a strong need, indeed, a demand for disruptive behaviour in the form of public proclamation of the good news of God’s presence and power at work in people’s lives. Let’s acknowledge in simple ways, the presence of God and openly praise and thank God. Let’s share our God-stories with our families and friends. Let’s be apostles to our neighbours.
If Christianity was a football club (say the Australian Christian Football Club – ACFC), and membership was the most critical indicator of the club’s viability, how would the ACFC fare?
Who is responsible for ensuring that the club continues to attract members?
Religious Affiliation in Australia, 1971 – 2021
Waves of migration have shaped Australia’s religious profile. Over the years, the growth of Christianity in Australia was a function of migration. One can conclude that domestic evangelisation in Australia was never a strong suit. The ability of the ACFC to retain existing members, and attract new ones domestically, has never been strong.
Christian affiliation by generation, 2021
As the number of Christians declined in the newer waves of migration, the inability to retain existing Christians, and attract new ones in Australia, has resulted in millennials having the highest proportion of No religion (46.5%) and Other religions (14.9 %).
Decline in Christian affiliation
The number of people affiliated with Christianity in Australia decreased from 12.2 million (52.1%) in 2016 to 11.1 million (43.9%) in 2021. This decrease occurred across most ages, with the most significant reduction for young adults (18 -25 years).
SEE
We ask ourselves, as Catholics in Australia, how is it that:
A club with over 3,000 organisations employing more than 220 000 people (in 2016) throughout Australia?
A club with over 1,759 Catholic schools reaching 793,897 young people throughout Australia?
A club with over 11,400 branches (local parishes) throughout Australia?
A club with an estimated national wealth of $30 billion (in 2018)?
is struggling to retain existing members, let alone find new ones?
JUDGE
Why is this club struggling?
Is it the brand?
Is it the strategy?
Is it the leaders?
Is it the existing members themselves?
Is it something else?
ACT
What can we, the members, do to stop and reverse this decline?
This year is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Marc Sangnier, founder of the French democratic movement, Le Sillon (The Furrow), which so inspired Cardijn and the early YCW.
Today, we have a remarkable testimony to that influence of “Marc” as he was universally known and the wonderful movement he created.
It was written by Georges Montaron, a French YCW leader, who published the Catholic resistance newspaper “Témoignage chrétien” or Christian Witness during World War II.
I didn’t meet Marc SANGNIER until after the war when he was campaigning in Paris’s 3rd District. That was in October 1945. He was seeking election to the National Assembly under the banner of the M.R.P.. But many years before, I had heard of Sangnier of the Sillon (Furrow Movement), of the Auberges (Youth hostels) and the Jeune République (Young Republic). At that time, I was a national YCW leaders and our chaplain, Father Guérin, loved to recall certain episodes which had had a strong impact on his life.
Georges Guérin was still a young worker – around 1907-08, before the First World War – who was involved with an association linked to the Brothers of the Christian Schools when he met several leaders of the Sillon. They included Marcel Poimbœuf, Paul Pariant and Eugène Bernou. By their presence, more than by what they said, those young men were a revelation for Georges Guérin.
“Their faces,” he said, “shone with the presence of He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
The Christianity that he had learned in catechism was thus not simply an abstract idea but a life capable of transforming other lives. The “formal” Christianity of Georges Guérin was completely overturned. And in 1913 he decided to become a priest.
Concern for the poorest
But the Sillon had conveyed another message to him. Religion and everyday life were not two different worlds. Religion could only be lived in the midst of life. And it was the life of each person, in every aspect, that needed to make known the testimony of the Gospel. Just as he had witnessed Christ in the eyes and in the manner of Marcel Poimboeuf and his friends.
What’s more Marc spoke of the people, the masses, the workers. Whereas the Church seemed primarily concerned with the elites. It preferred to maintain good relations with prominent people. Marc on the other hand cared about the poorest. And he reminded those who came to listen to him that “the emancipation of the proletariat must be the work of the proletariat itself.”
“One of the great architects of this marvel”
Thus, as a seminarian, Georges Guérin, who had been a young worker in a precious metals foundry near Parmentier Square, Paris, declared that he would live out his priesthood at the service of the working class. Inspired by Cardijn, in 1927 he launched the YCW at St Vincent de Paul parish in Clichy where he had been appointed as a curate. This did not please everyone. The parish priest of the neighbouring parish, Notre Dame Auxliatrice, did not want the YCW to spread to his parish
“It’s the Sillon all over again,” he lamented. But the YCW took off nevertheless. Many chaplains had been leaders of the Sillon assisted the new jocist leaders. The triumphal congress of the YCW at the Parc des Princes gathered 70,000 young workers, who were genuine sons and daughters of the proletariat as well as authentic sons and daughters of the Gospel. In their midst, a young jocist who had become a priest celebrated his first mass. Marc Sangnier was there. At his side, Cardinal Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, leaned towards him and said “Marc, rejoice this evening because you are one of the great architects of this marvel that we have just witnessed.”
