Tag: Stefan Gigacz

Posted on

Contribution to the Synod First Assembly

Over 120 current and former local, national and international leaders of various lay apostolate movements and groups from 32 countries – many from the Global South – have added their names to a Contribution to the First Assembly of the Synod on Synodality.

According to Australian Cardijn Institute secretary, Stefan Gigacz, the statement aims to draw Synod participants’ attention to several issues:

a) The need for a clear focus on the promotion of the lay apostolate of lay people as envisaged particularly in Lumen Gentium §31, Gaudium et Spes §43 and more generally in Apostolicam Actuositatem.

b) The need for better representation among participants in the First Assembly of the Synod of international Catholic (lay) movements and networks.

Such movements were extensively represented in the later Sessions of Vatican II and also at the Synod on the Laity in 1987. Indeed, many of these movements were pioneers in the promotion of the laity and indeed of what we would now characterise as a synodal way of working.

c) The need for a fresh look at the provisions of Apostolicam Actuositatem §26, which clearly called for more representative and participative structures involving grassroots lay movements and organisations from local to global level.

He noted that the statement addressed a series of longstanding concerns dating back to the Second Vatican Council.

“During the Council, the lay apostolate movements also known as Specialised Catholic Action movements successfully advocated for representative Church structures that would involve the lay movements at parish, diocesan, national and international level. The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem adopted these proposals in its §26.

“But to the great disappointment of Cardijn and the leaders of the lay movements, these reforms were not implemented when the first Vatican Council of the Laity was established in 1967. Today, the current Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life is still not a representative body.”

“This is surely an issue that needs to be addressed by the Synod on Synodality;” he added.

Signatories to the statement include Emeritus Bishop of Darwin, Eugene Hurley, Rienzie Rupasinghe, a member of the first Pontifical Council of the Laity (PCL) in 1967, Patricia Jones, another former member of the PCL.

Joceline Minerve, former Minister of Social Welfare in Mauritius, is another prominent signatory as is former Pax Romana ICMICA president, Kevin Ahern.

Current international YCW leaders, Clémence Otekpo (ICYCW) and Basma Louis (IYCW), are also among the signatories as are former IYCW presidents Rienzie Rupasinghe, Juanito Penequito (Philippines), Felix Ollarves (Venezuela), Moses Cloete (South Africa), Geethani Peries (Sri Lanka), Ludovicus Mardiyono (Indonesia) and Sarah Prenger (Germany).

Groups and movements that have endorsed the statement include Cardijn Community International, Australian Cardijn Institute, Cardijn Community Australia, Cardijn Community Zambia, International Young Christian Workers, Cardijn Associates USA, Woori Theology Institute, Seoul, Korea, Asian Lay Leaders Network, the Splendour Project and other signatories.

The statement is dated 1 October 2023, Feast of St Therese of Lisieux, patron of the Young Christian Workers and Specialised Catholic Action.

READ MORE

Contribution to the First Assembly of the Synod on Synodality 2023

Movement proposal for a representative Council of the Laity at the Holy See 1964

Cardijn’s critique 1967

Posted on

Video: Léon Ollé-Laprune & the origin of the see-judge-act

Stefan Gigacz presented the August ACI webinar on Léon Ollé-Laprune, the French philosopher, who first articulated the method that we today know as the “see-judge-act.”

Born in 1839, Léon Ollé-Laprune studied philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris. As a student, he read the works of Alphonse Gratry, who had been chaplain at the ENS. As a Christian, he modelled his life on that of Frédéric Ozanam, seeking to make himself a “lay apostle.” As a social activist, he followed in the footsteps of Frédéric Le Play, the pioneer sociologist whose method of social enquiry so influenced Cardijn.

As an academic, he influenced a whole generation of future French leaders, including Jean Jaurès, founder of the French Socialist Party, the sociologist Emile Durkheim, and the philosophers, Maurice Blondel and Henri Bergson.

Writing in 1896, he advised students to learn to “see clearly, judge and decide” in order to address the challenges of the time.

Léon Ollé-Laprune died in 1898, 125 years ago this year. The method he inspired would sweep the world with Cardijn’s Young Christian Workers and its sister movements before being adopted by Pope John XXIII in 1961 and by the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

WATCH THE VIDEO

Posted on

Léon Ollé-Laprune: See Judge Decide or the origin of the See-Judge-Act

ACI secretary Stefan Gigacz will present our August webinar on Léon Ollé-Laprune, the French philosopher, who first articulated the method that we today know as the “see-judge-act.”

Born in 1839, Léon Ollé-Laprune studied philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris. As a student, he read the works of Alphonse Gratry, who had been chaplain at the ENS. As a Christian, he modelled his life on that of Frédéric Ozanam, seeking to make himself a “lay apostle.” As a social activist, he followed in the footsteps of Frédéric Le Play, the pioneer sociologist whose method of social enquiry so influenced Cardijn.

