AZIONE CATTOLICA (A. C.)

AZIONE CATTOLICA (A. C.)

Apostolic work of Catholics organized among the laity.

Summary:

I. Concept

II. Nature and Purpose

III. History

IV. Legal Status

V. Constitutive Characteristics.

I. CONCEPT

In its literal sense, the phrase A. C. means an act in conformity with the principles of the Catholic religion. However, common usage and the official documents of the ecclesiastical hierarchy have, in modern times, designated by this name either the works of apostolate carried out by religious associations or the associations themselves insofar as they are dedicated to such works. In the first sense, Pius XI defined A. C. as “the collaboration of the laity in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church.”

In the second sense, the General Statute of Italian A. C. of 1946 states that it is “the organization of the laity for a special and direct collaboration with the hierarchical apostolate of the Church.” It should also be noted that today, through various forms of dependence and coordination, associations that, while having a less rigidly hierarchical structure, engage in apostolic work in particular sectors—such as, for example, in Italy, the Scouts, the A.C.L.I., etc.—are also being linked to A. C. itself.

II. NATURE AND PURPOSE

A. C., whether as individual apostolate or as organized apostolate, is part of the economy of Redemption established by Jesus Christ, through which its fruits reach men through the ministry of other men. “Go therefore,” the Divine Master said to His Apostles, “and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them...” (Mt. 28:19).

The official and hierarchical ministry belongs to the Apostles and their successors, the Pope and the bishops, with their clergy; the subsidiary and subordinate ministry belongs to the laity.

It follows that the purposes of A. C. are the same as those of the Church. Pius XI wrote to the Argentine episcopate (4 Nov. 1931): “Noble is the purpose of A. C., since it coincides with the very purpose of the Church.” And Pius XII affirmed: “Great is the mission of A. C., as it lends its cooperation to the attainment of the very purpose of the Church.”

Naturally, to this general and supreme end, which is the coming of the Kingdom of God, other ends are connected as proximate and partial to the remote and general end. The first and fundamental end is the religious and moral formation of members, guiding and urging them toward an integral Christian life. The second, with a wholly distinctive emphasis, is that A. C. seeks to give its members an apostolic vision of life, so that each feels himself a living part of a whole—the Church—from which he continually receives and to which he continually gives spiritual goods. Thirdly, there is the proper apostolic action in all sectors and in all directions where the collaboration of the laity with the hierarchical action is most urgently needed.

Essential external notes of A. C., as it is found today throughout the Catholic world, are the form of organized apostolate and the form of organization corresponding to the organization of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In times when organization is the basis of all expressions of life, the absolute autonomy of individual activities for the good would lead to a dissipation of forces and a lack of effective action. And since these forces of the laity are to be organized for service to the Church, it could not, in principle, be separated from the organization of the Church itself, which is Catholic and thus universal, and which, beyond the universal primacy of the Pope, has in each nation its dioceses and parishes, with the respective missions of bishops and parish priests. Hence the parish base that exists in many places for the organization of A. C. Then diocesan organs alongside the bishop, and national organs with coordinating and promoting functions alongside a bishop delegated by the Holy See or elected by the national episcopate, or alongside a collegial body (Episcopal Commission), as is now the case in Italy.

During the pontificate of Pius XI, there was also an initial attempt at international organization at the center of Catholicism, with the Actio Catholica office created in Rome, but it had little function. Today, forms of organization are emerging for individual branches, such as the International of Catholic Women’s Leagues and Pax Romana, which already exist, and the International of Men and Youth newly established (Sept. 1948).

III. HISTORY

Taken in its broadest sense, it can be rightly asserted that A. C. has always existed within Christianity and is indeed part of its very structure. It has been constantly realized since the moment when the beneficiaries of Jesus made public among the people, despite temporary prohibitions, the wonders of which they themselves had been the object or witnesses. The collaboration of the laity, men and women, in preparing the ground for the Apostles, in defending them and rescuing them from persecutors, in themselves becoming advocates of the Gospel, in unmasking heretics and false brethren—though details are rather scarce—is evident from allusions in ancient historians. Their mutual charity, their courage in professing the faith and bearing witness to it even unto martyrdom, were the constant and effective seal of the holiness of doctrine and the most effective factor in its propagation.

