This is the transcript of David Moloney’s remarks at the conclusion of the YCW Centenary Mass at All Saints Church, Fitzroy on Saturday 24 May 2025.
Good afternoon. My name is David Moloney. I have been asked to thank those who have prepared today’s liturgy and social gathering, and also to share a reflection on the Melbourne YCW history.
Firstly, we thank the principal celebrant at our Mass today, Archbishop Comensoli. It is important for the YCW – which has formed generations of Catholics in Melbourne and across Australia – to be recognised by the Church for what it has done, and what it is doing. We are grateful for your presence here today Archbishop Peter, and warmly invite you to join our social gathering afterwards.
To our host Father Max Vodola, and All Saints parish, thank you for making time and space for us. We are also grateful to concelebrants, Monsignor Frank Marriott, and Fathers Bruce Duncan, Brendan Lane, Brian Glasheen, Bob Wood and Wayne Edwards. Joseph Cardijn gave YCW chaplains a difficult but pivotal role, to be ‘everything and nothing’. Thank you.
Thank you to musicians Fiona Dyball and Brother Michael Henry FMS who have shared your special gifts and to lift our spirits today. And to the organizing committee – Stefan Gigacz, Joe Magri, Wayne McGough, Des Ryan, Fathers Max and Bruce and numerous others whose hard work behind the scenes has made today possible. I also acknowledge those here today representing YCW, YCW Holdings, ACI, CCA and the O’Sullivan Centre. And also Anne Kelly, daughter of Kevin Kelly who introduced French and Belgian YCW literature to Melbourne.
Most of all, thank you to all the current and former YCW members here today. Including those ‘full-timers’ who put their education and careers on hold, serving the movement for little pay, driven by faith and commitment.
An admission: I was never in the YCW; I was introduced to Cardijn’s ‘see judge act’ method well into adulthood. I tried it, and discovered that it worked. Not only in terms of social change, but the personal understanding that only comes through the doing. My interest stirred, but still an outsider, I perhaps have a unique perspective of the astonishing, yet little-known, YCW story.
Let’s consider a few, indicative, works of the YCW since its formal inauguration in Melbourne in 1941.
The YCW was a pioneer and powerhouse of mid twentieth century co-operation in Victoria. Historian David Kehoe describes the YCW co-operative vision and practical initiatives as the largest practical attempt by Catholics to re-Christianise Australian society.
It derived from the YCW method of beginning with life, a concrete problem, one of which was budgeting and saving for married life. The YCW was instrumental in securing cooperative housing legislation in Victoria, under which it set up terminating and permanent building societies.
Similarly, its method of ‘systematic enquiries’ identified that young couples needed finance for household items, such as fridges. So it then established a long-running trading cooperative, which retailed furniture, blinds, bedding, electrical and other household goods, ultimately focussing on school desks and uniforms.
The YCW consequently spearheaded the introduction of credit co-operative legislation; in acknowledgement it was registered as Victoria’s first credit union. Well in excess of one hundred parish credit co-ops were established across Victoria.
YCW land co-operatives subdivided land in a number of Melbourne suburbs for affordable residential development.
In the 1960s the YCW changed the name of its Association of Catholic Co-operative Credit Societies to the Victorian Credit Co-operatives Association, thus opening up its organisation, resources and educational structure up to wider society. Many parish credit co-ops then became the foundation of regional, and later national, mutual unions or banks, some still in operation. The YCW co-operative movement also helped establish industrial credit co-ops in larger companies, and for teachers and other public sector industries, some of which have grown to become mutual banks.
A major YCW achievement, mainly of its young members, were its football, netball, athletics, basketball, cricket and boxing sporting competitions and carnivals. At one stage Melbourne’s YCW football competition was said to have been the largest amateur league in Australia. In some municipalities parish YCW football clubs had to contest the prohibition of Sunday sport.
Also at the parish branch level, regular YCW dances became part of life in many neighbourhoods.
The YCW established the Phillip Island Camp for disadvantaged youth and families, including those from the armed services.
YCW apprentices and workers gave their weekends to rebuild houses which had been lost in a bushfire in the St Andrews – Eltham district, earning the gratitude of some needy people. Some young workers also helped out with trade work in the Papua New Guinea mission.