As an academic, he influenced a whole generation of future French leaders, including Jean Jaurès, founder of the French Socialist Party, the sociologist Emile Durkheim, and the philosophers, Maurice Blondel and Henri Bergson.

Writing in 1896, he advised students to learn to “see clearly, judge and decide” in order to address the challenges of the time.

Léon Ollé-Laprune died in 1898, 125 years ago this year. The method he inspired would sweep the world with Cardijn’s Young Christian Workers and its sister movements before being adopted by Pope John XXIII in 1961 and by the Second Vatican Council in 1965.

Stefan Gigacz

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.

Webinar details

Tuesday 8 August 2023, 7.30pm AEST

Registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtd-GorTMvEtN7eaZbY_vWS09rNnXwqfzv

Posted on

Webinar: Marc Sangnier, the Sillon and the YCW

ACI secretary, Stefan Gigacz, will present our April webinar marking the 150th anniversary of the birth on 3 April 1873 of Marc Sangnier, founder of the French democratic movement, Le Sillon, which had such a great influence on Cardijn and the YCW.

Deeply impressed by Sangnier’s movement, young Cardijn would later describe it as “the greatest surge of faith and apostolate that France has known since the Revolution.”

Welcoming Sangnier to Brussels in 1921, Cardijn lamented the closure of the movement in 1910 after Pope Pius X called on its leaders to resign and explicitly linked himself and his work to the Sillon’s heritage.

“The winds of the air and the birds of the sky carry off this seed and deposit it sometimes far away, in a field where God’s dew fertilises and multiplies it,” he told Sangnier.

The emerging YCW and other Specialised Catholic Action movements were the fruit of this inspiration with many early movement chaplains formed by the Sillon’s “method of democratic education,” which would provide the basis for Cardijn’s see-judge-act method of formation.

The Sangnier and Sillon influence also extended to the YCW’s sister movements, which would become known as the “Specialised Catholic Action” movements.

Across the Atlantic, Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker also drew inspiration from the Sillon through her co-founder and mentor, Peter (Pierre) Maurin, who had also belonged to Marc Sangnier’s movement.

In 1950, Holy See nuncio, Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, would characterise Marc Sangnier as the greatest influence on his early priesthood.

Listen to the story of this remarkable man and his movement at our April webinar on Saturday 15 April.

WEBINAR DETAILS

Tuesday 11 April, 7.30pm (AEST)

REGISTER HERE

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvfu2vrz8rGdO_wjR032j-kWBd-8XErAUZ

Posted on

YCW Centenary History Project

Call for Contributors 

The YCW Centenary 2025

Perspectives from Oceania

Thirteen years after Joseph Cardijn and his collaborators launched their first experimental study circles with teenage girl needleworkers in the Brussels suburb of Laeken, the Young Christian Worker Movement was founded formally in 1925. It spread quickly across the globe. The method of ‘see-judge-act’ enabled a lay apostolate that saw faith as inextricably and powerfully connected to the whole of life. By 1966 the outward and public focus of YCW formation involved 4 million young people in 100 countries with a dozen allied movements, each committed to transforming the social context through shared reflection. The method impacted 10 of the 16 major documents of the Second Vatican Council and resourced ‘liberation theologies’ globally, not least through countless ‘mundane’ actions in the daily lives of members.

To mark the centenary of the foundation of the YCW, we aim to workshop and publish an edited collection of academic contributions on the YCW in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. We are interested to hear from writers across the academic disciplines (including, but not limited to business and labour history, education, gender studies, history, law, literature, sociology, theology and religious studies) to explore the variety of the YCW movement across time and the in diverse locations of Oceania in chapters of 4,000 – 7,000 words.

Topics to be explored include but, again, are not limited to:

  • Foundation stories of the YCW / NCGM in different regions
  • Contextual studies by decade and era: e.g. post-Second World War, into the 1960s, post Vatican II, through Vietnam War, into the 1980s
  • Sporting competitions
  • Migration initiatives
  • Colonial and post-colonial realities
  • Biographies
  • Trajectories of members after the movement
  • Co-operatives, credit unions and housing initiatives
  • Changes in the theological climate
  • Accounts of major actions – (e.g. Springbok tour, Adelaide’s freeway campaign, Walton’s campaign, Fitzroy Legal Service, apprentices)
  • YCW Extension Workers
  • YCW Chaplains
  • Formation programmes and conceptions of leadership
  • Transnational collaborations

For an overview of original sources, biographical material and existing studies, please see:

Joseph Cardijn Digital Library: https://www.josephcardijn.com

History of the Cardijn Movements in Australia: http://history.australiancardijninstitute.org/

Trove Timeline Cardijn Movements in the Media: https://timeline.austtaliancardijninstitute.org/

Please send a short abstract of up to 250 words and a biographical statement of up to 100 words to Anthony O’Donnell odonnellanthony21@gmail.com by 15 May 2023.

