Reflections by Marguerite Fiévez on the question of the “Project” of the YCW.
I was asked this question:
Does the YCW have an evangelisation project? Or a Church project? Is it a movement of the Church? In the end, what is the “project” of the YCW?
Words:
Attention! We don’t pay by the word!
The word “project” has emerged over the last 20 years. It was therefore uncommon when the movement was born.
The word “evangelisation” was launched by Paul VI and popularised by John Paul II, when the latter, during his travels, noted the lack (especially in Europe) of a truly Christian spirit in the countries he visited.
This concept of an evangelisation project therefore came long after the birth of the YCW. Moreover, it seems to me be mistaken to want to judge it or to define it on the basis of formulas that are often very rubbery.
(One example: the expression “YCW, movement of the Church” appeared in YCW documents after the Second World War and disappeared after 1957, if I remember correctly.)
The YCW is not defined by words or by a formula. It is not a concept, an idea, a theological truth, a thesis to defend. It was not born out of a declaration of principles, nor a doctrine, or a slogan.
Yet, since we still have to use words when we talk about the movement or when we want to clarify its orientations or justify its choices, let’s keep it simple. Let’s not forget that it is a movement of young people from the popular (working-class) world, who do not express themselves from books or studies but from real life. In this regard, the question posed at the beginning of these few reflections does not seem to me to be a question asked by young workers, (they don’t speak that way), but by adults or chaplains and theologians.
In fact, it is life that commands… and then come the definitions. Frankly, we need to go back to the first founding gestures to understand the goal of the YCW (to speak from a non-clerical and arguably non-Roman perspective). It would be worth asking one or more historians to research how the purpose of the YCW took shape and matured during the early years.
If we admit, or if it is now proven and recognised that Cardijn launched the YCW, enriched with various influences of precursors whom he drew from, and the (experience of the) very first youth groups (girls in Laeken in 1912, boys in Brussels and Wallonia in 1919), it is obvious that it is by examining these experiences that we will be able to identify what they wanted and achieved together.
It was not until August 1935 that Cardijn publicly set out the YCW’s purpose during the YCW International Study Week in Brussels. (See: International Study Week, Brussels 26-31 August 1935).
In one of his passages, he is not afraid to admit that he borrowed from Karl Marx (with his thesis, antithesis and synthesis) (see Cardijn’s book “Lay people on the front line P.10 ). He clarifies his thoughts, the result of his experience of several years of action with young workers. It’s explained relatively simply in the three “truths” that he proposed during the 1935 International Week:
- truth of faith: every young worker has a dignity because he is a Son of God.
- truthof experience: the infamous conditions of young workers.
- Truth of method: the need for amovement (by them, for them, with them) to save young workers. (see summary in the book “Cardijn” written by Marguerite Fiévez, page 119.)
We are not talking about a “project of evangelisation”, but of the need for an organisation of young people from all over the world in order to save them from their shameful condition. Moreover, his commentary does not neglect a Christian orientation, which has always been essential to the YCW.
Cardijn therefore does not restrict his declaration to a Church project, but on the contrary he broadens giving it a universal dimension: “Each young worker…” (See his Trocadero speech in September 1930 where he explains this dimension passionately.)
The YCW and the project of the Church.
Instinctively, the words “the YCW and its evangelisation project” immediately bring to mind the vast project of the “new evangelisation” that Rome adopted during the pontificate of John Paul II..
By observing the facts recounted by history, we can see that the Jocist movement was formed in spite of clouds and storms and not in euphoria. Here, it is enough to reread the account of Cardijn’s appearance before the tribunal set up by Cardinal Mercier in 1925, which ended in a covert condemnation. Moreover, Cardijn and Guérin spent their whole lives in difficult meetings with parish priests and bishops in an effort to obtain recognition for the YCW. Not to mention the rebukes expressed by certain people, e.g. the Vatican at rallies such as the 1950 congress. (See the pope’s broadcast message.)
Now that the YCW has expanded to the four corners of the world, a little pell-mell depending on the circumstances, the Church (but which Church: the Vatican Church? or the People of God?) would like to lock it up in structured plans that it can direct itself.. But where are the young workers in this scenario?
The YCW has always developed by maintaining its autonomy and remaining in the hands of the young workers. They are the ones responsible for it. This is one of the essential originalities of Cardijn’s creation. Today, some people say the YCW belongs to the Church!? No, it belongs to those who build it.
A movement based on facts experienced.
Instead of defining the YCW in terms that are meant to be intellectual, let’s see how it lives. I can’t find a better reference than the work of novelist Maxence Van Der Meersch, in “Fishers of Men”, where he offers an authentic image, born out of his observation of the local Roubaix-Tourcoing JOC (North of France). In particular, see the scene on page 28 (Editions Albin Michel) which makes one think of the text of St John’s Gospel, I, 39, where the disciples also challenge Jesus and ask him to clarify who he is: “Come and see,” he replies.
Saint Paul, using a different tone, reproaches the Corinthians, I Cor I, 12 et seq., for wanting to define themselves in relation to his teaching or that of Peter, etc. He fears that these tensions will cause divisions in the Church, or even sects. And Paul asks provocatively: “Is Christ divided?”.
Shortly before his death, Cardijn already sensed that an issue of this kind, a division, was developing, and he prepared a recollection on unity in the IYCW for the Executive Committee in Dar es Salaam 1965. It might be worth going back to his notes.
Marguerite Fiévez
February 1998
ANNEX
The contagious friendship from one young worker to another, all over the world = the YCW without theory:
See the passage:
“I can still see us walking along…” until… “That’s good, it’s fine”. (Fishers of Men, Maxence Van der Meersch. This is the real project of the YCW.
