Catholic Action is a movement oflay people within the Catholic Church which advocates for increased Catholic influence on society. Catholic Action groups were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries underanti-clerical regimes, such as Spain, Italy, Bavaria, France, and Belgium.
Catholic Action is not a political party in and of itself; however, in many times and places, these movements have engaged in political activities. SinceWorld War II, the concept has often been supplanted byChristian Democrat parties that were organised to combatCommunist parties and promoteCatholic social justice principles in places such as Italy andWest Germany.[1]
Catholic Action generally includes various subgroups for youth, women, workers, and so on. In the postwar period, the various national Catholic Action organizations for workers formed theWorld Movement of Christian Workers, which remains active today as a voice within the Church and in society for working class Catholics.[2]
The Catholic Action movement has its beginnings in the latter part of the 19th century as efforts to counteract a rise in anti-clerical sentiment, especially in Europe.[3]
A variety of diverse groups formed under the concept of Catholic Action. These include theYoung Christian Workers, theYoung Christian Students; theCursillo movement, RENEW International; theLegion of Mary;Sodalities; theChristian Family Movement; various community organizing groups like COPS (Communities Organized for Public Service) in San Antonio, andFriendship House in Harlem, an early influence onThomas Merton.[3]
Around 1912, as acurate in a parish inLaeken, on the outskirts of Brussels,Joseph Cardijn, who dedicated his ministry to aid the working class, founded for the young seamstresses a branch of the Needleworkers' Trade Union.[4]In 1919 he founded the Young Trade Unionists. In 1924, the name of the organization was changed to "Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne", theYoung Christian Workers.[4] JOC grew throughout the world; its members were often known as "Jocists" (the movement was often called "Jocism"). By 1938, there were 500,000 members throughout Europe;[5] in 1967, this had increased to 2,000,000 members in 69 countries.[5]
In 1934,Adolf Hitler ordered the murder ofErich Klausener, head of a Catholic Action group inNazi Germany, during theNight of the Long Knives.[citation needed]
Pope Paul VI commended those who are "fighting for Christ in the ranks of Catholic Action and in the other associations and activities of the apostolate" in his firstencyclical letter,Ecclesiam suam, linking their actions with thedialogue inside and outside the church which he saw as the work of theSecond Vatican Council.[6]
A fruit of the contemporary Catholic Action movement, the International Catholic Union of the PressUCIP was founded in Belgium in 1927. A year later, the Organization Catholique Internationale du Cinéma (OCIC) was founded in The Netherlands, and the Bureau Catholic International de Radiodiffusion (BCIR), in Germany. It becameUnda in 1946. Members of these professional Catholic lay associations, working in the world of the professional media, wanted to unite their efforts against the perceivedsecularization of society. On the one hand, they believed that the press and thenew media of radio and cinema were contributing to secularization. On the other hand, they participated in the secularmedia in order to use them as a new means ofevangelization. They answered a call from God through the church to evangelize the secularmass media, or at least endow them withGospel values. As a result of the merger of the Catholic media organizations OCIC and Unda, a new organisation was founded in 2001 in Rome calledSIGNIS.[7] In 2014, theHoly See suggested that SIGNIS should also integrate the members of the former International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP).[citation needed]
TheNational Civic Council is an Australian Catholic Action group formed in 1957 out of the Australian Catholic social studies movement under the leadership ofB.A. Santamaria. Precursors to the NCC were active in theAustralian Labor Party, but were expelled from the party by less conservative members during the1955 Labor Split. The expelled members of the party went on to form theAustralian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) and the subsequentDemocratic Labor Party.[8]
In Chile, Catholic Action was the name of a nationwide youth movement. Under the aegis ofSaint Alberto Hurtado it was responsible for the founding of the Chilean Trade Union Association.[9][10]
Azione Cattolica is probably the most active Catholic Action group still around today. Catholic Action was particularly well suited to Italy where Catholic party political action was impractical, firstly under the Anti-ClericalSavoyard regime from 1870 until about 1910[11] and later under theFascist regime which prohibited independent political parties.
The present associationAzione Cattolica was founded in 1867 by Mario Fani and Giovanni Acquaderni with the name ofSocietà della Gioventù Cattolica Italiana (Italian Catholic Youth Society), then reformed during theMussolini regime when the association was structured into 4 sectors and was called Azione Cattolica.[12][13][14]
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Catholic Action was organised in many other countries, including:
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