Two theologians of the Lille JOC: Pierre Tiberghien et Palémon Glorieux Introduction This paper seeks to analyse the contribution to the development of the JOC and Specialised Catholic Action by two outstanding Lille theologians, Pierre Tiberghien and Palémon Glorieux. In Part I, we will look at the historical context in France that influenced JOC founder, Joseph Cardijn, and his links with the northern French city of Lille – then part of the Archdiocese of Cambrai – which predated the foundation of the JOC. In Part II, we will consider the role of Mgr Pierre Tiberghien, longtime chaplain to the French Association of Catholic Youth (ACJF), who accompanied the transformation of the Lille ACJF into a federation of specialised movements. Finally, in Part III, we will examine the contribution of Mgr Palémon Glorieux, a founding JOCF chaplain, who became a leading theologian of the movement and eventually rector of the Catholic University of Lille. I. Cardijn, Lille and the sources of the JOC: From Lamennais to the Sillon The sources As Cardinal Achille Liénart of Lille once noted, Cardijn drew heavily on French sources. “He had reviewed the history of all the previous movements, including their strengths and weaknesses: l’Avenir, Montalembert, de Mun, les Cercles ouvriers (Worker circles), the Sillon, the A.C.J.F.,”1 Liénart recalled.2 Indeed, Cardijn often cited the influence of Félicité de Lamennais (1782-1854), the founder of the journal L’Avenir in 1830, which set forth a vision of a Church founded on freedom and a new Gospel-inspired alliance with the people, particularly the poor. 1 The Association catholique de la jeunesse française or Catholic Association of French Youth was founded in 1886. 2 Achille Liénart, Hommage au Cardinal Cardijn, 27/03/1966: Archives Cardijn 1086. Although Pope Gregory XV condemned some of Lamennais’ writings in 1832, his influence lived on through his disciples. The lay leader, Charles de Montalembert, made a great impact in Belgium at the Catholic Congress of Malines in 1863 speaking of “a free Church in a free state.”3 In 1837, Henri Lacordaire re-established the Dominicans in France, an order which would eventually develop close relations with the JOC.4 Although too young to join the Lamennais group, Society of St Vincent de Paul founder Frédéric Ozanam, whose father Jean subscribed to L’Avenir, was also greatly influenced by these ideas.5 During France’s Worker Revolution of 1848, Lacordaire and Ozanam helped launch a new journal L’Ere Nouvelle that, like its predecessor, sought to “reconcile” the Church with the emerging industrial, democratic world of the nineteenth century. Significantly, Ozanam became one of the earliest proponents of a conception of “lay apostolate” understood as a role specific to lay people of transforming the world in line with the Gospel. In Lille, one of Ozanam’s greatest followers, Philibert Vrau, later laid the foundations for a health care system and helped found the Catholic university.6 In another link with northern France, Cardijn credited the philosopher, Alphonse Gratry, born in Lille, as one of his major inspirations. As early as 1864, Gratry wrote of “reading the signs of the times.”7 Prefiguring Cardijn’s see-judge-act, he proposed a three-step inductive approach starting with understanding reality, followed by reflection and resolution or decision-making. Another Ozanam disciple, Léon Ollé-Laprune, a philosopher at the elite Ecole Normale Supérieure university college, further developed Gratry’s ideas.8 Reworking Aristotle’s understanding of the prudential decision-making process, Ollé-Laprune wrote in 1896 that it was necessary to “see clearly, judge and conclude” upon the actions necessary to combat social problems. 3 Charles Forbes René de Montalembert (1810-1870), Catholic Encyclopaedia 1917: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10513b.htm (Accessed 24/03/2020). 4 Jean-Baptiste-Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean- Baptiste_Henri_Lacordaire (Accessed 24/03/2020). 5 Antoine Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Ozanam (Accessed 24/03/2020). 6 Philibert Vrau (1829-1905), Catholic Encyclopaedia 1917: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15514a.htm (Accessed 24/03/2020). 7 Alphonse Gratry (1805-1872): www.gratry.net (Accessed 24/03/2020). 8 Léon Ollé-Laprune (1839-1898): www.olle-laprune.net (Accessed 24/03/2020). Inspired by Ollé-Laprune, Marc Sangnier9 and a group of students from Stanislas College in Paris began to launch “cercles d’études” or “study circles” combining Gratry and Ollé-Laprune’s inductive approach with the sociological enquiry methods of Frédéric Le Play (1806-1882).10 One of their first projects was to launch a magazine Le Sillon, which eventually became the name of the movement that emerged from their study circles. Its objective was to educate young people in grassroots democracy, which they defined as maximising “la conscience et la responsabilité” (the conscience/consciousness and the responsibility” of each person. Twenty years later, Cardijn would borrow from this “méthode d’éducation démocratique” (“method of democratic education”) as the basis for the JOC “see-judge-act method.” Cardijn’s links with Lille Cardijn also had many personal links with Lille, which can be traced to 1903 when, as a seminarian, he began to correspond with the ‘democratic priest,’ Fr Paul Six, who helped promote the Sillon through the magazine, La Démocratie Chrétienne (Christian Democracy), which he founded in 1894 together with another priest, Fr Gaston Vanneufville. 