Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Webinar: Gerard Philips, architect of Lumen Gentium

2022 not only marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council in October 1962 but it is also the 50th anniversary of the death of Belgian theologian, Gerard Philips, the architect of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.

ACI has therefore invited Professor Mathijs Lamberigts, former director of the Vatican II Centre at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, to be the presenter for our 13 September webinar entitled “Gerard Philips, Theologian, senator and promoter of the laity.”

Gerard Philips, theologian, senator and promoter of the laity

Born on 29 April 1899, Philips was an early and enthusiastic collaborator of Joseph Cardijn, founder of the Young Christian Workers (YCW) movement. During the 1930s, he played a key role as chaplain in the development of the Flemish Catholic students movement. Continuing his work with Cardijn, he promoted Specialised Catholic Action among generations of Belgian seminarians.

In 1952, he published his landmark book, De leek in de Kerk, translated into English as “The laity in the Church.” In 1957, he achieved further prominence with his keynote address to the Second World Congress on Lay Apostolate in Rome.

As a peritus at the Second Vatican Council, Philips was called on by Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens to write what became the first draft of the future Dogmatic Constution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. Later, he collaborated closely with French peritus, Pierre Haubtmann, in the drafting of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World, Gaudium et Spes.

To these tasks, he brought his knowledge as a theologian but also the skills of diplomacy and negotiation that he had developed as a co-opted senator in the Belgian parliament

Originally from the Diocese of Liège, Gerard Philips taught at the University of Louvain (Leuven) from 1944 until his death on 14 July 1972.

Mathijs Lamberigts

Mathijs Lamberigts

Mathijs Lamberigts is Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, where he remains a member of the Research Unit on the History of Church and Theology.

An academic librarian from 1989 to 2000, Professor Lamberigts was Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Leuven from 2000 to 2008, and again from 2014 to 2018.

For 15 years, he was a member of the Religious Sciences working group of the Belgian National Foundation for Scientific Research (FNRS) and is also a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.

He is a member of the editorial staff of several leading theological including. Augustiniana, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Melitta, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, and Sacris Erudiri.

Date and time

Tuesday 13 September, 7pm AEST

Register

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86728331442?pwd=UERxRjM3NnhKZmlxSkRERnhlL3Budz09

READ MORE

Gerard Philips (French Wikipedia)

Gerard Phiips, The 25th anniversary of the YCW (French)

Gerard Philips, Reflections of a theologian (French)

Posted on

Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation at 50

Peruvian priest and former YCS chaplain Gustavo Gutiérrez’s 1971 book A Theology of Liberation “forced Christians to hear the voice of God among the world’s suffering and to ask whether the church’s talk of salvation meant anything for their liberation,” writes Michael Lee at National Catholic Reporter in a tribute marking the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication.

“That this book would spawn perhaps the most influential, and most controversial, theological movement in the last half century is a bit of a surprise,” Lee continues.

“The book has no inflammatory passages. It does not call for armed rebellion. Nor does it engage in the kind of polemical attacks that pass for public discourse today.

“Yet, in the way that it offers both a diagnosis of our world’s ills and a vision for the way that the church can help transform them, A Theology of Liberation remains as relevant today as it was half a century ago.

Now 93, Gutiérrez, who has joined the Dominican order, “wrote the book after the Second Vatican Council, when much of Catholic theology was moving away from the deductive style of an earlier generation to an inductive one that took human experience into account,” Lee says.

“However, there was still something missing. Although the council had done much to recognize people of other faiths and indeed of no faith at all, it only dimly realized the plight of “non-persons” that today still make up the majority population of the planet. Liberation theology challenges all God-talk by placing their experiences at the center of reflection.

“If there is one thing we have learned in the last few years, it is that the great problems that we face, such as racism, poverty and the climate crisis, are structural in nature. They have long histories and are embedded socially in ways that are often masked in day-to-day life. A Theology of Liberation takes that structural insight to engage with and deepen Christian theology,” Lee notes.

“As powerful as its prophetic critique is, A Theology of Liberation also presents a positive vision summed up in a most basic definition of salvation — communion with God and with others. Yet that simple phrase yields deep implications when it takes seriously what is going on in the world and how it might affect the way core Christian beliefs are understood.

FULL STORY

Michael Lee, After 50 years, Gutiérrez’s ‘A Theology of Liberation’ still ‘What’s Going On’ (National Catholic Reporter)

Posted on

Australian YCW 80th anniversary

On 23 November, the Australian YCW, the Cardijn Community and ACI will present a webinar to commemorate and celebrate the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the movement in 1941.

Keynote speaker will be Bill Armstrong AO, former YCW leader from Victoria, who later had a distinguished career in international development

Responding to Bill will be Marilyn Bellett, current president of the Australian YCW.

Register for the event here:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/ycw-80th-anniversary-webinar-tickets-206886953447

Bill Armstrong AO

Bill Armstrong AO

Bill grew up on a sheep farm in Alexandra, central Victoria. He studied at St Bede’s College Mentone before taking up an apprenticeship in Fitting and Turning.

From 1958 till 1963 he worked for the YCW and also managed to play two AFL league games for Carlton Football Club.

In 1964 he began a career in international development with the newly formed OSB (Overseas Service Bureau, later to change its’ name to Australian Volunteers International).

