CARDIJN SPEAKS.
Presented here is the substance of the address made by Canon Joseph Cardijn to the seminarians at the Catholic-Action Study Week, Notre Dame, Indiana, on August 30, 1946.
My dear Fathers and my dear seminarians:
I thank you for your most kind reception and for this introduction. I am sorry that I cannot speak English, and I will try not to wound your ears this evening. It is a dream for me to be here, here in this University of Notre Dame, and here with you, so many seminarians from so many seminaries of the United States, I am so happy to meet you, and to congratulate you for this Study Week on Catholic-Action. You are the hope, and you must be the glory, of the Church of tomorrow. You, the priests and future priests, who must be able to understand the very root of Catholic-Action in order to solve the problem of our time, and one of the most important problems of all time. And in this time of revolution, this time of a new world, one of the most important problems of the Church is the labor problem. The problem of the working class over the world. It is not the problem of one country, or of one continent. It is the problem of the world. Will the Church be able to reconquer the laboring class? This is one of the greatest and most important problems of the Church: to conquer the doctrine of Moscow. The Church must reconquer the masses of the working class, must; today, tomorrow; it is not arbitrary; it is essential for the Church to reconquer the masses of the working class.
I WAS IN ROME from May 10th to May 20th of this year, and I spoke for a long time with the Pope himself, and with two secretaries of the Secretariat who are the most intimate collaborators with the Pope. They spoke for a very long time about the problem of the masses of the working class, and their problems.
In the course of the interview the Pope mentioned to me the reflection of the Cardinal-Bishop of Toulouse, who was in Rome to receive the hat of Cardinal. Two days earlier the Pope had received the Cardinal-elect who told him: “Holy Father, the greatest danger of the Church is that the masses of the working classes of the world know nothing, nothing, nothing, about the essential doctrines of the Church, and therefore we have communism.”
And the Pope said to me: “Is it possible, is it possible, that fifty-five years after Rerum Novarum, fifteen years after Quadragesimo Anno, the Cardinal says that the working classes know nothing about the doctrines of the Church on social justice?”
I met Cardinal Mercier, and I said to the Cardinal, “If I were thirteen years old and had to go to the factory, I would become corrupted!” There is only one way to save the masses of the working classes, not two! It is to form them! It is impossible that anything but corruption should be theirs in communism, socialism, etc. The one way is a movement of working youth who will form working youth for the problems of the working life and environment-to prepare for the future, to prepare for marriage, to prepare for the family. Christ can be crucified till the end of the world if you do not have a movement to form the mass of the working youth, to resolve in a Christian manner all the problems of their daily life. Nothing a priori, nothing invented, nothing capricious!
BUT THE PROBLEM OF THE DAILY LIFE! Am I a slave? A beast? I have an immortal soul! I must save myself for eternity! Here in the factory I have an apostolate, important, divine! Without that apostolate the Church cannot realize her aim! Without work, no religion, no society! The conversion of work, of working life, of an office, of a factory, of a shop in a center of corruption to a sanctuary, will help Christ to save humanity and the dignity of the human race, the honor of the world, of the significance of the girl, of marriage. It is the ONLY way, the ONLY way, the ONE way to combat error, communism. It is impossible that you save working youth in any other way.
WORKING-YOUTH ALONE CANNOT SAVE ITSELF. YOU MUST HELP! The masses cannot become Christian without that education. We priests, or future priest, without education, cannot become priests. Without a Christian university, a Christian college, you will not have Christian educated people. And what is impossible for the priests is impossible for the masses of the working youth. They must not only be educated to thirteen or fourteen, but from thirteen or fourteen to twenty-five. They must be taught the Christian conception of life, of work, of love, of marriage. They must be formed by apostles, missionaries of the working class!
There must be a movement-the Young Christian Workers. I started this movement thirty-four years ago, with poor young workers and working girls. All the priests laughed at me, and teased me, saying: “It is impossible for young boys and girls to Christianize the working classes.” I worked for fourteen years to form the leaders. I was on the point of being condemned because I was accused of dividing the youth. I went to the Pope. He told me, “I am not only pleased with your movement, but, I will it!” Since this time I have seen the Pope every year. It is always the same. This movement is necessary to the Church. It is not caprice. It is necessary to save the youth of the working class. Ten years after starting the movement, we had 100,000 members, 2,000 local sections, and over 10,000 militants. Each year they have a study week. They edit the “Young Worker.” And today, in fifty countries of the world, there is a movement of the Young Christian Workers. We were going to have in Rome an international congress, but the war came, and Belgium was occupied for four years, and 100,000 men were deported for work for the enemy. Many young workers were sent to concentration camps. And in Germany, more than 600 underground cells sprang up. A little box with consecrated hosts-and they, they themselves, gave Holy Viaticum to those who were to be killed!
THE GREATEST RESULT OF THE MOVEMENT IS THE CHRISTIAN FAMILIES, the Christian conception of love, of the conjugal life. There are new children for the apostles of the Church. My dear seminarians, we must get at the necessity of Catholic-Action, especially for working youth. Religion is not only Sacraments, is not only prayers; religion must be the human life supernaturalized. We must learn the love of Christ by the service of Christ. We must make the young workers apostles of the Church. The Church needs the apostolate of the working-men, in their environment, if she is to conquer communism, socialism, materialism. It is not sufficient to refute communism, but a positive Christian movement must be added. This alone can make the necessary apostolate of the working class today and in the future. My dear seminarians, this is impossible without chaplains, chaplains who can form these militants. Leaders are so necessary! In every parish there must be a local section of the Young Christian Workers, and in every country a national federation of local sections, and finally an international federation. I think, my dear seminarians, that now, today, it is possible to have a very strong international organization, stronger than the communists. Therefore many chaplains are necessary, and I am happy to see in the seminaries of the world today more and more seminarians who are preparing to be Catholic-Action chaplains.
From here I will go to London, and I will participate in a study week for all the seminarians in London. There, as in Belgium and France, more and more seminarians are preparing to be Catholic-Action chaplains, the salvation of the Church of tomorrow. We must be optimistic for the future. It will be difficult, but if we are persevering, we shall form the leaders the Church needs for the salvation of the working classes.
Therefore I ask your prayers for the movement, and I hope and pray that the Study Week here at Notre Dame will be successful in forming future chaplains of the movement.
COPY IN VATICAN SECRETARIAT OF STATE ARCHIVES