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Church’s mission starts from reality: Cardinal Hollerich

In an interview with La Civilta Cattolica, Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich has called for the Church to focus on its mission, starting the reality that see us all as children of the same Father.

“I believe that today in Europe we are suffering from a pathology, which, that is, we are unable to see clearly what the mission of the Church is,” Cardinal Hollerich, a former chaplain to the Luxembourg YCW, warned.

“We always talk about structures, which is certainly not a bad thing, because structures are important and certainly need to be rethought. But there is not enough talk of the mission of the Church. Which is to announce the Gospel. To announce, and above all to testify, the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. 

“A witness that the Christian must interpret mainly through his commitment in the world for the safeguarding of creation, for justice, for peace. 

“The teaching of Pope Francis is everything and nothing other than the clarification of the Gospel. It is not difficult to understand. In today’s secularised world, direct proclamation is not always understood, but our witness is. We are observed and valued in the world for how we live the gospel. 

“It is a bit like it happens for teachers at school: it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. 

“Take the encyclical for example it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. Take the encyclical for example it is certainly important what they say, but even more important is what they communicate about themselves. In our case, what matters is consistency with the Gospel. 

“Take the encyclical for example Laudato si ‘.  Many have read it, even among non-believers, even among those who do not know the Gospel. And all those who read it shared its value, importance, urgency. I had direct feedback from my daily contacts with the politicians of the European Parliament and Commission in Brussels. So everyone has read  Laudato Sì,  and admires it. And the same was also true for  Fratelli Tutti. 

“In other words, everyone recognizes Pope Francis as the paternity of the proposal for a new humanism. Which he often proposes in solitude among the great world leaders. But then it is up to us to be able to explain that Francis’ humanism is not just a political proposal, but a proclamation of the Gospel. Those outside the Church sometimes understand the Gospel better than those inside. 

“Pope Francis therefore indicated this way of proclaiming the Gospel, which starts from reality, that reality that sees us all as creatures and children of the same Father. But to answer your initial question: in all European countries there has been much talk at synods of communion, of participation, but very little of mission,” Cardinal Hollerich concluded.

SOURCE

Hollerich: la Chiesa deve cambiare, rischiamo di parlare a un uomo che non c’è più (Vatican News)

PHOTO

GilPe / Wikipedia / CCA BY SA 4.0

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Jean Tyacke, unionist and YCW extension worker in South Africa

Jean Tyacke, who came to South Africa from her native United States as a YCW extension worker, has died in Johannesburg, just a few days before her 95th birthday.

“She might have been the last of the giant Young Christian Workers-trained unionists active in the apartheid era,” writes Paul Goller in the South African Southern Cross magazine.

Jean was born in the United States in 1927 and came to South Africa in 1959. Engagingly she retained her accent over the rest of her life. But, more characteristically, she continued her voting for Democratic presidential candidates up to Joe Biden.

In Chicago, probably her favourite city, Jean came to YCW early, after having been very active in Young Christian Students In her schooldays. Even then, she said, she saw herself more as a teambuilder than as a dominant leader; the apartheid regime came to dislike both.

In 1961, Jean married Eric Tyacke, founder of the South African branch of YCW in 1949 and the Urban Training Project (UTP). They lived in Robertsham until their retirement in 1987. The non-racial parties they hosted were surely the scandal of the neighbourhood. They didn’t, one suspects, make their children’s lives at the local government school any easier.

With journalist Sydney Duval and others, Jean participated in the drafting of the SACBC’s seminal 1972 pastoral letter condemning apartheid, “Call to Conscience”, and its subsequent study materials.

She also took part in the launch of the YCS adult Family Social Action movement.

Jean’s home was raided by the security police as early as the late 1960s; the Anglican dean of Johannesburg had been charged with participating in an alleged African National Congress plan to overthrow the government by force. Jean’s YCW heritage, building on her Catholic Christian faith, would not have let her fall into that trap.

From 1976, for more than three years the Tyacke family lived under the full rigours of the banning system, which attempted to destroy most aspects of its victims’ work, social and activist lives. Percy Qoboza, the YCW editor of The World wrote of Jean and Eric: ”Take heart, you two beautiful people: you do everything possible to bridge the growing gap between black and white”.

Jean worked at Wits University — after the employment element of her banning was challenged — and into the 1980s. She was able to see the education of her daughters Kathy, Teresa and Sheila continue into socially committed professions at Wits during this period.

Jean was employed at UTP only intermittently; but in 1999 the late Donovan Lowry found her help invaluable, not only in proofreading his authoritative history of UTP but also in adding to and even shaping his research material.