Acceptance will be advised by 31 May 2023.

Presentation at a hybrid workshop 27 October 2023

Revision of manuscripts for publication by 31 March 2024.

About the project team:

Anthony O’Donnell is an adjunct senior lecturer in the School of Law, La Trobe University. He researches and publishes in labour law, labour history and social policy. His most recent books are a biography of Moss Cass and a history of Australian unemployment policy. He was a member of TYCS in the 1980s.

Stefan Gigacz is an honorary post-doctoral researcher with Yarra Theological Union within the University of Divinity and secretary of the Australian Cardijn Institute. Previously, he worked for the YCW in Australia and internationally. His doctorate, and forthcoming book, The Leaven in the Council identifies the key role of Joseph Cardijn at the Second Vatican Council.

Katharine Massam is professor of history at Pilgrim Theological College within the University of Divinity. She has published extensively on the history of Catholicism in Australia, most recently A Bridge Between: Spanish Benedictine Missionary Women in Australia, with a particular interest in the spirituality of work.. She is a member of the board of the Australian Cardijn Institute.

Download the Call for Papers here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FBlSlkadmW_gHoMVTTuf6P81Jh0CYfF6/view?usp=sharing
Posted on

Jocist Women Leaders Seminar, Leuven

Featuring speakers from Belgium, France, the UK, Uruguay, Australia and the US and hosted by the Catholic Documentation Centre (KADOC) and the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), the Jocist Women Leaders Seminar took place at Leuven, Belgium on 27-28 October 2022.

Reflecting the range of papers presented, the theme of the workshop was “To make daily life vast and beautiful: Jocist Women Leaders.”

Women leaders highlighted included Marguerite Fiévez, a key figure in the development of the International YCW and a close collaborator of Cardijn, trade union pioneer, Victoire Cappe, and Malaysian YCW leader, Irene Fernandez.

The workshop understood the term “jocist” in its broad sense, including not just those from a JOC (YCW) background but from the various lay apostolate/Specialised Catholic Action movements, including the YCS (JEC), JIC (Young professionals), JAC (young farmers) and others.

It is planned to publish select papers in an academic journal.

In another major initiative, an online biographical dictionary of jocist women leaders will be developed.

Immense thanks to the various project sponsors: American Academy of Religion; University of Divinity, Melbourne; King’s College, London; KADOC – KU Leuven; Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies; Dondeynefonds, KU Leuven; LACIIR  (Latin American and the Caribbean  Interdisciplinary Initiative on  Religion),  Florida International University, Miami, Fl, USA; Australian Cardijn Institute, Australia.

READ MORE

Seminar Papers (Jocist Women Leaders Project)

Posted on

Cardijn’s triumph: The World Congress on Lay Apostolate 1951

This month we celebrate the 70th anniversary of one of Cardijn’s greatest triumphs, i.e. his keynote speech to and decisive influence over the First World Congress on Lay Apostolate in Rome from 7-14 October 1951, which helped set the stage for Vatican II.

Recalling Cardijn’s keynote speech entitled, “The World Today and the Lay Apostolate,” Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara would later characterise Cardijn’s ” complete panorama of the great issues of the present time” as having a “very great impact” on him, “one of the greatest of my life.”

In the longer term, however, the most important impact of Cardijn’s speech and the work of his allies was the change in perspective introduced by the Congress.

As Stefan Gigacz writes in an article recalling the Congress and Cardijn’s contribution, “the Congress proved to be a defining moment, introducing two major shifts in perspective that would come to fruition at Vatican II.”

First, it introduced the JOC’s reality-based see-judge-act as the method of work at the Congress instead of the traditional doctrinal approach beginning from Church teaching.

Secondly, and equally if not even more important, it introduced Cardijn’s conception of lay apostolate as the role of the lay person transforming the world “in his personal life, in his family, professional, social, cultural and civic life, on the national and international planes” rather than in terms of personal piety, charitable and even social action.

In this sense, Cardijn’s speech anticipated both the conception of lay apostolate that would be adopted by Vatican II in its Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and Decree on the Lay Apostolate, Apostolicam Actuositatem, as well as the see-judge-act method adopted in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the World of Today, Gaudium et Spes.

Indeed, Cardijn’s conception of a “new apostolate” for the emerging “new world” also directly foreshadows the concept of “new evangelisation” that would be adopted by the CELAM bishops at Medellin in 1968.

READ MORE

Joseph Cardijn, The world today and the apostolate of the laity (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

Stefan Gigacz, Cardijn and the First World Congress on Lay Apostolate 1951 (Cardijn Research)

Stefan Gigacz, The leaven in the Council, Joseph Cardijn and the Jocist Network at Vatican II (Australian Cardijn Institute)

Proudly powered by WordPress