Tag: Léon Ollé-Laprune

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Being Christian in our time

One more reflection with Léon Ollé-Laprune, this one from a series of personal notes that he wrote for himself, some of which were published after his death by his disciple and friend, Georges Goyau.

The French title of this reflection is “Le Chrétien vis-à-vis de son temps,” which translates as “The Christian vis-à-vis his or her time.”

Here Ollé-Laprune reflects on the problem of opposition or perhaps apparent opposition between Christian teaching and the ideas of a particular era.

What attitude should one take?

In a note dated 7 November, 1890, Ollé-Laprune offered his response:

I am a Christian, and I am of my time.

Being Christian, and fully Christian, by which I mean Catholic, – living in the nineteenth century, I can see or feel that there is an opposition between Christian doctrine, to which I adhere with my whole being, and many ideas or trends of my time, from which I do not want to remain estranged and of which I am not the enemy.

I would like to examine in what this opposition consists. By studying it closely, I will better understand what Christian doctrine is and what my era is.

I shall have a more exact and profound notion of the Christian idea and of the Christian life.

I will unravel what our time has that is new, and among these novelties discern the genuine spirit of this century.

Comparing it with the true spirit of Christianity, I will seek to identify that which is in radical and definitive opposition to this spirit and that which, deviating from it only in appearance, will allow itself to be brought closer and which may even secretly aspire to be brought closer. “

In other words, the role of the Christian and Christianity is not an attitude of radical opposition to current trends.

Rather our role is to enter into dialogue with, to work with and identify the truth within those trends, while seeking to reorient them in line with Christian teaching.

This was the method that Cardijn himself would adopt. As he insisted so often, being anti-communist was “not enough to save the working class.” Rather, it was necessary to understand “the element of truth in Communism,” he wrote, because that is where “it draws its strength.”

We still have much to learn from Léon Ollé-Laprune and Joseph Cardijn!

Author

Stefan Gigacz

Photo

Young Léon Ollé-Laprune (top left) as a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure

Sources

Léon Ollé-Laprune, The Christian vis-à-vis his time (Léon Ollé-Laprune/Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Joseph Cardijn, The hour of the working class, Lecture 2 (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

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See clearly, judge and decide with Léon Ollé-Laprune

In today’s Cardijn Reflection, we continue to read from Léon Ollé-Laprune, this time from the Preface to the Third Edition of his classic work, Le Prix de la Vie (The Prize/Price of Life).

In this extract, we see how importantly Ollé-Laprune views the method of seeing, judging and deciding as a way to rebuild social unity and peace in the face of division and conflict.

When, almost two years ago, I published these studies on what I would call the philosophy of life, or to borrow a fine phrase from Aristotle, the philosophy of human matters, I wrote: “I am convinced, and I would like to convince others, that life is singularly precious if we understand how to see the purpose for which it is given to us and what we can and must do with it.”

That is the central idea of this book, and that is why it is entitled The Prize or Price of Life. I have nothing to add to this statement, except, perhaps, that of the double concern present throughout these pages, first of not distorting man and secondly that of proclaiming the duty to act, the urgency of which, if I may say so, is increasingly visible and growing.

It is true that in the intellectual and philosophical order we can observe a certain aspiration for an increasingly comprehensive synthesis, a more serious attention being given to facts of various kinds that have long been neglected, as well as a certain broadening of the frameworks of thought and even of thought itself.

However, it is also true that the too general persistence of old prejudices hinders this return to best practices and these welcome new approaches, and it also dooms these desires, efforts and attempts to remain too often sterile.

Moreover, is also true that with regard to the sciences there persists in many places a regrettable misunderstanding of their true spirit, their just scope and, consequently, an ill-advised use of their method and results. Finally, it is also true that great mistrust exists in many regions of the world with regard to what is Christian, including among those who think, or who claim to think, and there is also great intolerance among others that is very blind, hateful and active.

Thus humanity divides itself from itself, and rejects or neglects something of itself and the resources placed at its disposal. 

On the other hand, “intellectual anarchy,” which as Jouffroy already noted  in 1834, leads to  “the most exaggerated and complete individualism,” is invading all areas of thought, including moral matters where it has become extreme.

Thus, we find various powerful tendencies competing for people’s minds, while no school prevails, no influence is decidedly dominant, and amid this  universal disarray it is left to  individual efforts to undertake the restoration of that authority of the truth which commands and rallies people’s minds.