Eric Tyacke died on August 20, 2014, at 89.

In a letter to Eric and Jean on their retirement in 1987, Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban had summed up their working lives: “What a contribution you both have made in the building up of the worker movement in South Africa. You, and some others like you, have with great dedication, maintained links between organised Church and the worker. Thank you and God bless you for that.”

Reuben Denge, the director of WEP, the organisation that succeeded UTP, said upon hearing of Jean’s death: ”She really contributed immensely in the development of the labour movement in South Africa.”

SOURCE

Catholic activist Jean Tyacke dies at 94 (Southern Cross)

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RIP Fr Albert Nolan o.p., author of ‘Jesus before Christianity’


Liberation theologian and former South African YCS chaplain, Fr Albert Nolan o.p. has died at the age of 88.

Born in Cape Town in 1934 in a lower middle-class family of Irish extraction, young Dennis Nolan worked as a bank clerk after finishing school until he joined the Order of Preachers in 1954. Taking the name Albert, he completed his studies for the priesthood at St. Nicholas Priory in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, before completing doctoral studies at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome.

Because he considered the cost of publishing his thesis a waste of money, the degree was never conferred. Undeterred, he returned to South Africa to teach theology at the Dominican house of studies from which he had graduated. He combined his teaching with serving as chaplain to Catholic students at the overwhelmingly white and Afrikaans-speaking Stellenbosch University.

He would also in the 1970s onward serve as a chaplain and advisor to the Young Christian Students.

Father Nolan’s responsibilities as chaplain broadened in 1973 when he was made National Chaplain of the National Catholic Federation of Students, at a time when even liberal-minded student movements were in ferment generated by the rise of the Black Consciousness movement. Started in 1969 by the late Steve Biko, the movement encouraged black pride and self-reliance, with a view to political liberation.

Albert challenged through his writings and his life a whole generation of Catholic students and young Catholic men and women religious of many orders.

His specific contribution at this stage was theological. Prompted by a meeting in the mid-1970s with liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez (who would himself later become a Dominican), Father Nolan gave a series of lectures on the historical Jesus to two N.C.F.S. national conferences, which he later turned into a book published in 1976 as Jesus Before Christianity.

After a small print run from a local publisher, the book was picked up by theological publishers in the United Kingdom and United States. It became one of the bestselling theological texts of the last 100 years and is still in print.

By the early 1980s, Father Nolan was provincial of the Dominicans in Southern Africa, which necessitated a move to Johannesburg. While in Johannesburg, he helped to found the Institute for Contextual Theology, an ecumenical network of pastors and theologians engaged in the struggle against apartheid. This brought together white and Black university professors and clergy in South Africa’s townships who had embraced Black Consciousness (which had been suppressed as a movement in 1977).

Midway through all this, in 1983 Father Nolan was elected master general of the Order of Preachers. In an unprecedented move in Dominican history, he politely turned down the appointment, believing that his work in South Africa would serve the Gospel more.

Returning to South Africa, in the decade of apartheid’s endgame, Father Nolan threw himself into his work. Crucial to this period was his involvement in drafting and editing the 1985 Kairos Document, a call from pastors and theologians to the churches of South Africa to fully embrace the struggle for democracy and to put their institutions at the service of nonviolent resistance. Although the institutions responded uneasily to Kairos, criticizing (perhaps correctly) the representation of themselves in the text, by the end of the 1980s the churches in fact took a leading role in nonviolent action.

Meanwhile within the Catholic Church, though he was controversial, Father Nolan was a major resource for the Southern African Justice and Peace Commission, advising the bishops on public statements and even at one point visiting and reporting on the state of the church in Communist countries. (The report has never been published!)

During the State of Emergency, 1985 through February 1990, in South Africa—the beginning of the end for apartheid—Father Nolan’s life took further dramatic turns. For a while, he was in hiding, hunted by the security police who wanted to detain him without trial for his work on the Kairos document.

Father Nolan saw an opportunity and wrote his second major book, God in South Africa, literally on the run. It was published in 1988. This work, in many ways his most radical, analyzed the South African situation from a perspective very close to the A.N.C.’s understanding and argued that hope lay in the very struggle for freedom that the A.N.C. and other internal resistance moments committed to non-racial democracy were waging.

May his memory inspire us all to hope and struggle onwards in new times for that reign.

FULL STORY

Anthony Egan SJ, Remembering Father Albert Nolan, a best-selling theologian who explored the humanity of Christ (America Magazine)

PHOTO

Image by Ricardo da Silva, S.J. Photo courtesy of The Southern Cross.