With the decline of Roman civilization and the changing of public and private relations, the religious activity of the laity seems almost to have faded somewhat in comparison with the tenacious, though sometimes sluggish, activity of the clergy and monasticism. It re-emerges with vigor in the new times when the great mendicant Orders, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, know how to arouse new energies in defense of the faith, in comfort and protection of the humble, the poor, and the unfortunate. Third Orders, confraternities, and various charitable institutions overshadow the more limited provisions of the preceding age. Social initiatives such as those of the Humiliati, guilds permeated with Christian spirit, form a new environment for the work of the laity, especially the male element; the female element contributes in a rather indirect way, though an increasing freedom of initiative also emerges from its ranks. The Renaissance, especially in Italy, perfects and expands what it had inherited from the previous age, though less certainly in the social field of the guilds compared to the fields of charity and culture. Alongside the Monti di Pietà, there arose a broader movement for free schools of all levels, a more extensive and perfect organization of charity for the poorest and most abandoned, and the Compagnia della Dottrina Cristiana, in which the laity participated with initiative, personal contribution, and financial support.

But it is from the upheavals provoked by the French Revolution that A. C. begins in the strictly specific sense of its name. Politics and economics, science, philosophy, and education sought their foundations and guiding principles in rationalism and unbridled hedonism. The ancient paths of apostolate were largely blocked: guilds were dissolved, religious institutes suppressed, Catholic schools closed. And from the triumphant machinery and capitalism emerged the social question, with the first revolutionary apostles, the first socialist theories, and insurrectionary attempts.

Here and there the Catholic counteroffensive begins to take shape. In Italy the seeds are sown of what will later become modern Catholic Action with the Catholic Friendships of Pio Brunone Latori, which the Piedmontese king dissolved in 1828 as dangerous to the State. The Church’s vigorous stance follows with Gregory XVI’s encyclical Mirari vos (1832) and then with Pius IX’s Syllabus (1864). Once the Catholics have been authoritatively given a clear line of march, they return to the conquest of a society that does everything to ignore Christianity. In every European nation the religious revival is almost simultaneous and sees the finest names of the clergy and laity collaborating fraternally in joint efforts. In France the Ligue catholique pour la défense de l’Église; in Belgium the Union catholique; in Germany the Katholischer Verein; in Switzerland the Piusverein; in England the Catholic Union; in Spain the Asociación de católicos—to cite only a few initiatives of the time. This Catholic resurgence between 1848 and 1860 culminates in an international congress at Malines in 1863, attended by the most illustrious pioneers such as Montalembert, Vaughan, Mermillod, and for Italy the lawyer G. B. Casoni of Bologna, who then promotes in his homeland the first Catholic organization of national scope, called the Associazione cattolica per la libertà della Chiesa in Italia.

For more than a decade these various Catholic organizations remained predominantly in the field of defending Catholic truth and fostering the Christian life of their members. These were the years before and after the fall of the Papal States, the struggle of the Kulturkampf in Germany, the Paris Commune—years that many anticlericals believed would be the death throes of the Catholic Church. Yet already the pioneers were charting paths toward modern social thought inspired by Gospel principles. In Germany in 1848 the parish priest Ketterer, later a famous bishop, addressed the Christian concept of property, and in 1864 openly tackled the theme “the workers’ question.” In Switzerland another bishop, later a cardinal, Mermillod, sounded the alarm among the blessed possidentes, outlining new duties and rights for social classes; he also proposed to the Vatican Council a condemnation of socialism and an affirmation of the laws of Christian justice and charity.

In England another bishop and cardinal, Manning—who saw further and more clearly than anyone else—posed squarely for Catholics the challenge of “leaving the Ark and acting upon the world.” In North America another cardinal, Gibbons, became the defender of the new organization the Knights of Labor, even when it was attacked by Catholics.

With these guiding lights, Catholic Action laid out its plans for social work and related initiatives. So that when, on 15 May 1891, Leo XIII’s famous encyclical Rerum novarum was published, the ideological and practical ground was ready to receive II.
Meanwhile, within the Church there were stirrings of ideas that troubled even militant Catholics. In France, under Gregory XVI, the defection of the Abbé de Lamennais had already occurred, and this served to purge democratic and social-reformist ferment of its dross, so that the names of Lacordaire, the Count of Montalembert, La Tour du Pin, and the Count de Mun came to represent a broad movement of ideas and works. In Germany Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, launched after 1870, only strengthened Catholic unity and enabled Windthorst, leader of the Catholic Centre Party, to stand firm against the “Iron Chancellor” and force him to repeal the anticlerical laws. The attempt at internal disintegration by the so-called “Old Catholics,” led by Döllinger, likewise failed, not least because of the external circumstances of defensive struggle that Catholics had to face.