It was the YCW that transformed the young worker that I was in a rough area of Paris and who grew up among the workers of Porte de Vanves into the person that I have become.
“I owe him everything”
Fr Guérin believed in the eminent dignity of ordinary workers. He adopted Marc Sangnier’s formula that “there’s something greater in a man than the man himself.” So we sang about our pride in being workers. We dreamed of freeing our brothers from the oppression they suffered. We discovered that the Gospel was primarily Good News for the poor. And without false modesty, we presented the face of Christ to our comrades.
We had to look for Marc Sangnier during the war. I was one of those national YCW leaders forced to go into hiding. I took part in the Young Christian Combatants of the Resistance. I was publishing the clandestine newspaper, Témoignage chrétien (Christian Witness).” When it reached to Paris, it was only natural that Marc made the printing press of the Démocratie in Boulevard Raspail available to us.
Alas! Charles Geeraert and his friends were soon arrested by the Gestapo. They were to meet death in a concentration camp, as did our first printer from Lyon, Eugène Pons, who had also been a Sillonist.
Once Témoignage chrétien was finally able to be published openly, many former leaders of the Sillon, the Young Republic and Friends of the Youth Hostel Movement subscribed to our journal. Témoignage chrétien regards itself as in the direct line of the Sillon.
Faithful to the Gospel and to the Church
We have always sought to be fully faithful to the Gospel and to the Church. We have always believed in the merits of democracy. We understand that labour, victim of capital, must become the master of capital. We constantly say that there can be no real and profound social and economic liberation without a growing participation of everyone in the management of public affairs. We fight, with the weapons of the spirit, because we first appeal to the conscience of men and what we want with them is to go beyond ourselves together.
On 11 November 1930, Maurice Schumann, who then belonged to the Socialist Party, made a speech to the members of La Jeune République gathered in congress to explain the similarities between Sangnier and Léon Blum.
We are continuing this research. There are countless Christians formed in the spirit of the Sillon, which has not ceased to bear fruit since that evening of 25 August 1910 when some people believed that it had closed its doors forever, who are present in the vast popular current of 10 May that is profoundly renewing France.
The struggles and hopes of the poor
I couldn’t be anywhere but on the left. My working-class past, my action in the YCW, my culture, family and roots mean that I can only flourish on the left. But the Sillon previously, the YCW and the Church of Vatican II have all showed us that we can continue to be Christian while belonging to the left.
And I even think that we are better Christians on the left, with the fights and the hopes of the poor, than in the ranks of the conservatives. Those conservatives on the right, who never ceased to attack Marc Sangnier each time he stood for election. Those conservatives of the right, who have tried to monopolise the Church by hiding the message of the Gospel under a bushel.
The spirit that makes apostles
Not everyone who lives by the spirit of the “Sillon” has the same beliefs. It has even happened that these beliefs are contradictory. Thus, Emilien Amaury had very different political ideas from mine. I was active in La Jeune République. But in 1956, at the time of the Republican Front, the issue of Algeria separated us. And yet, I bear witness to it, our friendship remained strong and deep. And it wasn’t just a romantic friendship. More than once it was very concrete. Thus Emilien Amaury, who was one of our supporters during the war, always found a way to help Témoignage Chrétien when the existence of our newspaper was threatened.
For him as for me, our strength is our friendship and the spirit that brings us together and makes us brothers, largely transcends our temporal options.
And yet this spirit must be embodied since it is what animates each moment of our lives.
For me, the Sillon is first of all a spirit. And what a spirit. The spirit of God himself. The spirit that makes the apostles. This is perhaps why Marc Sangnier died on Pentecost Sunday. So that no one would forget his message. A spirit that needs to be transmitted to all people, whatever their race, nationality or social condition. A spirit that helps them to go beyond themselves.
Georges Montaron
A remarkable article on a remarkable man and movement.
Reverse ageism is an issue affecting young workers in Australia. Reverse ageism is “discriminating against someone because they are younger, as opposed to older.” The discrimination occurs because work conditions tend to be age-based rather than on the level of skill. The Young Workers Centre, based in Melbourne, helps young workers in Victoria to develop “the knowledge and skills needed to end workplace exploitation and insecurity.” YWC exists to help young workers to challenge ageism without devaluing human dignity.
