“To make daily life vast and beautiful”: Jocist Women Leaders
Thursday 27 and Friday 28 October 2022
Zaal Couvreur, KU Leuven, Belgium
Thursday 27 October 2022
9.00am Opening and Welcome
Welcome from Prof Dr Kim Christiaens, KADOC
Introduction to the Project and the seminar: Dr Katharine Massam
A word from Dr Dries Bosschaert, Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
9.30am Session 1: Cardijn’s method: women, work and gender
Chair: Dr Stefan Gigacz
Sam Kuijken: Jocist Women: Female Agency in the Archives and Beyond
Pat Jones: “We pledge ourselves to the masses of working girls”: the distinctive mission of the girls’ YCW in its founding decades
10.45– 11.15am: Coffee break
Kiara Gigacz, Victoire Cappe, Cardijn and the See Judge Act
Katharine Massam: “Something more solid” : Margaret McGuire and Cardijn’s vision in the Australian lay apostolate
12.30pm Lunch
2.30 pm Session 2: Women as students and leaders in the Cardijn Movements
Chair: Dr Stefan Gigacz
Charles Mercier and Bernard Giroux: The French Jeunesse étudiante chrétienne féminine: pathways of women activists (1930-1965)
3.45pm Break
4.30pm Session 3: Panel: Cardijn: relevance and contemporary Jocist experience
Chair: Dr Pat Jones
A panel of practitioners and specialists:
David McLoughlin: Theologian, member of Movement of Christian Workers (MCW), Birmingham, England.
Teresa Mourad: Former YCS leader, Singapore, IYCS Asia; Co-ordinator of Cardijn Associates, USA. Washington DC
Sarah Prenger: Outgoing president, International YCW.
Claire Barbay, Mentor, JEC, France
Joceline Minerve, Formerly of MIDADE, children’s Catholic Action movement.
Sample questions (tbc)
- What do we draw from Cardijn’s thought and the movements he inspired that is still relevant today?
- What was significant in Cardijn’s approach for women in particular?
- How far have we lost ‘the lay apostolate’ in contemporary Catholic narratives and experience?
- What can academic research offer that is useful here?
6.00pm Closing remarks for Day 1
6.10pm Close
7.30 pm Dinner, MYKENE, Muntstraat 44, 3000 Leuven
Friday 28 October 2022
9.15 am Research Project
Dries Bosschaert and Maite Beukelaar: The Auxiliaries of the Apostolate
9.30 am Session 4: Founders and Activists
Chair: Professor Katharine Massam
- Joseph Paul & Glorene Das (Tenaganita) and Katrina Jorene: Irene Fernandez, Aegile Fernandez and the struggle of migrant women workers
- Roseanna Webster: The JOC’s Role in the Lives of Leading Activists Aida Fuentes Concheso and Mar Cambrollé in late Francoist Spain
10.30am – 10.45am Coffee break
Lorena García Mourelle: The Revision of Life Method and its impacts on the women leaders of the Catholic Agrarian Youth in Uruguay in the 1960s
Camille Banse: “Every marriage is fundamentally a marriage between a sponge and a rock” : female gender roles in Catholic middle-class youth
Stefan Gigacz: Marguerite Fiévez: From the Belgian JOCF to Vatican II and the Pontifical Council of the Laity.
12.00 Session 5: Resources for Remembering the Cardijn Movements
Professor Ana Maria Bidegain will lead a conversation about international archival sources, security of the repositories, strategies for gathering resources including oral histories, ephemera, other mixed mode additions, and the development of the online Historical Dictionary.
1.00: Lunch
2.00 Session 7: Evaluation and Future Plans
3.30 Close
With thanks to our sponsors: Fonds Dondeyne, American Academy of Religion; King’s College, London; KADOC – KULeuven; LACIIR (Latin American and the Caribbean Interdisciplinary Initiative on Religion) – Florida Int University; Australian Cardijn Inst, Perth; Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity, Melbourne.
