Generación de la relación causal: hecho imponible

While working on these documents, Cardijn received a letter from Glorieux dated 13 December 1960 informing him that Castellano and “the Roman Members” of the Sub- Commission on Evangelisation had requested a presentation on the theme “Priests and lay people in the apostolate,” as well as on the role of religious brothers and sisters.56

This was a positive sign but Cardijn was about to leave for Lomé, Togo for a JOCI training program. There, in the equatorial heat, he drafted Note 4, “Priests and lay people in the apostolate,” setting out the collaborative relationship he envisaged between priest and lay person.

54 _Ibid.

55 _{“Text of Council’s Message to the world,” in Council Daybook, Vatican II, Sessions 1-2 (Washington}

DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965), 45.

Again, he insisted on “the primordial role” of the individual and organised lay apostolate and the need for appropriate “formation and animation [to] transform the life and mission of lay people into an apostolic life and mission, inseparable from the priestly apostolate.” Hence, the imperative need for “collaboration with priests ordained and consecrated to this end.”

A partnership model

No doubt anticipating criticism, Cardijn insisted on the unicity of this apostolate “whose source and goal are common to all those who are called and who exercise it.” But the exercise and application of this apostolate was “diverse – and yet inseparable” – depending on whether they were acting based on “the sacrament of orders” or whether they were “baptised and confirmed.”57

The latter exercised “a specific and irreplaceable apostolate in the Church and the world, in their whole life.” Moreover, “non-members of the Church, whether Christian or non- Christian” also shared in this role. Here, the role of Christians was to collaborate in order “to assist them to rediscover and realise the human and divine mission for which they have been created by God and redeemed by Christ.”

This universal lay apostolate was “not limited to the transformation of spirits and hearts,” but also tended towards “the transformation of milieux and secular institutions, from local to international scale” by enabling people, families and societies “to create a human social order which promotes the flourishing of the human race and the universal restoration of the Reign of God.”

In this task, the priestly and lay apostolates were mutually dependent. “Without the priestly apostolate, there is no apostolate of lay people, no apostolic transformation of the life of lay people,” Cardijn noted. But “without the apostolate of lay people, the apostolate is impotent for the human and Christian transformation of the world.” Hence, “the union and collaboration of priests and lay people” was “essential for the unity of the Church and its

mission, for the flourishing of the whole apostolate and particularly the apostolate of lay people.”58

For Cardijn, this collaboration was essential for “ecclesial objectives,” including catechesis, liturgy, sacraments etc. and “temporal, secular objective(s),” involving “the specific life of lay people, in all its aspects,” namely “family, work, leisure, economic security, collaboration in the city, national and international relations, etc.”

Priests and religious: Animators not directors

With respect to the ecclesial objectives, lay people were “collaborators of the priestly apostolate.” However, where temporal or secular objectives were involved, priests were “the priestly collaborators of the apostolate of lay people.” In this conception, lay people comprised the front line of the Church.

The decisive role of the priest, then, was not directive but “formative, since it was the priest “who must enable lay people to discover the apostolic scope of their daily life and their task in the organisation of the world.”59 _{In turn, this required a new kind of formation “for all}

priests in their role of educators, animators and counsellors of lay apostles,” Cardijn stated. Thus, a “serious study of the problems that lay people have to resolve in the modern world” needed to be included in seminary and scholastic formation.

Men and women religious had a similar – and increasingly important – role as collaborators in the lay apostolate, particularly in parishes, schools, etc., e.g. in preparing students “for an apostolic conception of their whole life and an authentic apostolic commitment after their studies.” On the other hand, religious should never replace the chaplain-priest, always remaining “auxiliaries and collaborators” of the latter. A fortiori, nor should they replace “the leader or militant in the role which is their own.” Their role was always to assist the (lay) members of apostolic organisations “to discover their apostolic mission, both in ordinary life and the organisation itself.”

58 _{Cardijn, “Note 4.”} 59 _{Cardijn, “Note 4.”}

“The anguishing problem of youth will only be solved in this manner,” Cardijn concluded. Summarising the above in a “Text for insertion into the Acts of the Council,” he insisted once again on a collaboration model in place of the historical model based on hierarchical submission.

Promoting a genuine lay apostolate would only be possible on the basis of “a positive collaboration between priests and lay people, each respecting the mission of each other, conscious of an indispensable complementarity and with a vision of a final goal: the establishment of the Kingdom of God,” Cardijn concluded.60