When Fr Joseph Cardijn helped to found the young workers movement, which we know as the Young Christian Workers (YCW), almost a century ago, he was intent on forming people in faith. His goal was,
“the resurrection of the working class, which will emerge, from the tomb of error, exploitation, and slavery in which liberalism buried it for centuries.”
He spoke about this goal of the YCW in a series of lectures titled, The young worker faces life, which he delivered in Godinne, Belgium, in 1948. Cardijn expressed confidence in achieving the goal; he viewed the leaders in the YCW as,
“apostles who, with and by Christ, by their sufferings and prayers, and even by their death on the Cross, merit with Christ this resurrection of working-class youth and of the working class of the world.”
The source of Cardijn’s confidence was his faith in Christ. I am sure that those who know his life and writings well will be able to attest to the consolation he drew from the story of the transfiguration of Jesus, which is recounted in the synoptic gospels. Matthew’s account of the event (17:1-13) is the Gospel reading for today, the Second Sunday of Lent, Year A. Cardijn’s faith in Jesus led him to speak of the human and divine destinies of each person: the human destiny of the worker is the transformation of the worker, the workplace and the world; the divine destiny is union with Christ now and in the life to come. When Peter, James and John witnessed the transfiguration of their leader, they were shown the presence of the divine in the human, the promise of faith fulfilled in the present, and to be the destiny of the faithful beyond this world.
Clearly, for people of faith, the mission of the YCW is much more than the stated mission of the YWC. Acceptance of the divine destiny of all people informs and transforms the human destiny and opens all believers to the experience of the divine in the human. And where this is the spirit in the workplace, the work and the workers are transformed, and glory is given to God. How can this be achieved? What action can we take?
Sadly, the YCW in Australia today is a poor reflection of its former self, the YCW of the fifties and sixties. Yet, it continues to provide opportunities for young workers to gather and do good in our society. For those of us, who are no longer young workers, we can support and encourage the YCW and promote the movement where it does not yet exist or where it once worked for good. Simple actions, like subscribing to the YCW newsletter and advertising the movement’s work in parish bulletins, are worth undertaking as responses to our call to be missionaries.
And going further: by adding our voices to the call for the recognition of the dignity of all workers, irrespective of the work that they do, or their age, we can add to the work of transforming our world, which is the work of all who are co-creators with God.
Read more …
“Does ‘reverse ageism’ exist in the workplace? Here’s what you need to know” by Mariah Flores. In Keeping the Balance, January 4, 2023.
Yesterday, we read Stefan’s reflection celebrating the birth anniversary of the International Young Christian Workers’ (IYCW) first’s president, Patrick Keegan.
Patrick Keagan, in a speech to Australia, concluded that,
“A Christian Australia is a worthwhile target for all members of the YCW. A Christian Australia is vital for the whole Pacific world. Australia is vital for the whole Pacific world. One knows that millions of people in the Far East are hungrily looking for an ideal of life pressed down as they are by an economic and social misery unknown in such intensity in Europe. In this setting, Australia must take her responsibility as the torch bearer of Christian values – geographically set as she is the springboard for the Far East.”
Patrick Keegan, Australian Broadcast 26.6.51 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library/Pat Keegan)
In 1951, when Keegan made this speech, Australia was a very different country. He would be surprised at what has happened since. According to the 1954 census, the total number of Christians was almost 90% of the total population.
Catholics were 23%, Anglicans were 38%, and other Christians were 29%. The Australian Young Christian Workers (ACYW) and the Australian Young Christian Students (AYCS) were vibrant youth movements spread throughout Australia.
Today, Christians are 44% of the Australian population (a minority for the first time since the invasion, but still a majority within the plurality of those who do not associate with any faith and other faiths).
Catholics are 20% of the Australian population, and the AYCW and the AYCS are a shadow of their former selves, limited to a few locations.
Far from being vital for the Pacific world, Australian Christians (Catholics) cannot keep Australia Christian (Catholic).
The declining number of Christians (Catholics) in Australia is concerning, and the causes are complex. What can we do about it?
SEE
Do I understand the causes of the declining number of Catholics in Australia?
Which of these causes is within my spheres of influence?
Would Cardijn and Vatican II’s teachings, particularly on the role of the lay apostolate, be a way to re-evangelise Australia again?
JUDGE
If Australian Catholic laity would fulfil their baptismal role as priest, prophet and king – as captured in Stefan’s reflection: Lay People as Priest, Prophet and King – could that contribute to re-evangelising Australia, once again, and in an authentic way?
