March 2026
Ban bombing - Renewing the spirituality of marriage and family - Trends in adult faith formation - Struggle and lament ahead of Easter
Friends
As the war in the Middle East continues unabated, echoing a famous photo of Mobi Warren, Marion Shintel, Merle Ratner, Fr Kenneth Keulman and Dan Berrigan SJ (Religious News Service photo above), Pope Leo has called for a ban on aerial bombing and reiterated his appeal for a ceasefire.
In a similar vein, Fr Chris Malano shares a Gospel reflection recalling the example of St Oscar Romero, emphasizing our responsibility to see clearly what is happening in the world.
Separately, recalling the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Pope Leo also invited presidents of bishops conferences to Rome in October to discuss the pastoral needs of families. Indeed, families will shape the Church’s future, Richard Pütz adds.
Perhaps providentially, this week Leo also declared venerable Henri Caffarel, the YCW chaplain and Teams of Our Lady founder, who pioneered a renewed spirituality and theology of marriage, as Stefan Gigacz writes.
Rudy Dehaney highlights emerging trends in adult faith formation while Fr Ty Hullinger reflects on struggle and lament.
We also share a classic text from Joseph Cardijn, who insists on the permanent need to re-imagine and re-think our work and our movement.
In other good news, we are pleased to share that our Lenten Compassion campaign for Baby Eliana has reached its target. We will share news of her progress in coming issues.
And we conclude with a series of forthcoming events.
The Cardijn Associates Team
Ban aerial bombing: Pope Leo
“Airplanes should always be carriers of peace, never of war!” Pope Leo has said. “No one should be afraid that threats of death and destruction might come from the sky.”
Pope Leo recalled the aerial bombardments of the World Wars and other conflicts, which still continue today.
“After the tragic experiences of the twentieth century, aerial bombings should have been banned forever!” he said. “Instead, they still exist, and technological development, positive in itself, is being placed at the service of war. This is not progress; it is regression!”
Pope Leo XIV: Planes should bring peace, not war and destruction (Vatican News)
Learn More
See Catholics for a Free Palestine below
Emerging trends in young adult faith formation
Rudy Dehaney, Cardijn Associates Board member and Director of Campus Ministry, Notre Dame of Maryland University, joined Paul Jarzembowski, Associate Director, USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and Dr. Tracey Lamont, Associate Professor of Religious Education and Young Adult Ministry, Loyola University New Orleans, in a panel organized by the National Community for Catechetical Leaders on implementing more synodal, intercultural, and relationship-centered approaches to ministry with young adults across multiple touch points.
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Era of change affects families: Pope Leo
“Our era is marked by rapid changes which make it necessary, even more than ten years ago, to give particular pastoral attention to families,” Pope Leo observed, announcing a meeting of presidents the world’s bishops conferences to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia.
“There are, in fact, places and circumstances in which the Church “can become the salt of the earth” only through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families,” he added.
“For this reason, the Church’s commitment in this area must be renewed and deepened, so that those whom the Lord calls to marriage and family life can, in Christ, fully live out their conjugal love, and that young people may feel attracted, within the Church, to the beauty of the vocation to marriage.”
Pope Leo’s own parents were active members of the Christian Family Movement in Chicago.
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Tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia (Vatican)
Families will shape the Church’s future
Pope Leo XIV’s framing for October 2026 is striking. He notes that in many places, “the Church can become the salt of the earth only through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families,” writes Richard Pütz That is not a throw-away line. It is an acknowledgment that institutional structures and clergy alone cannot reach where families live. The future of the Church’s mission depends on forming laypeople who know how to carry it out.
Amoris Laetitia called for new forms of “missionary creativity.” It urged the Church to move beyond simply repeating doctrine and to actively strengthen marital love “under the impulse of grace.” Cardijn’s See–Judge–Act offers a tested, grassroots method for doing that. CFM provides over eighty years of practical experience using this method with real couples in real circumstances.
