Category: Lay apostolate
Restarting the clock on the role of lay people & lay movements
The Vatican II Decree on the Lay Apostolate, Apostolicam Actuositatem, is one of the Council’s most overlooked documents. It’s time to rediscover its radical message.
1912: The first worker apostles
As we celebrate the centenary of the foundation of the YCW, let’s remember the extraordinary commitment and sacrifice of the “first worker apostles” at Laeken in 1912.
Patrick Keegan, lay pioneer
On 13 October 1964, Patrick Keegan, pioneer of the YCW in England and with the International YCW, as well as co-founder of the World Movement of Christian Workers (WMCW) became the first lay person to address the Second Vatican Council.
Cardijn slams the 1967 Vatican Council of the Laity
The Specialised Catholic Action movements laid out their vision for a representative laity body at the Vatican in an important document drafted in July 1964, just prior to the Third Session of Vatican II.
Cardijn proposes a ‘Roman Centre’ for the lay apostolate
As Marguerite Fiévez told her biographers, Luc Roussel and Lamya Ben Djaffar, Cardijn would not have liked the proposed structure of the the Pontifical Council of/for the Laity created after Vatican II in 1967.
Lay movements and a synodal church
This is the presentation that I gave at the Global Catholicism panel at the European Academy of Religion conference at St Andrew’s University, Scotland from 19-23 June 2023.
Cardijn’s Greatest Battle: Lay apostolate vs Apostolate of the faithful at Vatican II
This is my presentation for the October 2022 Australian Cardijn Institute webinar, with the accompanying slide presentation.
What is the “new evangelisation”?
The term “new evangelisation” has gained much currency since Pope Saint John Paul II adopted it on his return from the Latin American Bishops Conference at Puebla, Mexico in 1979.
Young domestic workers at Vatican II
Young domestic workers at Vatican II? Unless they were serving any of the 2500 Council Fathers and 500-odd periti and other officials, there were certainly no young domestic workers there.
Cardijn and the First World Congress on Lay Apostolate 1951
This month we celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of Cardijn’s keynote speech to the First World Congress on Lay Apostolate in Rome from 7-14 October 1951.
See, judge, act… with the Laymen’s League of New York
In 1911, the Laymen’s League of New York organised social study groups using an early form of the see-judge-act.
The Australian Plenary Council: A Cardijn perspective
For the first time in over 80 years, the Australian Catholic Church is holding a Plenary Council, which will take place over two sessions in October 2021 and July 2022. It has the potential to shape the Church’s role for perhaps the rest of this century.
The roots of the Suenens-Cardijn conflict
We have seen previously that Suenens-Cardijn tensions date back at least to 1953 when Suenens wrote to Legion of Mary founder Frank Duff reacting to what he interpreted as Cardijn’s criticism of the Legion of Mary.
God’s lieutenants: The French bishops at Vatican II
The role of the YCW and the specialised Catholic Action movements in changing the Church in France has long been recognised, in France at least.
Who locked Cardijn out?
Pope John XXIII appointed Cardijn as a member of the Vatican II preparatory “Pontifical Commission on Lay Apostolate” and he played a very active role there. Then in February 1963, he was appointed as an expert for the conciliar “Commission on the Apostolate of the Faithful, the Press and the Moderation of Shows”, which was…
Cardijn’s Vatican II vision of lay apostolate
An excellent weekend in St Paul Minnesota for the University of St Thomas (UST) conference on Teaching and Understanding the Council after 50 years
Paul Dabin – Conscious and responsible
Paul Dabin was a Belgian Jesuit who died too young on 14 June 1949 at the age of only 58. In 1941, he published Le sacerdoce royal des fidèles dans les livres saints.