Behind the scenes an annual businessmen’s luncheon raised funds. Training in formation, leaders retreats, and fundraising fetes were held at properties purchased in this way: Maiya Wamba (boys), and Lowanna (girls). ‘Extension’ workers took the YCW to India, and south east Asia.
After the war, the YCW had provided accommodation and support for migrants, at Hawthorn, and an orphanage, at Middle Park. After Hungary’s uprising in 1956 it provided the same service for young Hungarian refugees. Also in the post-war period, and especially in the 1960s and 70s as rural opportunities declined and the ‘drift to the cities’ became an issue, it again provided accommodation, this time for country youth coming to Melbourne for work or education. It had accommodation on Beaconsfield Parade, and also conducted an extensive program placing country kids in suburban Catholic households.
The YCW introduced the ‘Pre-Cana’ marriage preparation program to Australia. In many Melbourne parishes this would become compulsory for engaged couples seeking to marry. It would go on to pioneer secular marriage education in Australia.
Car ownership by young people increased dramatically in the 1960s. The road death of much-loved full-timer, Paul Ladds, killed by a driver running a red light, prompted a soul-searching ‘see judge act’ exercise. This revealed that young people constituted most of the terrible road toll, and that YCW members too were drinking and driving.
Surveys were conducted, a guide book published, and creative events and marches were staged; 500 people attended the YCW’s Dallas Brooks Hall conference. Its five-year, Victoria-wide ‘road safety campaign’, part of a broader community movement, attracted extensive publicity, playing a significant part in developing public support for better driving tests, the introduction of Victoria’s internationally ground-breaking seat belt legislation, and drink-driving laws. The road toll is now a fifth of what it was then.
The meeting that initiated the Fitzroy Community Legal Service was organised by three YCW veterans who had worked with marginalised youth, and been part of the YCW prison visitation program. This Fitzroy initiative would pioneer Australia’s now extensive ‘community legal service’ movement.
The YCW ‘Waltons Campaign’ successfully tackled hire-purchase schemes which targeted and exploited those who were poor. It was another expression of a traditional YCW concern at this usurious industry, and pay-day lending schemes.
In solidarity, it protested the imprisonment of YCW members in Vietnam who opposed the war, and later in South Africa, who opposed apartheid. Actions ranged from the quiet to the bold: letter-writing to governments; and displaying a bamboo ‘tiger cage’ in the city square to illustrate the cramped spaces in which some YCW members were jailed in Vietnam.
There were many personal and collective workplace actions, primarily defence of the rights of apprentices. YCW inquiries and surveys sometimes provided unique grass-roots evidence regarding topical issues. A notable example was the national ‘unemployment campaign’, which concluded with political advocacy and a congress in Canberra. This was followed by a national ‘casual work’ survey, which raised awareness of a new workplace problem, and contributed to public debate on the industrial relations issues of that period.
Today’s YCW continues this historical legacy with initiatives such as the Cooking Project, which teaches skills and offers companionship and informal mental health support; the Work Rights campaign for young people, especially migrants; and its Cost of Living campaign.
What’s striking is how some historical issues, such as the money challenges facing young people, are being tackled anew by the YCW. And, just as the early YCW offered support to immigrants, refugees and then newcomers from rural areas, the present YCW again reaches out to ‘the stranger’: immigrants, refugees and this time international students. Other things have changed, such as connecting with youth online rather than in parishes, and the absence of a national chaplain.
The YCW’s action-rich ‘social transformation’ has been matched by extraordinary ‘personal formation’. It’s called ‘double transformation’: shaping society and shaping lives.
So many, having understood that their work is a vocation, have had their whole career trajectories shaped by their YCW formation. Others became priests, and many joined female apostolic orders.
Beyond work, it has influenced the orientation, even shape, of so many, in the civic arena (local community, unions, politics), and also in their personal lives. Veterans often trace back a simple gesture, perhaps reaching out to an isolated person, the stranger, in some setting, to ‘the YCW’.
The relationship between faith and life, ever the sap of Christianity, developed into a behaviour-based ‘lay apostolate’ by Cardijn’s method.
May that legacy flourish. Please join us for supper in the hall, to reconnect and celebrate. And maybe share a personal story in a ‘one minute wisdom’ segment; the ‘reflection’ on the ‘action’ continues.
David Moloney