ACT
What can we do, as Australian Catholics, in the public sphere to fulfil our baptismal roles as priest, prophet and king?
Today is the birth anniversary of Patrick Keegan, the English YCW leader who became the first president of the International YCW.
Later he became Secretary General of World Movement of Christian Workers, a post he held during the period of the Second Vatican Council where he became a lay auditor and was the first lay person to address an Ecumenical Council.
For today’s reflection, I’ve chosen a radio message that he broadcast to Australia in June 1951 for the tenth anniversary of the movement.
He began by expressing his appreciation for the Australian YCW leaders and chaplains he had met, including Fr Frank Lombard, Terry Barber, Frank McCann and Ted Long.
“Our Headquarters without an Australian just doesn’t seem to be complete,” he commented. “All of us ever here remember with a deep and profound gratitude the comradeship of those Australians who shared with us the difficulties of war.”
He noted the spread of the YCW around the world, particularly the English-speaking world and he recalled the 1950 International Congress of the YCW in Brussels, which demonstrated the belief and conviction of YCW leaders “in that fundamental and universal truth, that lies at the very heart of our work and effort in the YCW – the dignity of the young worker.”
He continued:
We believe with our heart and soul that every working fellow and girl without a single exception, irrespective of their colour or country is called to an eternal destiny and vocation as a son or daughter of God – not an animal – not a machine, but a person possessing a magnificent vocation. We further believe that anything in his life of home, work or neighbourhood that hinders him from discovering or attaining this tremendous vocation constitutes the problem that he must solve.
This truth is a universal truth to which there cannot be the slightest exception. It is true for the Negro, the Chinese, the Hindu, the Japanese just as it is for the whites. It is the truth least understood or apparently only understood as a principle to be applied in a selective way. At this hour of history, it is the truth which if practically applied to men and institutions can change and transform the world.
He saw Australia as having a chance to avoid the mistakes of Europe and to build something genuinely new:
For those engaged in the apostolate in Europe, everything points to Australia, being an unrivalled land of apostolic opportunity. Australia is seen as a nation where men are still free to build institutions and public life on Christian principles, untrammelled by the relics or backwash of the barbarian that accompanied the rise of industrialism in the countries of Europe
Seeing the results of industrialism in Europe – the black spots of its inhuman production, unjust distribution and exhausting labour, one must believe that in a country like yours free to choose the pattern of future construction, that the mistakes of Europe can be avoided.
And he set out his vision of the role the YCW could play:
Our task in the YCW is to produce through home, neighbourhood, school and work, men and women capable of building a Christian society – men and women willing to accept as a great privilege all the personal sacrifice entailed by this most practical work.
We know this will only be possible by following working youth at this very moment into the heart of their real life – giving them the means to discover not only their own place and responsibility in Christ’s plan, hut the place of their factory, neighbourhood, mine and office.
Our movement is the university for working youth, where we can discover the meaning and purpose of our life – where we can discover more and more the Christian conception of work, leisure and community – a conception lived and made real and not remaining in the realm of theory. Through our work in the movement we must discover the Christian “ideal of life”. An ideal when grasped will never allow a flinching at difficulties.
In Europe the YCW has faced an industrial set up based on the conception of men as a commodity – a means of production. Far too much of our work has been spent in bringing remedies to the effects of a system basically wrong in conception.
Fortunately, in your country you now stand at the threshold of great industrial development. You can plan it in the way that you wish. It must be planned on the basis of the Christian (conception) of the human person. In order that this may be done, Australia needs at this very moment men and women with profound Christian convictions willing to give themselves to this task, willing to share in the making and execution of these plans on which so much will depend for the future.
A Christian Australia is a worthwhile target for all members of the YCW. A Christian Australia is vital for the whole Pacific world. One knows that millions of people in the Far East are hungrily looking for an ideal of life pressed down as they are by an economic and social misery unknown in such intensity in Europe, it is in this setting that Australia must take her responsibility as the torch bearer of Christian values – geographically set as she is the spring board for the Far East.
Strangely enough and sadly, Pat never visited Australia.
Nevertheless, on this anniversary of his birth, let us remember him and his challenge to become conscious of our responsibilities as Australians in the world.
We saw in an earlier post the significance Cardijn placed to the parish as a platform for social action.
In today’s post, we see how importantly he regarded the role of the parish as a means of reaching out to young workers.
