As we saw previously, Cardijn always wanted Catholic Social Teaching or Doctrine to be taught in the context of life and social reality. Indeed, Cardijn often regretted the fact that it was not taught more and better.
In 1960, in a talk to priests, he lamented:
During my recent tour of the Americas (1959), people everywhere complained about the fact that priests do not know the Church’s Social Doctrine and therefore do not spread it; that in practice they feel powerless in the face of social injustice, which seems to them to be the sole responsibility of temporal institutions. In general, they never speak, either from the pulpit or in parish meetings, about lay apostles, or the major problems of Latin America and the world, e.g. undernourishment, slums, lack of hygiene and social security, insufficient wages and unemployment, illiteracy. Rare are those who exalt the dignity of human labour, workers, worker families and their most basic rights.
Perhaps it’s useful then to briefly consider Cardijn’s own understanding and vision of Catholic Social Doctrine and how it should be taught:
(T)he Church’s Social Doctrine is nothing other than Christ’s doctrine regarding God’s plan in time as in eternity, on earth as in heaven.
This mission entrusted by God to man, whom he created in his own image and likeness, makes him the irreplaceable collaborator of God, both in the work of creation and the work of redemption. Hence, the doctrine of Christ and the Church on the value of work, the dignity of the worker and his family, on the respect due to the poorest and most humble in a society animated by the Christian spirit. Is this not the only positive response to either communist or capitalist materialism?
If God has entrusted the implementation of His earthly plan to man, it is up to the Church to make it known to Christians and through them to humanity.
“Quomodo audient sine praedicante?” The faithful and parishioners will never be imbued with the Church’s Social Doctrine and be proud to spread it, convinced of their social mission, if the priest and the clergy in general do not evangelise them in a concrete and practical way.
Moreover, the Church’s Social Doctrine is inseparable from its spiritual doctrine. This would be an evasion, and charity would become an artificial, fake, arbitrary kind of generosity, if it did not include justice as the basis of all human relations, including personal, family, social, economic, cultural, political, national and international.
An individualistic conception of religion oriented only towards worship or towards a vague or simply alms-giving kind of charity is one of the greatest dangers facing the Church today. Catholics must be the pioneers of a social apostolate capable of dealing with current problems and it must not give enemies of the Church, nor even neutral movements, an opportunity to criticise the silence or indifference of the members of the clergy towards shortcomings that are to say the least unforgivable.
The social and economic, technical and scientific transformations – which are taking place in Latin America as elsewhere – make the Church’s Social Doctrine even more urgent than ever. The mass of humanity is abandoned to exploitation by the absence of a social doctrine which ensures respect for the weakest in all aspects of its earthly life, and its participation in the whole progress of civilisation…
Here, let’s note several characteristic Cardijn phrases. First, his linkage of the work of creation and redemption, emphasising the continuity between the two. In a similar vein, he insists on the continuity between “God’s plan in time and in eternity.”
In other words, teaching the Church’s spiritual doctrine must not be separated from its social doctrine. He therefore rejects an “individualistic conception of religion oriented only toward worship” in favour of “one that “a social apostolate” embedded in worldly realities, focused on the great “transformations” sweeping the world and with an emphasis on the needs of the poorest.
Nor was charity enough, rather “justice” needed to be made “the basis of all human relations.” In other words, a conception of Catholic social doctrine embraced and acted upon by every Catholic.
Formation in Catholic Social Doctrine
But, for Cardijn, it was not just a matter of teaching Catholic Social Doctrine as a classroom discipline but of forming people with that doctrine and on the role of apostolic movements like the YCW in doing so:
Only positive formation, information and participation in international movements of apostolic action will be able to provide members of the parish or diocesan community with the means not only of forming their own consciences but of collaborating effectively in the solution of these issues problems.
Here, he rejects the negativity that traditionally characterised much of the Church’s approach to the “evils” of the world, especially the “negative anti-communism” that Cardijn so often criticised.
A participative approach to formation was therefore required, Cardijn argued, echoing Aristotle’s conception of the human person participating in government.
Man is a social person with a right to all the training and assistance necessary for this participation. If the masses are not encouraged to organise, this guarantees social disorder which is also the cause of temporal evils, and which moreover, is an offence to the Creator and the Redeemer.
And he was highly critical of any failure in this regard:
No pretext can be accepted to justify and legitimise a silence and abstention in the universal impetus which today leads all peoples, and especially young people, to international solidarity with a view to the equitable participation of all in the progress of the world. modern. The coloured races as well as the white race, the populations of all the continents, need to be carried forward by the impetus and the dynamism of the Church in the collaboration which must carry out this human promotion on the spot and for all concerned.
For Cardijn, it flowed from this that the Church also has an important responsibility in this sphere:
No doubt, organising this participation of all in social progress is a human responsibility; but inspiring them and promoting this effort is part of the Church’s mission: “Instaurare omnia in Christo”. This includes not only a spiritual formation, which relates all life to God, but relates it to the whole of human society with a view to the Kingdom of God, in individuals as well as in institutions.
It is the characteristic, perhaps the most tangible – and which in any case, the most enthusiastic crowds – of this indissoluble union, of this double love which is one: love of God and love. of his brothers. One is impossible without the other; one is the touchstone and the guarantee of the other.
Whether in the world of work or cultural spheres, morality inspired by religion governs all aspects of temporal life in preparation for my eternal life. The “Docete omnes gentes” covers not just worship, but the whole of human life. The greatest human, financial, economic and political institutions – like the individual – are at the service of the happiness, the progress of the whole of humanity, and not of privileged minorities at the expense of this whole.
And he concluded with an urgent appeal to the Church to do more in this field, emphasising it as integral to the role of priests:
The formation of the disciples of Christ, from whatever social rank, includes this authentic lay apostolate, which will become increasingly urgent and must reach the whole of humanity.
The more we proclaim it, the more this spirit of service will penetrate minds and institutions. And the more we invite the faithful to seek the means to incarnate and realise this spirit, the more the Church will raise up the militants and the apostles that the new world needs in order to be truly animated by the spirit of Christ. Secularism can only be overcome by the laity. And the laity can only be awakened and formed by the clergy.
It’s a beautiful vision of the need for an integral Christian formation combining catechetical teaching with practical education in the Church’s social doctrine and praxis.
Stefan Gigacz
READ MORE
Joseph Cardijn, Priests and the Social Doctrine of the Church (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
Joseph Cardijn, The Church and the world of labour (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
Marguerite Fiévez and Jacques Meert, Cardijn at the Council (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)