CORRECTION

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Fr Albert was a YCW chaplain. He was a strong supporter of the movement but was in fact a YCS chaplain.

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Cardijn’s greatest battle: Lay apostolate vs apostolate of the faithful at Vatican II

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on 11 October 1962.

Many will know that Cardijn played several roles at the Council, initially as a member of the Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate, then as a peritus in the conciliar commission and finally as a Council Father after Paul VI made him a cardinal in February 1965.

In addition to the above, in July 1963, he published his influential book “Lay People into Action,” which was translated from French into five languages.

Finally, – and perhaps most significant of all – was Cardijn’s role as the centre of a network of 250 jocist bishops, who had all been formed by and/or had personal experience as chaplains of the YCW, YCS and other Specialised Catholic Action movements.

All this may make it seem as if Cardijn had an easy time at the Council. Nothing could be further from the truth! In reality, Vatican II would prove to be the greatest battle of his life.

At the age of 80, Cardijn found himself called to explain and promote his conception of the “specifically lay apostolate of lay people” as distinguished from the “apostolate of the faithful” common to all the baptised. It was a distinction that many theologians and bishops who had no personal experience of the Cardijn movements failed to grasp. Indeed, I would argue that many still fail to grasp it!

Yet, as the documents of Vatican II attest, Cardijn and his colleagues were ultimately successful in their endeavours as evidenced by §31 of Lumen Gentium, which made clear that “the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God.”

In this month’s webinar, Stefan Gigacz explains the struggle that Cardijn and his network faced in their efforts to achieve this.

SPEAKER

Originally from Melbourne, Stefan worked for a short time as a personal injuries lawyer. While at university, he became involved in a local parish YCW group. In 1978, he became a fulltime worker for the movement, working in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney and later for the International YCW.

Later, he completed master’s degrees in canon law and legal theory. From 1997-2000, he coordinated an international project to document the history of the YCW before taking up a position as a project officer with the French Catholic development agency, CCFD-Terre Solidaire. From 2006-2008, he worked as a pastoral worker in a Melbourne Catholic parish. Since then, he has worked as an editor and journalist for a series of Catholic online publications.

From 2012-2018, he worked on his PhD thesis on the role of Joseph Cardijn at the Second Vatican Council, now published under the title “The Leaven in the Council: Joseph Cardijn and the Jocist Network at Vatican II.” He now resides in Perth, Western Australia, where he devotes his time to the development of the Australian Cardijn Institute.

DETAILS

Tuesday 11 October 2022, 8pm AEDT or 11am Brussels/Paris time.

REGISTER

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sc-2ppjMtHtFlVEdsqq1OEYr7eBtmkeAD

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Video: Gerard Philips, theologian, senator and promoter of the laity: Prof. Mathijs Lamberigts

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 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.

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Fr Hal Ranger, reluctant to retire at 87


Senior Toowoomba priest, Fr Hal Ranger credits Cardijn with his reluctance to retire, ABC News reports.

At St Patrick’s Cathedral, where he is Associate Pastor, Father Hal, 87, leads mass, or “meetings of the team” as he calls it.

“The game is out there in the world,” he said.

“You get the team together to kind of re-align yourself with the spirit of the team, listen to the word of God and talk about it a bit.

“Then you go out the door to live that out in the nitty-gritty of the real world.”

Father Hal puts his reluctance to retire down to a meeting many years ago with Belgian Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, who was 84 when he said to him, “If you’ve got the health and the energy and a bit of adrenaline, then why not?”.

He remembers his mother taking a job at Toowoomba’s Willowburn Mental Asylum to work with “the broken, isolated people the rest of the world didn’t want anything to do with”.

Father Hal says being there for the “battling people looking for meaning in their life” became a theme in his life, but also pitted him against the Catholic Church’s rigid traditions.

“There were times I seriously thought about how I can really live meaningfully and peacefully and with energy in the system, so I rebelled a bit against it,” he says.

“But I was never tempted to throw the whole baby out with the bath water.”

Father Hal believes the biggest barrier between the church and the people it wants to connect with are the churches themselves.

“This will come across as a bit of a heresy, but I think the building that we’re sitting in and other church buildings and the institution that the church has kind of got itself locked into is almost foreign to the gospel,” he said.

“I really don’t think Jesus, if he were here today, would be building churches.

“If there is value in gathering big groups of people, then use the town hall. Once you build something like this, I think it gives a message of being cut off from the rest of the world.”

FULL STORY

Young and old reflect on life as Catholic priests in 2022 (ABC News)

PHOTO

Father Hal Ranger has been a Catholic priest for 64 years.(ABC Southern Queensland: Belinda Sanders)

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Newark synod synthesis highlights “priesthood of the laity”

In its diocesan synthesis for the Synod on Synodality in 2023, the US Archdiocese of Newark has called for “significant formation” on the “priesthood of the laity” and in “lay leadership.”