He wrote:
At the age of 14 – and before the war, at the age of 11 – 12, a large number of our young parishioners leave school to begin their life as paid workers. This new life, ordinarily takes place outside of and often far from the family and the parish. It has a decisive influence on the mentality, on the conduct, and on the spiritual and temporal future of the adolescent boy and girl. There are half a million such youngsters in Belgium, aged 14 to 21 – the entire working class of tomorrow.
Oh, who knows about their life, conversations, acts, habits; the dangers to which they are exposed; the abuses of which they are often the victims; the temptations, the scandals, the promiscuities which surround them in their work, in the transport they use to go to work; at the office, in the workshop, in the factories, the mines … during their rest periods, during the leisure and recreation?
The life of young parishioners
But what attitude should the parish adopt? Cardijn asked:
The parish – is it interested in the life of these young parishioners? How many are there in each parish? How are they prepared for this life at work? Has one brought them together on the eve of their entry into the factory or office – to show them the interest that we take in that new stage … so important in their life? Does one celebrate a mass for their intention? Does one try to interest other parishioners in such a ceremony? Does one give to these newcomers to the world of work – older companions – true guardian angels – who would watch over their first steps in the apprenticeship of this life of liberty? And then, who forms their professional conscience? Who assists them, counsels them … helps them in the numerous cases when it is impossible for them to manage alone … in teaching them about their professional tasks, in their apprenticeship, in their morality, in their safety and hygiene at work, in relation to all the accidents and conditions of their work which have a preponderant influence on their health, their future, their religious and parish life? … And when they return from work in the evening, or on Sunday, who offers them normal occasions to continue their education, their recreation? Who helps them save, have insurance, who helps them prepare for a healthy … integral … true family life?
Young workers abandoned
Cardijn was unsparing in his criticism of parishes and the Church in general for its failure to respond to these issues:
Let’s admit it humbly, for all those problems, particular to the working youth and which are essential for the development of their moral and religious life – that is to say their parish life – the majority of young workers are abandoned to themselves.
All this part of their life, by far the most important; takes place far from the influence of parish life and clergy. All these difficult and complicated problems are solved … without the knowledge and often without any contact with parish clergy and parish life. In the young worker’s life, how often are the parish, the clergy, the church, the ceremonies … criticised, and ridiculed? And little by little, often very quickly, the young worker is no longer interested in the parish life or clergy. He becomes indifferent; he distances himself … since all that has become foreign: absent from his daily life so humble, difficult … which he lives far from that one hour of time (if at all) he might spend on Sunday in the parish church.
The YCW response
Cardijn continued on to explain the YCW’s response to these problems:
Now there is the problem which is presented in urgent fashion: How to maintain… I would say, how to re-establish the contact between parish life and the habitual life of the young workers in the parish? How to achieve … that the parish, its life and organisation, its clergy have a preponderant and decisive influence on the life of the young workers – not only to assist them, to prepare and protect them from temptations … and the initiations and the scandals of abuse? Beyond that, and above all how to influence their life at work, en route to work, with their companions? Were the parish to show such interest, youngsters would be proud to be faithful parishioners, practising Christians and audacious … apostles of parish life. Then it would appear clearly to them as Christian life, lived socially and organically, in community, in strong union with other Christians. They would also be proud to imprint their daily life with the principles of the Divine Master, who continues to act and teach through the church, the parish and its clergy.
This is how we believe the problem can be faced efficaciously and practically … There is but one means: that of a specific group of young workers in a parish section of YCW as soon as they leave school. There, among themselves, by themselves and for themselves, with the assistance of the parish clergy – they face all the problems of their life as young workers; they form themselves to seek practical solutions; they learn to think, to speak, to discuss and to act as Christians; they organise all kinds of services; they offer mutual aid in a concrete and living manner in order to live a Christian life … linking their life at work with their parish life; inspiring their life at work with parish ideals. They learn to sanctify their life at work through a communion of thought; feelings, acts, prayers and sufferings … uniting their daily life to the sacrificial gesture of the parish clergy … at the altar where the Divine Victim who alone can give the strength and courage necessary to reach and save their fellow workers.
This parish union of the young workers puts Christian doctrine at the base of their life as young workers. It is as young Christians, young parishioners that they learn to practically and concretely solve the problems of their life as young workers. What is the significance of their work? What kind of conduct/attitude should one have at work? What are the legitimate and necessary demands necessary to their parish life? What are the institutions for saving, for insurance, for further education and recreation which are favourable for the development of their professional, physical, moral and religious life?
