Cardinal joseph cardijn biography

Cardijn was best known for his lifelong dedication to social activism and working towards the improvement of the working class ; after his ordination , he made a particular focus of his life the effort to evangelize and bring the core messages of faith in the Gospel back to the working class, who he believed were neglected. His movement received vocal praise and encouragement from Pope Pius XI.

He demonstrated great zeal even after he had been imprisoned during World War II , which served to empower his positions on social change and to oppose rising inequalities. Cardijn died in a Leuven hospital in But he also lived with his grandparents because his mother's frail health meant she could not nurse him. Both parents were devout and agreed to let him continue his studies to become a priest instead of going to work.

One night in he went to his shared bedroom with his siblings and then crept downstairs barefoot to the kitchen to the fireside to speak with his parents regarding his desire to become a priest. I want to be a priest". He studied in Halle before going in September to Mechelen for his education; his father died a few months prior to this.

But his old friends scoffed at his desire to become a priest, believing he joined those that oppressed the working class. Cardijn was ordained a priest in St. He had also decided to spend his life evangelizing and bringing the faith back to the working class, who he felt had been neglected. During World War I he was twice imprisoned for so-called patriotic activities.

He left Laeken in and dedicated himself to social work from then on. He was arrested in November and sentenced to thirteen months imprisonment on 6 December; his mother suffered a nervous breakdown upon learning of this. In turn he received books and other materials through the underground. He was arrested again in on an espionage charge and sentenced to a decade of hard labor , but was released following the November armistice that ended the war.

In he suffered from tuberculosis due to his imprisonment and was sent to Cannes in France for several months of recuperation before going back to Belgium. This group at first met resistance from within the Church, but after a while the organization and Cardijn became accepted; in March Cardijn received a blessing from Pope Pius XI , who encouraged his work.

Cardinal joseph cardijn biography

Following their meeting the pope said: "Here at last is someone who comes to speak to me about the masses! The pope blessed the movement and affirmed that "we make it our own! The organization grew rapidly throughout the world; the movement was often called "Jocism", and its members were often known as "Jocists". In an autographed letter in the pope backed the Jocistas as an "authentic model" for activism and social action.

In January he sent a petition to the pope asking for him to initiate the causes of canonization for Margaret Sinclair and Pier Giorgio Frassati. In the Gestapo arrested him, but released him from jail in September He refused to leave unless those captured and jailed alongside him were released with him. They were intelligent, decent, God-fearing.

When I came back for my holidays they were coarse, corrupted and lapsed from the Church-whilst I was becoming a priest. I started to make enquiries, it became the obsession of my life. How did it come about that young lads brought up by Christian parents in Christian schools should be lost in a few months? To the solution of this enigma he was to devote the whole of his life, but it took him many years to discover the means of fulfilling his vocation.

Joseph Cardijn was ordained priest on September 22nd, , and was sent to follow a course of sociology and political science at the University of Louvain. But the following year he was recalled to his diocese and appointed to teach at the junior seminary of Basse-Wavre. He had not forgotten the problems of the working class, and he devoted his summer holidays to traveling abroad, studying working conditions in Germany, France and England.

He has given us an account of his travels in England, where he visited Manchester, London and Sheffleld and made a close study of trade union organization, meeting Tom Mann and Ben Tillett. His impression of Ben Tillett is particularly interesting as it shows that, as far back as , his mind was already working on the lines which were to result, some twenty years later, in the foundation of the Young Christian Workers:.

It was during one of his visits to England that he met Baden-Powell, then at the height of his fame as the founder of Scouting. Baden-Powell explained to him the Scout ideals and methods, and suggested to Father Cardijn that he should start the movement in Belgium. But though he felt an intense admiration for the educative value of Scout training, Cardijn realized that it did not hold the solution of his preoccupations: "I expounded to Baden-Powell," he tells us, "the concrete and practical problems of the life and work of the young workers.

Baden-Powell admitted that he had never looked at the problem in that way, and that Scouting could not solve this concrete and practical problem. In , a very severe bout of illness put an end to his teaching career. Hardly convalescent, he was appointed curate at Laeken, on the outskirts of Brussels. The parish priest could hardly conceal his disappointment when he first met his new assistant: "All the parish organizations are topsy-turvy, and they send me a sick man!

It was true that the parish organizations were in a bad way. Among people born in Belgium , Joseph Cardijn ranks out of 1, Among religious figures born in Belgium , Joseph Cardijn ranks Read more on Wikipedia Since , the English Wikipedia page of Joseph Cardijn has received more than 58, page views. Others Born in Go to all Rankings. Leuven, Flemish Brabant, Belgium en.

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