This month marks the centenary of Cardijn’s first meeting with Pope Pius XI in March 1925 in which the pontiff gave his blessing and endorsement to the Young Christian Workers (YCW) saving it from condemnation.
I recalled this event in an Australian Cardijn Institute webinar talk entitled “From the periphery to the centre: Cardijn, Pius XI and the YCW: A prophetic encounter.”
Watch the video above. And follow the slides here:
Picturesquely, Cardijn often spoke of it as an almost accidental meeting in which a series of Vatican officials led him “into successive rooms, each one smaller than the last” until “they opened the last door (the only one which was closed)” and he found himself in the library of the Pope.
But the way that first encounter came to take place was in fact much controversial and well-prepared.
The YCW under threat
The truth is that Cardijn’s superior, Cardinal Mercier, had already all but officially ruled that the YCW, which was already spreading quickly throughout Belgium, was to be closed down as a divisive, class-based movement that threatened the unity of the visible Body of Christ in Belgium.
Yet, against all apparent odds, Cardijn succeeded in gaining an audience with Pius XI, who immediately endorsed the work of the YCW, exclaiming that “at last someone has come to me speaking about the masses.”
It was a meeting that proved so decisive that the famous French theologian, Yves Congar, later described it as “a prophetic encounter of the periphery and the centre,” placing it on the same level as the thirteenth century meetings between Pope Innocent III with St Francis of Assisi and St Dominic that led to the founding of the Franciscans and Dominicans.
A model for a synodal Church
It is a remarkable story that is much more complex than often appreciated – and also surprisingly relevant to the development of a synodal Church today.
Stefan Gigacz
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