The recommendations include:

Provide significant formation regarding “the priesthood of the laity” and how each person is called to be a disciple of Christ through baptism for members of the laity and Church leaders.

The report noted that “many parishioners are more focused on their local concerns rather than on global issues.”

“Pastors, parish staff members, and school and campus leaders can facilitate “lifelong learning” by gathering groups to read, study and reflect on the many resources available to know more about the faith and contemporary issues the Church is speaking of,” the synthesis continued.

Small Christian Communities

Giving examples, the synthesis noted that “parishioners can be invited to come together for Small Christian Communities, Bible study, books, journal studies, etc., on parish or deanery levels.”

It concluded that there was a need to “help parishioners who are unsure how to reach out to the margins: the poor, former Catholics, unchurched, younger generations, and others.e

Training

“Training is needed in ways to gently reach out to others and invite them into the life of Christ,” the synthesis added, calling for “lay leadership training in parish leadership, ministries and groups, social justice and outreach.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin CSsR welcomed the report, saying:

The synod consultation process provided the Archdiocese with a new opportunity, not only for the prayer, dialogue and discernment called for by Pope Francis, but also a way to think concretely about how to address issues on the local level. A goal for the synod listening sessions was to reach as many people as possible throughout the Archdiocese. As the Archdiocesan planning team began to organize the diocesan consultations, they provided information sessions so that everyone could learn about the Synod and ways they could participate. It was hoped that parish pastoral councils, with some additional training, could facilitate the listening sessions in their respective parishes. This was very effective in gaining participation from a significant number of people. In places that did not have functioning pastoral councils, other leaders were called upon to facilitate the listening sessions.

SOURCE

Diocesan Synthesis Synod on Synodality (Archdiocese of Newark)

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Reaching the peripheries: France’s Worker Mission

Next week we are holding another special event to look at the work of the French Catholic Church’s Mission Ouvrière, the worker mission established 80 years ago to reach out to working people.

Many of us will remember Pope Pius XI’s famous lament to Cardijn that “the greatest tragedy of the 19th century was the loss of the working class to the Church.”

Others will recall the famous book, France, Pays de mission – France a mission country -, written by YCW chaplains, Henri Godin and Yvan Daniel, which showed the extent to which the Church had lost touch with the masses.

Since then, Pope Francis has reframed that mission as a mission to the “periphery,” meaning reaching those people beyond the reach of the Church’s traditional structures.

And this is the work of the French Mission Ouvrière, which continues to provide a framework for the YCW, the Christian Workers Movement, a children’s movement, workers priests and a whole range of apostolic groups.

Could it offer a model for Australia today as the Church seeks to implement the decisions of the recent Plenary Council?

To discuss this and other issues, we’ve invited Jackie Hocquet and Bernard Schricke, both former YCW leaders, now working with Caritas France, to explain the Worker Mission model.

Read more

The French Worker Mission (translated document)

Mission Ouvrière Nationale (French)

DATE AND TIME

Thursday 22 September 2022, 7pm AEST

REGISTER

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItfu6spzgoH9eXJMEXmQh_3qNKrMmFN8NS

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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)

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Mondragon limits maximum salaries to 6x

Writing in The New Yorker magazine, Nick Romeo investigates the secrets of success of the Mondragon worker coops – now the world’s largest worker coop group.

Romeo writes:

The Mondragon Corporation, as it’s known, is a voluntary association of ninety-five autonomous coöperatives that differs radically from a conventional company. Each co-op’s highest-paid executive makes at most six times the salary of its lowest-paid employee. There are no outside shareholders; instead, after a temporary contract, new workers who have proved themselves may become member-owners of their co-ops. A managing director acts as a kind of C.E.O. within each co-op, but the members themselves vote on many vital decisions about strategy, salaries, and policy, and the votes of all members, whether they are senior management or blue-collar, count equally.

Solidarity

When individual coöperatives do well, their members share in the profits. When times are hard, the coöperatives collectively support one another, sharing funds and reallocating workers among themselves to preserve jobs. During the pandemic, workers at many Mondragon co-ops voted to temporarily reduce their own salaries or hours until markets recovered; people who felt sick were trusted and encouraged to stay home.

