Friends,
In this issue, we begin with the apologies by several bishops for taking part in a photo opportunity of a prayer session with President Trump.
This week, we learned that labor leader and activist Dolores Huerta has died at the age of 96.
Claudio Remeseira explains the background to Pope Leo’s first trip as pontiff to Latin America.
Todd Walatka shows the influence on Saint Oscar Romero of the see-judge-act method.
While in Paris, Pope Leo recalled the life of another jocist martyr, Blessed Marcel Callo, while another disciple of Joseph Cardijn, Italian priest Don Luigi Di Liegro is now on the sainthood path.
Robert Ellsberg tells the story of his own career at Orbis Books.
Finally, we share information about the Cardijn Pilgrimage to Rome in May 2027, including an important gathering of YCS alumni from around the world.
The Cardijn Associates USA Team
Five bishops apologize over Trump meeting
Five of the 12 bishops photographed praying over President Donald Trump on October 22 have distanced themselves publicly from any political interpretations of the gathering, issuing an apology or statement or giving an interview clarifying their intentions, Aleteia reports.
The meeting, which was reported to have been organized by Mario Enzler of the Heritage Foundation, though the Foundation said that was not the case, was billed as a conversation about issues important to Catholic voters. The bishops were invited to “discuss matters of importance to the Church and our people, including immigration enforcement, religious worker visas, and human dignity,” according to attendee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob of Milwaukee.
5 Bishops issue apology, clarifications on Trump meeting (Aleteia)
Labor leader Dolores Huerta has died at 96
Dolores Huerta, labor activist and civil rights icon, has died at the age of 96, her family announced on 28 October.
Huerta was born in New Mexico and raised by a single mother in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where she worked as a school teacher and then helped found a local chapter of a grassroots organization that fought segregation and police brutality.
She quickly turned her interests to farm laborers and co-founded with César Chavez what eventually became the United Farm Workers of America.
Huerta’s resolve cemented her place in history as one of the nation’s most influential labor leaders, civil rights icons and feminist activists. Her three-word Spanish-language slogan — which translates to “Yes, it can be done” — was grounded in the belief that people could affect change.
Dolores Huerta, United Farmworkers co-founder and civil rights icon, dies at 96 (Eyewitness News)
Pope Leo to visit Latin America
After the alarm and worldwide concern created by the unexpected news of Pope Leo’s lung cancer and the immediate surgery to remove part of the organ affected, the Vatican confirmed that the pontiff’s apostolic visit to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru — his first visit to Latin America as pope — will proceed as scheduled, writes Claudio Remeseira.
The highlight of this trip, which will extend from November 6 to 17, will be Leo’s return to Peru, the nation in which he spent almost two decades of his life, first as a missionary and seminary director in the 1980s and 1990s and later as bishop of Chiclayo, from 2014 to 2023.
Yet his visit to Argentina will have special significance too, not only because it is the birthplace of his predecessor, Francis, who never went back to it during his papacy, but also because it will provide the rare opportunity to witness the clash between Leo’s championing of the Church’s social teaching, along with his humanist and anti-war message, and Argentina’s current president, Javier Milei, the darling of the international right-wing populist and anti-woke movements, a brash advocate of unbridled markets, unquestioning alignment with Israel and its war against Hamas, and technological accelerationism.
Leo in the land of Francis (Where Peter Is)
“Where Is Your Brother?”
“As a deeply Latin American thinker working in the wake of Medellín, (Saint Oscar Romero) can best be understood in terms of the see-judge-act methodology, with its foundational emphasis on the challenge of perceiving the truth of reality,” writes Todd Walatka at Catholic Moral Theology.
It is clear—as it was in Romero’s time—that we live in a time that demands action. All around, human rights are violated, migrants are demonized, fear is stoked. We need resistance to repression, concrete works of mercy, participation in the struggle for justice, and laws that move toward a just peace.
As Romero says, appealing to Gaudium et Spes §43, one of the great errors of our time is the idea that “the Church should keep to the sacristy and not get involved in proclaiming the demands of justice and defending the human rights of all” (Homily from November 12, 1978). Romero is clear that a “committed” [comprometida] Church, a community actively involved in the struggle [la lucha] is the sign of true fidelity.
“Where Is Your Brother?” (Catholic Moral Theology)
Leo remembers Marcel Callo
Addressing 80,000 young people gathered at the Stade de France in Paris, Pope Leo cited Blessed Marcel Callo, a martyred French JOCist leader, as an example of those who choose the path of virtue and holiness.
“Those who live with God strive for what is best,” Pope Leo said. “They are constantly growing.”
“And how many sons and daughters of this beloved land of France have allowed themselves to be led along this path!” Pope Leo continued. “Consider, for example, Blessed Marcel Callo, a young Frenchman, a boy scout and worker, who in the darkness of the concentration camp never ceased to strive toward the good, maintaining his interior freedom.”
Don Luigi Di Liegro on sainthood path
Pope Leo has announced that he has approved the launch of a diocesan inquiry into the life and holiness of Don Luigi Di Liegro, a Roman priest influenced by Cardijn and the YCW, who was dedicated to workers and the poor.
Born in Gaeta on 16 October 1928, Don Luigi was the eighth child of a fisherman who had emigrated several times to the United States but was eventually expelled.
In 1958, he left for France and Belgium where he visited mines. While in Belgium, he also took part in a YCW national training program of the YCW, where he met Cardijn in what became a decisive experience.
Don Luigi Di Liegro on sainthood path
Robert Ellsberg: My life at Orbis Books
In the United States, we can’t help but be reminded of the European roots of the Catholic Church, writes Robert Ellsberg. But I’d like to look at a wider and more recent era in the life of the Church—the emergence of, as Karl Rahner called it, a “world Church.” This is not a Church whose center is Rome or Europe, or for that matter the West. It is a Church without a center—inculturated into the language, history, and culture of every corner of the globe; and rooted not in the centers of power or privilege, but in the world of the poor.
I want to tell this story through the history of a particular publishing house, Orbis Books, where I have worked for close to forty years. Orbis was founded on the crest of this wave of globalization, and that gives our history a particular vantage point on the story of the Church over the past half century: where it has come from, and where it may be going.
I begin this story with Vatican II, which concluded in 1965.
Publishing for a World Church (Commonweal)
Events
Pre-register now |April 29 - May 4, 2027 | Former YCS Members World Meeting | Rome. In celebration of the 80th anniversary of IYCS International Coordination and the Centenary of Specialized Catholic Action movements, recognized by Vatican II, all former members of the Young Catholic Students are warmly invited to attend this special event in Rome. The event seeks to to reconnect former members with one another and with the current Movement through intergenerational dialogue, to discern our role today in a world that is confronted with many contemporary challenges, and to explore the establishment of a more coherent international alumni network. This event is held in conjunction with the Cardijn Pilgrimage and Lay Apostolate Jubilee 2027.
January 31 – February 2, 2027 |Catholic Social Ministry | Washington, D.C. Led by Pope Leo’s vision in Magnifica humanitas to build the city of love and mercy, the theme of CSMG 2027 is Builders of Communion, Committed to Justice.
Cardijn Associates USA
Contact
Email: cardijnassociates@gmail.com