In the 1970s Bill was National Co-ordinator of the Churches International Development Education Program, Action for World Development (AWD).

In 1982 he returned to AVI as CEO, a position he held till 2002, managing the growth of the organisation from a staff of 12 to a total of 130 people nationally and an annual budget of A$400,000 to over A$20 million. In 2001 AVI managed 1000 volunteers in 45 countries.

He was also a member of the ACFOA (Now ACFID) Executive for 20 years and was its president from 1993-1997.

Since his retirement in 2002 Bill has served on a variety of boards including Caritas Australia (2002-2009), ActionAid Australia (2003-2012), Indigenous Community Volunteers (Now Community First Development) 2000-2019, Friends of Suai/Covalima (Timor Leste) 2003-2017,and YCW Holdings (Melbourne) 2003-present.

He is a life member of AVI, ACFID and Action Aid Australia.

In 1995 Bill was presented with a Friendship Award by the State Bureau of Foreign Experts, People’s Republic of China and in 2000 he was the recipient of the Sir Edward Weary Dunlop Asia Medal, “In recognition of his significant contribution to forging stronger relations between Australia and Asia.”

In 2003 Bill was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) “For service to the international community—-“

Marilyn Bellett

Marilyn Bellett
Marilyn Bellett

Marilyn is from Sydney where she obtained a Bachelors Degree in Biodiversity and Conservation from Macquarie University.

While in high school, she belonged to the YCS in Parramatta Diocese before later joining the YCW. In 2018, she worked for the Australian YCW as a youth engagement officer in Melbourne and later in her home diocese of Parramatta. She has also worked for Catholic Mission.

Currently, she is national president of the movement.

READ MORE

Marilyn Bellett, The work of the YCW in light of the Synod on Young People

Posted on

Workers and the Church

Former IYCW president, Romeo Maione, delivered this talk in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985.

As the village breaks down, it rebuilds. As the seed dies so will it bear bruit. In death there is life. As the village dies, so does the city find life. The city is the village reborn. The village does not die in the village rather the village moves to the city to die and gives the city new life.

As the village dies in a city, it gives birth to a universal citizen who is neither Greek or Roman, Italian or French etc. He becomes a citizen of the city. The village in the city becomes the mechanism to change the person from a member of village into a citizen of the world. The essential part of this process happens in the work place.

While the workers may live in their separate villages in the city, they all work together in the workplace of the city. It is in the factory that the villager is called for the first time to work side by side with workers coming from various languages, cultures and faiths. It is in the workplace that a new solidarity is built up far and away from the frontiers once that held them together.

The first step towards universal solidarity is the worker movement. This movement was not planned rather it came out of the urge of justice. This forced the workers to organize so as to protect their jobs and wages and conditions of work. This was the first step from barbarism where the strong loads it over the weak and impose their will on uneducated workers. The village community cannot protect them in the factory. So a new type of organization starts to develop along with the living community.

Although the Church in America encouraged the organization of unions for the good of workers, the basic organization of the Church was still the geographical parish, even today, the Church has still to discover the various new communities that have no geographical, racial, cultural or even religious boundaries. When once the village was the only organization, now a whole new set of organizations was starting to develop yet the sap of life according to the experience of the Church was to circulate in only the dying villages in the city.

It was in this new community that social justice was the real glue of a new community. It is interesting to see how the village culture played a role in this new community. My dad told me the story of how he joined a union. He was a member of a “minority tribe” in an Italian village. As there was an incredible pull to help your own, the minority was always in danger of being replaced by another worker.

The majority tribe knew how to grease the hand of the foreman who was in charge of hiring. So my father always felt the danger of being let go to make room for one of the majority tribe. So my father joined a union to protect him from the majority. It was fear that led him in joining the union.

This new type of organization did not drop out of heaven rather it was founded on the fears and secondly the hopes of workers to better working conditions. This new worker movement in time replaced the dying villages. The drive of these new communities were to become “the historic class of making history”.

The distance between the worker movement and the Church is the measure of the distance of the Church from the modern world. Industrial power can only be civilized and made human by social power. This thinking even with the social teachings is far away from the essential thinking and praying of the Church. We camouflage our betrayal by insisting that power is not our mission.

Love is our mission, we say but never even think that love may be the greatest power to humanize and civilize the beast that lies in every person and culture. Love is the only power that can ever hope to exorcise the power and the power that absolutely corrupts. Love is the power of god that must struggle with the power of Satan. The latter is close to victory when love becomes detached from justice.

It is the masses that make history contrary to much Church thinking that it is the elites who construct societies and culture. New cultures must be built on the foundation of the masses. Those who do not know the history of the masses, of the villager becoming a worker are forever doomed to build castles in the sky.

Culture grows from the roots of the masses. Its first growth is as barbaric as an infant who must learn how to walk before it can run. The worker movement is an irreplaceable part of the building up of a new culture out of the membership of various village cultures coming together in the industrial plants.

It was the communist intellectuals that preached the workers were the historic class but who used their power to build up a society dominated by intellectuals. And we all know the results of this effort of using the masses for them to gain power over the masses.

The Church thinks that it does not have to dirty her hands in the cave of history. We will wait till sometime in the future to meet the workers..TOO Late|.

Romeo Maione
Nairobi
March 23.1982

Proudly powered by WordPress