Six-to-one maximum pay ratio

If JPMorgan adopted Mondragon’s six-to-one pay ratio, ​​Dimon’s compensation would be capped at six times that of his lowest-paid employee; while it’s hard to estimate his hypothetical salary too narrowly, he would almost certainly make less than a million dollars instead of the more than eighty-four million dollars he earned in 2021, and his decisions would be subject to approval by workers. Furthermore, if JPMorgan were a Mondragon co-op, its profits and staff would sometimes be shared with Basque co-op versions of Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Productivity

It’s easy to assume that such arrangements must impair productivity. But multiple academic studies have found that coöperatives with worker governance and ownership are as profitable as or more profitable than ordinary firms. Researchers note that, in co-ops, incentives are better aligned: people benefit directly when their co-op succeeds, and so they are more committed. (The same principle motivates work at many startups.) They also find that democratic governance empowers workers to suggest improvements and increases their satisfaction.

Will it be repeated?

Mondragon’s network of co-ops, many clustered along Spain’s Deba River, has managed to survive nearly seventy years of capitalism’s creative destruction. Its persistence suggests that there are fairer and more sustainable ways of doing business. But whether a version of its model could be replicated outside of one beautiful region of northern Spain is an open question, debated within Mondragon and beyond. The collective has a unique history, and its density powers a rare feedback loop in which coöperative values shape institutions, which then reinforce the same values, spiralling outward to define an entire way of life. Mondragon is an inspiring and successful experiment. Will it ever be repeated?

FULL ARTICLE

How Mondragon became the world’s largest coop (The New Yorker)

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Video: Australia’s Indigenous Science Network

Mark Linkson was the presenter for our August ACI webinar on “Australia’s Indigenous Science Network.”

A former YCW leader from Adelaide, Mark has taught in Indigenous communities in northern Australia and the Torres Strait islands for more than 30 years. He also taught for two years in Ethiopia.

With this wealth of experience, he has become the Australian coordinator for the Indigenous Science Network (ISN), a global initiative based in Australia that promotes the use of Indigenous science in education and highlights the work of Indigenous scientists.

WATCH THE VIDEO

VIEW THE PRESENTATION

Mark Linkson, Indigenous Science Network (ACI)

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Respect: Confronting violence and abuse

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has issued its Social Justice Statement for 2022-23 addressing the theme “Respect: Confronting violence and abuse.”

It explains the major issues as follows:

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that “family, domestic and sexual violence is a major national health and welfare issue that can have lifelong impacts for victims and perpetrators. It affects people of all ages and from all backgrounds, but predominantly affects women and children”.

The statistics concerning violence against women and children in Australia are shocking. One woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner while one in six girls and one in nine boys were physically or sexually abused before age of 15. Some groups are more vulnerable than others.

Apart from physical violence, women and girls with disabilities experience all forms of violence at higher rates than men with disabilities, or people without disabilities. A staggering 65% of women with disabilities report experiencing at least one incident of violence since the age of 15 and women with disabilities are twice as likely as women without disabilities to have experienced sexual violence. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that young women aged 18-34 were 2.7 times as likely as those aged 35 and over to have experienced intimate partner violence in the 12 months before the 2016 Personal Safety Survey.

Meanwhile more than 10,900 calls were made to elder abuse helplines across Australia in 2017-18. Women outnumbered men among these callers in each state and emotional and financial abuse were the most common types of elder abuse reported. People who identify as LGBTQI+, people living outside major cities, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are also more vulnerable to violence than other groups.

Family and domestic violence is a painful and complex reality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

READ MORE

Respect: Confronting violence and abuse (Office for Social Justice)

Respect: Confronting violence and abuse (Social Justice Statement 2022-23)

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Review: ‘A World after Liberalism’

In the past few years, several murderous racists have shown a strange interest in demarcating their complicated relationship with Christianity, writes Jeet Heer at Commonweal.

Payton S. Gendron, who was arrested for shooting ten Black people at a Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo in May, raised the issue in his heavily plagiarized manifesto. In a “questions and answers” section, he takes up the question “Are you a Christian?” According to Gendron, “No, I do not ask God for salvation by faith, nor do I confess my sins to Him. I personally believe there is no afterlife. I do however believe in and practice many Christian values.”

It’s the issue of “Christian values” that makes Gendron’s affiliation with Christianity more complex. For the manifesto makes clear that Gendron’s racism includes the belief that “Christian values” are a significant component of “White culture.” He also accuses Jews of being demonic.

Gendron lists an array of other killers as his inspiration. They include Brenton Tarrant, who killed fifty-one Muslims in New Zealand in 2019, and Anders Breivik, who killed seventy-seven people, mostly teenagers, in Norway in 2011. Both men also defined themselves as unbelievers but cultural Christians, acting to defend the faith against secular and infidel (largely Islamic) foes. In his manifesto, Breivik told his followers that they “don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage.”