The parish doctrine, which is Christian doctrine applied to the organisation of Christian society – could furnish all the answers. When the young workers understand that; when they have sensed and touched that …because it was explained simply and concretely – oh how proud they are to be parishioners, to live as parishioners everywhere: at home as with their fellow workers! How proud they are to reply to insults against the clergy, the sacraments and the church and religion. The parish section of the YCW unites them freely, and voluntarily of their own choice … without violence … inculcates in them an esprit de corps, a spirit of association, of mutual aid, of mutual caring, of Christian loyalty which is the best cement for parish life.
Such was Cardijn’s vision for the Catholic parish!
We saw in an earlier post the significance Cardijn placed to the parish as a platform for social action.
In today’s post, we see how importantly he regarded the role of the parish as a means of reaching out to young workers.
He wrote:
At the age of 14 – and before the war, at the age of 11 – 12, a large number of our young parishioners leave school to begin their life as paid workers. This new life, ordinarily takes place outside of and often far from the family and the parish. It has a decisive influence on the mentality, on the conduct, and on the spiritual and temporal future of the adolescent boy and girl. There are half a million such youngsters in Belgium, aged 14 to 21 – the entire working class of tomorrow.
Oh, who knows about their life, conversations, acts, habits; the dangers to which they are exposed; the abuses of which they are often the victims; the temptations, the scandals, the promiscuities which surround them in their work, in the transport they use to go to work; at the office, in the workshop, in the factories, the mines … during their rest periods, during the leisure and recreation?
The life of young parishioners
But what attitude should the parish adopt? Cardijn asked:
The parish – is it interested in the life of these young parishioners? How many are there in each parish? How are they prepared for this life at work? Has one brought them together on the eve of their entry into the factory or office – to show them the interest that we take in that new stage … so important in their life? Does one celebrate a mass for their intention? Does one try to interest other parishioners in such a ceremony? Does one give to these newcomers to the world of work – older companions – true guardian angels – who would watch over their first steps in the apprenticeship of this life of liberty? And then, who forms their professional conscience? Who assists them, counsels them … helps them in the numerous cases when it is impossible for them to manage alone … in teaching them about their professional tasks, in their apprenticeship, in their morality, in their safety and hygiene at work, in relation to all the accidents and conditions of their work which have a preponderant influence on their health, their future, their religious and parish life? … And when they return from work in the evening, or on Sunday, who offers them normal occasions to continue their education, their recreation? Who helps them save, have insurance, who helps them prepare for a healthy … integral … true family life?
Young workers abandoned
Cardijn was unsparing in his criticism of parishes and the Church in general for its failure to respond to these issues:
Let’s admit it humbly, for all those problems, particular to the working youth and which are essential for the development of their moral and religious life – that is to say their parish life – the majority of young workers are abandoned to themselves.
All this part of their life, by far the most important; takes place far from the influence of parish life and clergy. All these difficult and complicated problems are solved … without the knowledge and often without any contact with parish clergy and parish life. In the young worker’s life, how often are the parish, the clergy, the church, the ceremonies … criticised, and ridiculed? And little by little, often very quickly, the young worker is no longer interested in the parish life or clergy. He becomes indifferent; he distances himself … since all that has become foreign: absent from his daily life so humble, difficult … which he lives far from that one hour of time (if at all) he might spend on Sunday in the parish church.
The YCW response
Cardijn continued on to explain the YCW’s response to these problems:
Now there is the problem which is presented in urgent fashion: How to maintain… I would say, how to re-establish the contact between parish life and the habitual life of the young workers in the parish? How to achieve … that the parish, its life and organisation, its clergy have a preponderant and decisive influence on the life of the young workers – not only to assist them, to prepare and protect them from temptations … and the initiations and the scandals of abuse? Beyond that, and above all how to influence their life at work, en route to work, with their companions? Were the parish to show such interest, youngsters would be proud to be faithful parishioners, practising Christians and audacious … apostles of parish life. Then it would appear clearly to them as Christian life, lived socially and organically, in community, in strong union with other Christians. They would also be proud to imprint their daily life with the principles of the Divine Master, who continues to act and teach through the church, the parish and its clergy.
This is how we believe the problem can be faced efficaciously and practically … There is but one means: that of a specific group of young workers in a parish section of YCW as soon as they leave school. There, among themselves, by themselves and for themselves, with the assistance of the parish clergy – they face all the problems of their life as young workers; they form themselves to seek practical solutions; they learn to think, to speak, to discuss and to act as Christians; they organise all kinds of services; they offer mutual aid in a concrete and living manner in order to live a Christian life … linking their life at work with their parish life; inspiring their life at work with parish ideals. They learn to sanctify their life at work through a communion of thought; feelings, acts, prayers and sufferings … uniting their daily life to the sacrificial gesture of the parish clergy … at the altar where the Divine Victim who alone can give the strength and courage necessary to reach and save their fellow workers.