The convergence feels significant. It is not manufactured, but genuinely available — if the bishops’ summit is willing to listen not just to each other but also to the families who have been doing this work quietly for generations.
If the summit is to be more than bishops talking about families, it needs families talking to bishops. That means the work starts locally, now.
ACT NOW
Kitchen Tables and Cathedrals: How Ordinary Families Could Shape the Church’s Future at the 2026 Bishops Summit (Cardijn Reflections)
Venerable Henri Caffarel, YCW chaplain and Teams of Our Lady founder
Pope Leo has approved a decree declaring venerable Henri Caffarel, a French YCW chaplain, who later founded the Teams of Our Lady movement.
During an audience with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, on 23 March 2026, Pope Leo authorised the promulgation of a decree recognising “the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Henri Caffarel, diocesan priest, founder of the ‘Equipes Notre Dame’ (Teams of Our Lady) and the ‘Fraternité Notre-Dame de la Résurrection’ (Our Lady of the Resurrection Fraternity),” Vatican News reports.
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Venerable Henri Caffarel, YCW chaplain and founder of the Teams of Our Lady (Cardijn Research)
Struggle and lament: Sunday is coming
Reflecting on Lent, Ramadan and the preparation for Passover with Fr Ty Hullinger at the Freedom Church of the Poor
Cardijn: Re-imagining the movement
Sometimes you hear people say: “The YCW is outdated, it’s had its day.” Others go further and say: “The YCW has gone bankrupt,” wrote Cardijn in 1950.
It’s only when you constantly rethink the movement, its purpose, its raison d’être, that you see it must continually surpass itself, must always renew itself in order to remain the YCW, the movement that responds to the needs, problems, and difficulties of young workers today.
We must rethink the very essence of the movement, its essential reason for being. And this is what I ask you to do: to simply, openly, and frankly rethink some essential, fundamental aspects of the movement.
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The YCW, a movement that constantly needs to be re-imagined (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
Gospel: Our responsibility to see clearly
In the Gospel of March 24, Jesus is speaking to people who are questioning him, pushing back on him, not sure they believe him, writes Fr Chris Malano. And he says to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man… then you will realize…” He is speaking to the very people in front of him: people who are listening, but not recognizing who he is. The truth is already there: that no authority can require what is against God’s law, and that conscience does not disappear when orders are given. But the people listening to him do not recognize it.
And that is not only about them. It is about us, too.
On March 23, 1980, in a homily at the Cathedral in San Salvador, the day before he was killed, Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke to soldiers in his country. He said:
“ No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.”1
READ MORE
The responsibility to see clearly: Memorial of Saint Oscar Romero (Bridging our worlds)
Networks and Events for Global Solidarity
Pax Christi
April 6, 2026 | 8:00 PM ET |Pax Christi International Fund for Peace | With Courage to Hope. The gathering will be a moment to be in community for prayer and reflection, featuring remarks from Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv., bishop president of Pax Christi USA, and Martha Inés Romero, secretary general of Pax Christi International.
Catholics for a Free Palestine
Catholics for a Free Palestine seeks to mobilize Catholics as part of an intersectional, liberatory movement. It is part of an ecumenical, grassroots, nonviolent movement dedicated to mobilizing Christians across the U.S. to take action in solidarity with Palestinians. Sign up for their mailing list and join the upcoming events:
May 5-7, 2026 | Washington D.C. Churches for Middle East Peace Joint Christian Advocacy Summit
May 10, 2026 | 1:30 PM ET | The Bridges: A Christian Vision for Reconciliation with Fr. David Neuhaus, S.J. Sister Parish Solidarity: Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington D.C. & St. Catherine Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Palestine Webinar Series. Listen to better understand the lived realities of our Palestinian sisters and brothers at St. Catherine’s in Bethlehem, as we learn about and discuss the physical and structural walls in our worlds, and examine shared theological foundations for bridging worldly divides. Register for the series and to receive more information by emailing holyland@trinity.org
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Contact
Email: cardijnassociates@gmail.com