February 2025
Migration - Ordo Amoris - Truth to power - Pope slams child labour - YCW founders - Cardijn a cardinal
Challenges for the US Church
Dear Friends,
It's been a frantic month since the inauguration of Donald Trump for a second presidential term with Catholic convert J.D. Vance as his vice-president.
Despite his age and growing infirmity, Pope Francis has been quick to respond to the latter's distortion of Catholic teaching on solidarity and the "ordo amoris." Writing from Hong Kong, American Maryknoll missioner, Bill Grimm, also critiques the vice-president's take as well as the lack of clarity from the US bishops as a body.
In a recent YouTube video, Fr Ty Hullinger reflects on speaking truth to power while Richard Pütz recalls the significance of Black History Month.
And in another hard hitting article, we again note Pope Francis' forceful appeal to ensure that we do not become accomplices in child labour through our consumer choices and lifestyle.
This month, we also recall the martyrdom of two of Cardijn's closest lay collaborators, Fernand Tonnet and Paul Garcet, who both died in the Dachau Concentration Camp in early 1945. On a happier note, it's also the 60th anniversary of Cardijn's becoming a cardinal in February 1965. Stefan Gigacz recalls the intrigues and tears that accompanied that honour.
As usual, Pat Branson offers another thoughtful Gospel reflection and we conclude with a tribute to late Cardijn Bookstore volunteer, Florence Helen Yanny.
The Cardijn Associates Team
Francis corrects Vance on "ordo amoris"
Pope Francis has written to the bishops of the USA in the wake of controversial comments by US Vice-President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, to clarify Gospel teaching on human dignity and migration.
“The journey from slavery to freedom that the People of Israel traveled, as narrated in the Book of Exodus, invites us to look at the reality of our time, so clearly marked by the phenomenon of migration, as a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person,” Pope Francis wrote.
READ MORE
Good Samaritan models true ‘ordo amoris’: Pope Francis (Cardijn.info)
Opinion: The fruits of American bishops' failure
Five years ago, J.D. Vance, who is now the vice president of the United States, received the Sacraments of Initiation at St. Gertrude Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, writes Maryknoll Missioner, Fr Bill Grimm.
The Dominicans to whom the parish has been entrusted presumably instructed him regarding the basic tenets of Catholic Christianity, stressing that love is the basic reality of the universe and therefore the chief virtue to which we are called.
So, I hope that those who catechized him and have preached to him are embarrassed that the pope himself has felt it necessary to re-catechize Vance regarding love.
READ MORE
The fruits of American bishops’ failure (UCA News)
Reflection: Black History Month
In the US, February is recognized as Black History Month. For us Catholics, it is essential to understand better the history of Black Catholics, the Church’s role in maintaining segregation, and the prophets in history who have helped us as Catholics recognize that we are all God’s people.
Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum, would come to overshadow two other important encyclicals from the same pope. One particularly theologically significant is “In Plurimis,” and its follow-up encyclical, “Catholicae Ecclesiae,” is also highly important. During a pivotal time in the Church’s history, Leo XIII changed the Church’s teaching on slavery, marking the first time the Catholic Church embraced abolitionism.
Like many aspects of the Church’s history, slaveholding was sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Investigate the history of Black Catholics in the United States and how many within the hierarchy, local pastors, and schools owned enslaved individuals.
READ MORE
Richard Pütz, Leo XIII and Catholic Black History (Cardijn Reflections)
Video: Fr Ty Hullinger on Jesus' speaking truth to power
'In the wake of a deeply divisive election, we gather as a movement community to support and care for each other," the Kairos Center in Baltimore writes in an introduction to a biblical reflection by Fr Ty Hullinger of Cardijn Associates.
"We also gather to prepare for the struggle ahead. We do this by sharing experiences, resources, and by drawing lessons from the struggles of the poor and dispossessed who came before us.
"This week we turn to the Hebrew scriptures (Kings and Samuel) and to the early biblical communities who struggled to organize their society in a way that didn't mimic the systems of domination that God had helped free them from - an all too relevant story for our times.
WATCH THE VIDEO
Reflection: Father Ty Hullinger, United Workers (Kairos Center/YouTube)
Enquiry: Don't be complicit in child labor: Pope Francis
We must be aware of how we eat and dress in order to avoid becoming complicit in child labor, Pope Francis stated in his General Audience on 15 January 2025.
“Even today in the world, hundreds of millions of minors, despite not being of the minimum age to undergo the obligations of adulthood, are forced to work,” Pope Francis said in his second catechesis on children, “and many of them are exposed to particularly dangerous work; not to mention the boys and girls who are slaves to trafficking for prostitution or pornography, and forced marriages.”
READ MORE
Enquiry: Don’t be complicit in child labor
Gospel: The power of faith without borders
If the Jews are the Chosen People, the ones with whom God made covenants, why does Mark tell us about a non-Jew, a Gentile living in Israel, whose daughter is cured by Jesus from a distance?
Mark’s Gospel was written for Gentiles. Non-Jewish Christians, probably living in Rome and facing persecution and death at the hands of Emperor Nero, needed reassurance that Jesus is the saviour of all people, not just those who are Jews.
In the Gospel that you will read, Jesus moves beyond the accepted understanding of the Messiah and heals the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman. This was something that no other leader could do.
READ MORE
The power of faith without borders (Gospel Enquiries)
Fernand Tonnet and Paul Garcet, a vision for the YCW
This month marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Fernand Tonnet, lay co-founder of the YCW.
Like his lifelong comrade and YCW co-founder, Paul Garcet, who had preceded him in death two weeks earlier, Tonnet died a gruesome death caused by typhus at the Dachau Concentration Camp, where he had been confined for eighteen months.
As Cardijn commented: “The martyr’s crown remains the most beautiful crown, and it is immortal.”
Nevertheless, I am sure that both Tonnet and Garcet would prefer to be remembered for the movement to which they devoted their lives rather than the suffering they later endured, writes Stefan Gigacz
READ MORE
Stefan Gigacz, Fernand Tonnet, a vision for the JOC (Cardijn Research)
Fernand Tonnet website (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
Paul Garcet website (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
History: Cardijn, a cardinal: Intrigue, anguish and tears
Sixty years ago this month on 22 February 1965, despite his personal anguish about the honour, Cardijn accepted his red hat as a cardinal from Pope Paul VI just days after his consecration as an archbishop, writes Stefan Gigacz.
In their biography of Cardijn, Marguerite Fiévez and Jacques Meert blandly record the latter ceremony as follows:
On Sunday, 21st February, the old man of eighty-two was consecrated Archbishop by his compatriot Cardinal Suenens.
But there was much more to the story of how and why Paul VI decided to make Cardijn a cardinal than they let on.
The late John Maguire, a former Australian priest, who was in Rome for the red hat ceremony also recalled Cardijn's tears on that occasion.
READ MORE
Stefan Gigacz, Cardijn, a cardinal: Intrigues and tears (Cardijn Research)
News brief
RIP Florence Helen Yanny, Cardijn Bookstore volunteer
Florence Helen “Buddy” Yanny, 95, passed away peacefully on Jan. 23, 2025, at Aurora Burlington Medical Center, after a brief illness.
In Milwaukee, she was involved in volunteer work at the Cardijn Bookstore writing to disabled servicemen, which led to her acquaintance and subsequent romance with David Yanny, who became her husband.
READ THE TRIBUTE
Florence Helen Yanny (MyRacine)
Editorial Note: The purpose of the Cardijn Associates Newsletter is to share information and promote discussion. Citing or linking to articles does not imply any endorsement of the authors' views.
Cardijn Associates USA
Contact
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