This parish union of the young workers puts Christian doctrine at the base of their life as young workers. It is as young Christians, young parishioners that they learn to practically and concretely solve the problems of their life as young workers. What is the significance of their work? What kind of conduct/attitude should one have at work? What are the legitimate and necessary demands necessary to their parish life? What are the institutions for saving, for insurance, for further education and recreation which are favourable for the development of their professional, physical, moral and religious life? The parish doctrine, which is Christian doctrine applied to the organisation of Christian society – could furnish all the answers. When the young workers understand that; when they have sensed and touched that …because it was explained simply and concretely – oh how proud they are to be parishioners, to live as parishioners everywhere: at home as with their fellow workers! How proud they are to reply to insults against the clergy, the sacraments and the church and religion. The parish section of the YCW unites them freely, and voluntarily of their own choice … without violence … inculcates in them an esprit de corps, a spirit of association, of mutual aid, of mutual caring, of Christian loyalty which is the best cement for parish life.
In today’s first reading (Genesis 1: 20 – 2:4), we find the passage:
…God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.’
…God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.
Cardinal Cardijn made this clear to young workers.
“Young workers must always be faced with the great truth of the eternal destiny of the mass of young workers. How often have I cried out at mass meetings: You are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves; you are human beings, with an eternal destiny, a divine origin, a divine purpose. You are sons of God, partners with God, you are heirs of God; this is true, not only for a select few but for the masses and the whole of the working class, without exception.”
The world today is better than it was in the past. Despite the systemic environmental degradation, the quality of life of billions is improving. Yet, billions are also suffering.
The abundance of God’s creation is insufficient for the wants of many. This imbalance between the desires of a significant population against the needs of others desecrates and violates the truth that all humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
Pat’s reflection on 4 February 2023 captures this imbalance in rich and abundant Australia.
JUDGE
Do I/we believe in today’s first reading — that we are all created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we are all equal no matter what our station in life is?
Do I/we believe in Cardijn’s exhortation that we are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves … to employers, to consumerism, to materialism, to an ideology…
Do I/we believe that i/we are children of God, partners with God, and heirs of God?
ACT
If I/we believe in today’s first reading and in Cardijn’s exhortation:
What could I/we do not to become a slave to an employer, to an ideology, to consumerism, or to materialism?
What could I/we do to help those suffering from injustices that deprive them of their humanity?
In yesterday’s reflection, Stefan explained how Cardinal Cardijn saw the role of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) and the parish. The foundation of the YCW was the parish, and the social action that the YCW undertook was part of parish life.
Pope Francis, in 2022, would develop further what Cardinal Cardijn said in 1925 when speaking to the French social organisation, “Village de Francois (Village of Francis).”
“Jesus Christ alone fills our thirsty hearts,” Pope Francis stressed to members of the Village of Francis.
The Village of Francis develops and runs innovative shared living spaces, i.e. the Village. It brings together vulnerable people and those who care for them, focusing on three areas: living together, economic activity and integral ecology.
The Village of Francis, the Pope said, “is an ecclesial place that goes out of the usual framework to propose something else.”
“It is the Church as a ‘field hospital,’ concerned more with those who suffer than defending its interests, taking the risk of novelty to be more faithful to the Gospel.”
“I hope that the Village of Francis will contribute to rediscovering what a true village is: a fabric of concrete human relations, in mutual support, in attention to those in need, in the coexistence of generations and the concern to respect the Creation that surrounds us.”
After reading Cardinal Cardijn’s and Pope Francis’s views on the role of the Church (parishes and parishioners), can we conceive parish life as reduced to only going to mass and receiving sacraments?
SEE
Why do I go to Church?
Why do the people I know go to Church?
Is my parish actively involved in the life of the community where my parish is located?
Is my parish “a fabric of concrete human relations, in mutual support, in attention to those in need – within and outside the parish?”
JUDGE
God saw that it was good. The first reading (Genesis 1:1-19) is the creation story. What God created was good, and more importantly, He created the universe, the world, and everything in it in abundance and for everyone.
All those who touched Him were cured. Today’s Gospel (Mark 6:53-56) shows a broken world filled with suffering, and Jesus is the healer. Those who touched Him were cured.
ACT
How can my parish – followers of Jesus Christ – help restore God’s creation?
How can my parish – followers of Jesus Christ – be an instrument of His healing?