11 It regularly featured articles on the development of Sangnier’s movement and it may be that Cardijn first learned of the Sillon from Six or his magazine. In an important speech reported in La Démocratie Chrétienne, Sangnier explained the difference between the Sillon and its conservative rival, the Catholic Association of French Youth (ACJF), founded in 1886 by Albert de Mun. Whereas the ACJF targeted “all the elements of Catholic youth” and “all its groups,” the Sillon, Sangnier said, aimed to reach “the elite of working youth” and operated as “a single group” based on its study circles. The Sillon also sought to reach a broader audience of age groups as well as women and children and even those whom it characterised as “opponents.” In contrast, Sangnier painted the ACJF as a youth project or oeuvre but which lacked any 9 Marc Sangnier (1873-1950): http://www.sillon.net/marc-sangnier (Accessed 24/03/2020). 10 Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play (1806-1883), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Guillaume_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_le_Play (Accessed 24/03/2020). 11 Yves-Marie Hilaire, “Les abbés Six et Vanneufville et la revue La Démocratie Chrétienne (1894- 1908), in Revue du Nord (1991) 290-291: http://www.persee.fr/doc/rnord_0035- 2624_1991_num_73_290_4634 (Accessed 24/03/2020). specific structure or method for exercising influence on what he characterised as “hostile milieux.”12 Although Sangnier did not mention it, the early ACJF also rejected Le Play’s enquiry method for being overly “sociological” and failing to have sufficient regard for Church doctrine. In general, in the terminology of the time, the ACJF’s aim was to “defend” the Church rather than to reach out to those whom the Church had not touched. While the Sillon in Paris developed separately from the ACJF, in Lille it emerged from different tendencies within the older movement. Thus, from 1904, the journal A la Voile, which was originally an ACJF magazine, began to describe itself as the “regional organ of the Sillon du Nord.”13 Meanwhile, across the border, Cardijn was already in contact with a Sillon team in Liège and eagerly looking forward to its planned launch in the Malines archdiocese in 1906. The following year, in the summer of 1907, Louvain sociology professor, Victor Brants,14 a critical disciple of Le Play, sent him on a study trip to Lille and the north of France. There, for the first time, Cardijn met with Six and other social movement leaders, including Léon Harmel, and visited active Sillon study circles. “At Lille and Roubaix, we had the pleasure of taking part in meetings of Sillon study circles,” Cardijn later told Sangnier, “where we saw those young people, students, workers and employees, loving one another more than brothers, working together to develop their consciences and to exercise their responsibilities.”15 During the same trip, Cardijn obtained a copy of Sillon counsellor Louis Cousin’s book, Vie et doctrine du Sillon16 (Life and Doctrine of the Sillon) and attended the Semaine Sociale (Social Week) at Amiens, where he met Marc Sangnier and other Sillon leaders. 12 Le Sillon et l’alliance des Maisons d’Education Chrétienne, in La Démocratie Chrétienne, octobre 1903, N° 6, 328-329. 13 Jim Kennedy, L’Association catholique de la jeunesse catholique dans le diocèse de Lille, Revue du Nord, 1978, T. 208, 90. 14 Victor Brants (1856-1917), Wikipedia.fr: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Brants (Accessed 24/03/2020). 15 Joseph Cardijn, Bienvenue à Marc Sangnier (5 February 1921): http://www.josephcardijn.com/welcome-to-marc-sangnier (Accessed 24/03/2020). 16 Stefan Gigacz, “The Sillon and the YCW,” 1997: http://www.stefangigacz.com/the-sillon-and-the-ycw (Accessed 24/03/2020). This period coincided with the Sillon’s growing difficulties with the Church. Indeed, Coadjutor Archbishop François-Marie-Joseph Delamaire of Cambrai had begun to attack the Sillon for “pushing minors into politics and constraining the Church’s field of action,” its allegedly “unhealthy fear of the encroachment of religious authority” as well as “the unconscious but real propagation of the socialist movement.”17 The solution, Delamaire argued, was for its leaders to act “like rank and file soldier(s) obeying orders in the face of enemy fire.”18 Sangnier sought in vain to respond to Delamaire’s attack, marking the beginning of the end for the Sillon.