These three murderers are a new breed of crusaders: political Christians who kill on behalf of a faith whose tenets they don’t believe in. They are the most extreme and violent manifestations of an upsurge in white Christian identitarian politics throughout the lands formerly known as Christendom.

It’s one of the many merits of Matthew Rose’s A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right that it helps answer the question of how a figure like Breivik could both disavow Christian belief and claim to kill on behalf of “our Christian cultural heritage.”

FULL ARTICLE

Christianity’s Postliberal Critics ‘A World after Liberalism’ (Commonweal)

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ACI AGM online Tuesday 30 August 2022

The ACI Annual General Meeting for 2022 will be held via Zoom on Tuesday 30 August 2022 at 7pm AEST.

Our first guest speaker will be Sarah Prenger, who has just recently completed her term as president of the International YCW. Sarah is currently completing a master’s in Catholic Social Teaching in her home country, Germany.

Also joining us will be Sarah’s compatriot, Bernhard Bormann, another former IYCW leader, who is now a member of the leadership team of the International Cardijn Association, an alumni network for YCW members.

Registration link

And please also note the Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85069648216?pwd=ZVJuOUt4akE2bGs4MEtQenlGRG0rUT09

Registration is required.

Nomination of directors

ACI Rules are attached or may be consulted online here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1V07oNBwhOvHXRx0-jeMV0S3C_3RFf9us

Please particularly note Rule 47, which sets out the procedures governing the election of directors.

In accordance with this, I advise that:

i) ACI currently has seven directors. No directors are retiring at or prior to this AGM.

ii) Nominations are open for further directors as the AGM may decide. All financial members are eligible to stand for election.

iii) Responsibilities and duties of directors are set out in the attached document. They may also be consulted at the following link:

https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/licensing-and-registration/co-operatives/responsibilities-of-a-co-operative

iv) No remuneration is payable to directors.

v) Nominations must be made as follows:

A nomination must:

(i) be signed by 2 or more members; and

(ii) provide details of the qualifications and experience of the person nominated;

and

(iii) be accompanied by a notice in writing signed by the nominee consenting to

their nomination.

(d) The nomination and the notice of consent must be lodged with the secretary of the co-operative at least 30 days before the annual general meeting. (See Rule 47 (5) (c).

Nominations therefore need to be sent to me, the secretary, by 31 July 2022.

Financial membership

Please ensure that your membership is up to date prior to the AGM and/or become an ACI patron.

The annual membership fee is (a very modest) $12.

Bank details for payments:

Account name: Australian Cardijn Institute Cooperative
Bank: Great Southern Bank BSB: 814282 A/c No.: 51304905

Pay online here:

https://www.trybooking.com/CBKZV

Draft Agenda

The chairperson, Mr Brian Lawrence is to deem if we have a quorum and then open the meeting with a prayer.

1. To confirm the Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Saturday 28 August 2021. See attached minutes.

2. Any matters arising from the Minutes of the 2021 Annual General Meeting.

3. To receive from the Board, Auditors, any officer of the ACI, any member of ACI, any reports upon the transactions, affairs of the Australian Cardijn Institute for the year end of 30/06/2021.

4. Income and Expenditure Statement and Balance Sheet for the year end 30/06/2022. Mr Michael Rice to present. See attached Report.

5. Election of Directors: Present Board Members are: Mr Brian Lawrence (President), Messrs Stefan Gigacz (Secretary), David Moloney, Michael Rice (Treasurer), Desmond Ryan and Katharine Massam. During the year, Mr Greg Lopez resigned as a member of the board.

None of their terms of office are expiring this year. No nominations have been received for further members of the board.

The Board is seeking to further improve its expertise and is looking for suitable candidates with special skills in marketing, religious, theological and other relevant disciplines and in order to increase gender and age diversity.

6. Guest speakers: Sarah Prenger, former president of the International YCW, currently completing a masters in Catholic Social Teaching in Germany, and Bernhard Bormann, member of the leadership of the International Cardijn Association, the alumni network of the IYCW.

7. National and International Reports: Mr S. Gigacz

Websites/Newsletter: Mr S. Gigacz

Other reports as required

8. Our “Notice of Meeting” is online here:

ACI AGM online Tuesday 30 August 2022

Members are encouraged to email the secretary Mr S.R. Gigacz by 23 August 2022 with any voting intentions, questions for the annual meeting or suggestions: aci@australiancardijninstitute.org 

9. ACI Plan for 2023-24

12. General Business

By ORDER OF THE BOARD

Secretary/Director: Mr S. Gigacz

Email: aci@australiancardijninstitute.org or

Phone: 0491 077 033.