Thus each person must apply him or herself more than ever, better than ever, to courageously and faithfully looking at the principles and the facts in order to make him or herself more than ever, better than ever, capable of seeing clearly, judging and deciding, precisely because it is hardly fashionable to do so any longer

By a sustained application of this process, people will be able to protect themselves from falling into prejudice and error. By means of this process, they will also be able to regain consistency and find ways to become closer and unite

In the social and political order there are likewise many noble and generous aspirations, but the old spirit of division, rancour, mistrust and hatred still remains

Despite many fine words and dreams, a frighttful egoism continues to divide people and prepares to arm them against one other.

In the face of these perils which threaten society, individual initiative and individual energy is even more necessary than ever to defend genuine social interests, to foster new groups and thereby gradually to restore social peace and political consistency.

For Léon Ollé-Laprune, who lived at a time of significant social conflict and anti-clericalism, learning to see together, to judge together and to arrive at conclusions together was a way of overcoming division and building social peace.

What a great vision for the see-judge-act method that we can still apply fruitfully today for promoting unity among people of various faiths or none and even amid ideological conflict,

Stefan Gigacz

References

Léon Ollé-Laprune, Preface, Le Prix de la Vie (3rd edition)

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Léon Ollé-Laprune: Philosopher of the see-judge-act

In a note dated 1955, Cardijn made a list of the key reading he had done at various stages of his life.

Among the authors he read between 1902 and 1904 when he was aged 18-20 studying philosophy and theology at the Malines major seminary, he cites the French philosopher, Léon Ollé-Laprune (1839-1898), a promoter of the lay apostolate and disciple of Society of St Vincent de Paul founder, Frédéric Ozanam.

And today marks the 125th anniversary of Ollé-Laprune’s premature death at the age of 58 on 13 February 1898.

But why was Cardijn interested in his writings and what did he learn?

One answer, perhaps, lies in Ollé-Laprune’s deep influence on the development of Marc Sangnier’s democratic lay movement, Le Sillon (The Furrow), which also had such a great influence on Cardijn.

“He understood our plans almost as soon as we did, and approved them from the beginning,” wrote the Sillon leader and seminarian, Albert Lamy in an obituary for Ollé-Laprune. “One of his books provided us with our motto, his friendship stayed with us constantly.”

That motto, borrowed by Ollé-Laprune from Plato, was “il faut aller au vrai avec toute son âme” – “we have to seek the truth with our whole soul.”

Lamy explained this with a quote from Ollé-Laprune’s most famous book, Le Prix de la vie, which translates into English as either “The price or the prize of life,” a double meaning that expresses both the cost and value of a fully-lived life:

I will philosophise with my whole self, in an atmosphere completely impregnated with Christianity. I philosophise as a thinking man, a living man, a complete man, and a Christian.

In other words, no division between faith and life, a fully lived Christianity that closely resembles Cardijn’s understanding and even foreshadows Pope Francis’ key concept of “integral human development.” (Laudato Si’)

But how to achieve this integral human and Christian development?

Ollé-Laprune also provided an answer to this in a talk entitled La virilité intellectuelle that he presented to students in Lyon in 1896:

Gentlemen, it remains for us to consider what our era demands of us in particular, and what a young man who thinks like a man needs to do at the present time.

In order to think in a virile manner, I believe we need to possess three qualities: we must be able to see clearly, we must be able to judge, and we must be able to decide.

As Ollé-Laprune also recognised, this was a challenge:

To see clearly is not easy; to judge, that is to say, as Bossuet said, “to pronounce within oneself with respect to what is true and what is false,” is perhaps even more difficult; to decide, it seems, is the most difficult thing in the world for some people: even when the premises are there, which call, which claim, which impose a conclusion, they cannot decide or conclude.

But, Gentlemen, one must know how to dare what so many men do not have the courage to do: to see clearly, to judge and to conclude.

And by conclude or decide he meant taking action. To quote Albert Lamy again:

His latest books never end without immediately practical considerations and advice as well as encouragement to continual, daily action.

As we can see then, Ollé-Laprune was foreshadowing the see-judge-act that Cardijn himself would soon make famous and that Pope Francis would also adopt as a way of achieving integral human and Christian development.

It’s also why I believe that Léon Ollé-Laprune can also be justly called “the philosopher of the see-judge-act.”

Author

Stefan Gigacz

References

Léon Ollé-Laprune (www.olle-laprune.net /Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Stefan Gigacz, Léon Ollé-Laprune, Philosopher and Lay Apostle

Joseph Cardijn, My reading (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Le Sillon (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)