Although the YCW was not officially and formally founded until 1925, Cardijn always insisted that its real foundation was in the parish of Our Lady at Laeken, not far from the centre of Brussels, to which he was posted at Easter 1912.
Placed in charge of women’s projects in the parish, within a year, he had organised over 1000 women in various groups, including several embryonic study circles for teenage female workers.
It was an amazing demonstration of what a Catholic parish could be!
Nevertheless, he – and the emerging YCW – often faced criticism. And in a famous 1925 speech entitled “The YCW and the parish,” Cardijn sought to respond to these criticisms.
This talk, he said, “offers me a unique occasion to show by the concrete example of the YCW, how the social organisations in general must – and if they are well structured and well directed – can become one of the most appropriate means of our time to revive PARISH LIFE; to reconstitute the parish community in its integral nature of doing good.”
“Unfortunately, in many industrial regions, the parish is no longer significant except among the clergy,” Cardijn lamented in words that could easily apply today.
He continued:
Ask the people, and those who still understand the name will respond: “The parish, the parish priest… that’s where people go for baptisms, for children’s first conmunion, for marriage and funerals.”
“The bonds which exist among the parishioners, between them and the parish clergy… their rights and reciprocal duties… the family and the parish union… all that no longer lives for the masses. That kernel of the militant Church, united in the struggle for the Christian organisation of earthly society and the conquest of blessed eternity… scarcely appears any more to most people.
And yet, the esprit de corps, the conscious and strong union among all the parishioners which manifests itself to the public by a united front in the defense as in the attack – is more indispensable than ever in order to restore Christian life… to re-infuse the sense of catholic/universal … not only in the working class, but in all of society. And we think that the parish social works are an easy means to bring back the masses to that community of life, to that esprit de corps, to the understanding of the parish spirit.
We must truly dare to admit, among ourselves, that apropos of the social organisations, there are regrettable misunderstandings which prevent many generosities. “The social organisations, according to some people, exist and work at the margin of the parish”… “The social sphere, the social framework (cadre), according to certain people, is in opposition to the … parish framework”. To the directors of social works, some say “You come and divide the parishioners, with your organisations which take into account their interests, their conditions and their requirements-bringing sometimes hostile divisions”. Haven’t you already heard the remark: “pretty soon different parishes will need to be created for the workers, for the farmers and for the employers”.
These misunderstandings come from a superficial concept. In a society truly Christian, the social organisations would be indissolubly united to the parish, as the body of this earthly life is united to the soul … and as the members are united to the body. When, in view of eternal happiness, the parish interests itself in all the needs of the parishioner, when the parish finds a favorable solution, an assistance for all the problems which arise in concrete daily life, humble and often difficult; … when the Church and the parish clergy are no longer strangers to the vital questions posed by the conditions of modern life – which, moreover have a fatal repercussion on religious life.., then our modern society – in all its manifestations: social, economic, artistic and recreational – will again be as it was during the Middle Ages: guided, clarified and protected by the parish spirit which is the true Christian social spirit.
Here we find Cardijn’s integral conception of the role of Church of assisting parishioners to address the problems of daily life and of modern society. This, he argued, was the true Christian social spirit.
And in a later reflection, we will look at how the YCW became Cardijn’s model of this vision.
In today’s first reading (Genesis 1: 20 – 2:4), we find the passage:
…God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.’
…God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.
Cardinal Cardijn made this clear to young workers.
“Young workers must always be faced with the great truth of the eternal destiny of the mass of young workers. How often have I cried out at mass meetings: You are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves; you are human beings, with an eternal destiny, a divine origin, a divine purpose. You are sons of God, partners with God, you are heirs of God; this is true, not only for a select few but for the masses and the whole of the working class, without exception.”
The world today is better than it was in the past. Despite the systemic environmental degradation, the quality of life of billions is improving. Yet, billions are also suffering.
The abundance of God’s creation is insufficient for the wants of many. This imbalance between the desires of a significant population against the needs of others desecrates and violates the truth that all humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
Pat’s reflection on 4 February 2023 captures this imbalance in rich and abundant Australia.
JUDGE
Do I/we believe in today’s first reading — that we are all created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we are all equal no matter what our station in life is?
Do I/we believe in Cardijn’s exhortation that we are not machines, beasts of burden, slaves … to employers, to consumerism, to materialism, to an ideology…
Do I/we believe that i/we are children of God, partners with God, and heirs of God?
ACT
If I/we believe in today’s first reading and in Cardijn’s exhortation:
What could I/we do not to become a slave to an employer, to an ideology, to consumerism, or to materialism?
What could I/we do to help those suffering from injustices that deprive them of their humanity?