ACI Registered Address: 56 Austin Rd, Seaford, Vic, 3198.

Thanking you and looking forward to seeing you all on 30 August.

Stefan Gigacz

Secretary

Australian Cardijn Institute Cooperative Ltd
Incorporated in 2018
(Cooperatives National Law Application Act 2013)
ABN: 19211591334
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Webinar: Australia’s Indigenous Science Network

Mark Linkson will be the presenter for our August ACI webinar on “Australia’s Indigenous Science Network.”

A former YCW leader from Adelaide, Mark has taught in Indigenous communities in northern Australia and the Torres Strait islands for more than 30 years. He also taught for two years in Ethiopia.

With this wealth of experience, he has become the Australian coordinator for the Indigenous Science Network (ISN), a global initiative based in Australia that promotes the use of Indigenous science in education and highlights the work of Indigenous scientists.

Mark Linkson

ISN’s work

Founded at a meeting in Darwin in 1998 for people attending the Australian Science Teachers’ Conference (CONASTA) and the conference of the Australasian Science Education Research Association (ASERA) who were interested in Indigenous science, ISN has expanded to include people from all over the globe and includes academics, researchers and classroom practitioners.

Its key means of communication is a bulletin released four times per year, offering a compendium of articles, resources, opinion, academic papers and conferences related to Indigenous science, teaching and education.

The network’s aims are:

  • To promote First Nations science, teaching and education
  • To support all educators who would like to improve their knowledge and understanding of Indigenous science and how to access and use it in their teaching
  • To involve Indigenous scientists, educators and community members who support the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge in teaching science and are open to dialogue and sharing about their own experiences.

DATE AND TIME

Tuesday 16 August 2022, 7.00pm AEST

REGISTER

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofuCuqT0rGtKbC2jeSQFSEv5LN7YcG0Zb

READ MORE

Indigenous Science Network

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Pope Francis to Pax Romana: Be agents of social change

In a personally signed letter to the Pax Romana movements on 22 July 2022, Pope Francis called on Catholic students and professionals to work for the spread of the Gospel, its values of justice, peace and solidarity, and to be agents of social change.

Pax Romana, which comprises two movements – the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) and the International Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMICA) – has just concluded its centenary year commemorating its foundation in 1921.

In his letter, Pope Francis thanked Pax Romana leaders for maintaining a “spirituality of action” and for fulfilling “your mission of addressing the spiritual and material needs of young people in tertiary educational institutions throughout the world.”

“I am likewise appreciative of the contribution you have made within the Church,” the pope continued, “and for the notable fruits that have been borne in nurturing leaders and supporting the faithful in promoting Catholic social leaching in the Americas, Africa and Asia.”

“Your vital apostolate encourages young people to take the lead in striving for a more just social order within their countries,” the pope noted, even though “not all of you live in environments that easily facilitate the pursuit of your dreams or that help you to grow in faith.”

“Support one another in the life of faith and the pursuit of virtue. In a world of widespread inequality, may you be mindful too of your fellow students and peers in so many parts of our world whose dreams are threatened by war, injustice, and political, economic and ecological crises. Keep them in your prayers and support them by works of practical solidarity,” the pope added.

Recalling the theme for World Youth Day 2023 – “Mary arose and went with haste” – he urged leaders “to ‘arise’ like Mary, and work for the change you want to experience within your communities

“Demonstrate and spread the (Pax Romana) values of ‘Respect and Integrity, Trust and Solidarity, Diversity and “Inclusivity, Transparency and Accountability” so that “your service to the liberating message or the Gospel will be effective and will bear lasting fruit,” Pope Francis concluded.

“Pope Francis is clearly very familiar with the work of Pax Romana,” commented Australian Cardijn Institute secretary, Stefan Gigacz. “The Uruguayan intellectual and Pax Romana member, Alberto Methol Ferré, was a major influence on Francis’ thinking as were many Argentinian chaplains of the JUC, the local member movement of the IMCS, including Lucio Gera.”

The Australian Cardijn Institute (www.australiancardijninstitute.org) is a corresponding member of Pax Romana ICMICA (www.icmica-miic.org ).

READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE POPE’S LETTER

To the Members of the International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS-MIEC) Pax Romana and the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (ICMCA-MIIC) Pax Romana

I send prayerful good wishes to the students and professionals celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the International Movement of Catholic Students – Pax Romana. Your Movement received official recognition by the Holy See in 1921, and I am pleased that you have maintained your spirituality of action and fulfilled your mission of addressing the spiritual and material needs of young people in tertiary educational institutions throughout the world. I am likewise appreciative of the contribution you have made within the Church over this period, and for the notable fruits that have been borne in nurturing leaders and supporting the faithful in promoting Catholic social leaching in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Your vital apostolate encourages young people to take the lead in striving for a more just social order within their countries.

Over the past Century, Pox Romana has enabled many university students and young professionals to grow in their faith and to work for the spread or the Gospel and its values of justice, peace and solidarity. I encourage you to continue to be agents of social change, steadfast in your efforts to help build a more inclusive, harmonious and sustainable world. Be ever ready to give the best of yourselves in meeting the challenges that lie ahead, attentive to the signs of the times and committed to the service of the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged.

Dear young friends, at this stage of your lives, you have much energy and a plethora of opportunities and choices before you. Yet, while you have many wishes and interests that you want to explore, not all of you live in environments that easily facilitate the pursuit of your dreams or that help you to grow in faith. Support one another in the life of faith and the pursuit of virtue. In a world of widespread inequality, may you be mindful too of your fellow students and peers in so many parts of our world whose dreams are threatened by war, injustice, and political, economic and ecological crises. Keep them in your prayers and support them by works of practical solidarity.

As you know, young Catholics are preparing to meet in Lisbon in August 2023 for World Youth Day, with the motto, “Mary arose and went with haste” (Lk 1:39), I look forward to seeing many of you there! I urge you to “arise” like Mary, and work for the change you want to experience within your communities. Demonstrate and spread the values of “Respect and Integrity, Trust and Solidarity, Diversity and Inclusivity, Transparency and Accountability” that your Strategic Plan highlights. In this way, your service to the liberating message or the Gospel will be effective and will bear lasting fruit.

With these sentiments, I send my blessing to all the members of lMCS and ICMICA, I ask you, please, to pray for me, and for peace in our world, that young people everywhere may enjoy a future filled with hope and joy.

Rome, Saint John Lateran, 22 July 2022

SOURCE

Pope Francis, Letter to Pax Romana

PHOTO

Zebra48bo / Wikipedia / CCA BY SA 4.0

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LG31 Forum on Formation for the Lay Apostolate

Following the success of our first LG31 Forum and of the Second Assembly of the Plenary Council, we will hold our second forum on Thursday 28 July 2022 at 7.00pm AEST.

Plenary Decree 6 on “Formation and Leadership for Mission and Ministry” makes formation for the apostolate of the laity a priority for the Australian Church.

“Responding to the call for a renewal of formation,” §7 of the introduction to Decree 6 reads, “the Plenary Council endorses principles and strategies that develop models of formation to encourage and strengthen the apostolate of the laity in the world. “

It continues with a strong endorsement of the see-judge-act method for this formation:

This apostolate offers a particular prophetic sign by seeking the common good and by concrete actions that protect and promote human dignity, peace and justice. Attentive to the ‘signs of the times’, movements of the lay apostolate, in their various forms, offer the baptised a way to reflect on the concrete experiences of their lives in the light of the Gospel and engage as missionary disciples in the world.

As a means for formation, the apostolate of the laity is grounded in scriptural reflection, reception of the ecclesial wisdom of our tradition, and prayerful communal discernment. This formation shapes Christian engagement with the broader Australian community through listening and dialogue, and supports actions for the transformation of society through daily commitment and public witness.

“Therefore, to meet the formation needs of the present and future,” §9 adds, “the Plenary Council commits the Church in Australia to developing and committing to a culture of life-long faith

In our next LG31 forum we will discuss how to implement these decrees, looking particularly at what ACI can offer.

Please join us for this important event.

REGISTER FOR THE NEXT LG31 FORUM ON FORMATION FOR THE LAY APOSTOLATE

Date: Thursday 28 July 2022

Time: 7pm AEST

Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpdequrTssE9bwDut7c1Woqx0peD4mAO-t

SOURCES

Formation and Leadership for Mission and Ministry (Australian Plenary Council)

2022: Australian Plenary Council: Formation (Australian Cardijn Institute)

Leadership for Mission (Australian Cardijn Institute)

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Invitation: Cardijn Memorial Mass Sunday 24 July

The Cardijn Community Australia and ACI invite all members and friends to join us for a Cardijn Memorial Mass on the 55th anniversary of his death this Sunday 24 July at 7.30pm AEST.

Our celebrant will be former Australian YCW national chaplain, Fr Jim Monaghan, now vicar-general of Port Pirie Diocese and parish priest of Port Augusta.

REGISTER

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpcOioqzMuE9Xq5QESbDNi6YcGdiucoyNj

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