Italy, where the political situation was especially delicate because of the relations between the Holy See and the government, proved a more fertile ground for sowing discord. This led Leo XIII, in the encyclical Graves de communi, to reaffirm the social directions of the lay apostolate while calling the more zealous—led by Don Murri—to a greater sense of discipline. Later Pius X intervened with the encyclical Il fermo proposito, a return to the spiritual and supernatural sources of all Catholic action (v. AZIONE CATTOLICA ITALIANA (A. C. I)).

The First World War and the postwar period steered Catholic Action toward works of assistance, patriotic resistance, and then organizational renewal. This renewal gained its greatest impetus under the pontificate of Pius XI, the great pope who was also called the Pope of Catholic Action. From his first encyclical, Ubi arcano Dei, until his death he carried out a mighty work of doctrinal clarification and practical guidance for all Catholic forces throughout the world. The result was a more uniform regulation of national organizations and a closer alignment with ecclesiastical hierarchy, while each nation retained the particular features dictated by local circumstances.

The period in which Catholics were attacked in the name of totalitarian political ideologies (fascism and Nazism in Italy and Germany, communism in Mexico and Spain) made it necessary for Catholics to retreat temporarily from certain advanced positions in the social and political arena in order to defend the substance of the Christian ideal against an overbearing state, awaiting better times. With the outbreak of the Second World War, European Catholic organizations felt the full force of the conflict’s disasters. Caught between the need to survive and the need to carry on feverish activity of material and moral assistance to stricken populations, they richly deserved well of Church and country. With the war’s end, the organizational revival—along with each nation’s effort to adapt to the new demands of the apostolate—has been immense. While in Europe social problems dominate, exacerbated by postwar poverty, in the Americas (North and Central-South) the religious and moral apostolate engages the various organizations intensively, so that at this decisive turning point in the world’s social and political life the Catholic laity is not on the margins but at the center of a humanity in motion, truly appearing as the hierarchy’s collaborator in preparing the coming of Christ’s kingdom.

IV. LEGAL CONDITIONS

These may be considered from two standpoints: the Church’s internal law and public external law.

The Code of Canon Law contains no canon regarding Catholic Action, because even where it treats De fidelium associationibus (can. 684–725; V. ASSOCIAZIONE), it legislates only for associations that, by their constitution, have a strictly ecclesiastical character, whereas Catholic Action has a lay character. The juridical position of Catholic Action must therefore be derived from the living source of the Church’s magisterium, namely the acts of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. From these acts, and above all from those of the Holy See, Catholic Action takes its organizational profile and regulates its relations with other associations existing in the Church. In Italy it is described, in the statutes approved by the Holy See, as “the principal ordering of militant Catholics.”

As for the position of Catholic Action (A. C.) with regard to the national community and the State, the subject—highly delicate—was regulated under Pius XI through numerous concordats. Since it is of the nature of Catholic Action to be rooted in the social body through an organized apostolate whose highest directives emanate from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the likelihood of misunderstanding by the modern State, with its secularist tendencies, is evident. Since the general appeal to the freedom of militant Catholics within the framework of common law has often proved insufficient—owing to the frequent limitations and violations of such freedom by the State itself—the Holy See sought, between the two world wars, to obtain explicit recognition of Catholic organizations in the concordats concluded. Thus, in the Concordat with Latvia (1922), Catholic Action was mentioned for the first time; then in those with Lithuania (1927), Italy (1929), Germany (1933), and Austria (1934). However, of all this solemn stipulation, little now remains, owing to the collapse of almost all the contracting States. The Concordat with Italy, nevertheless, has been confirmed by the new republican Constitution in Article 7. It is not possible to foresee whether the path thus begun will be resumed and followed; yet it is certain that, in a regime of freedom and democracy, the best defense of Catholic Action is Catholic Action itself—efficient and therefore capable of influencing and determining public opinion and the legislator.

V. CONSTITUTIVE CHARACTERISTICS

Although Catholic in its motives and general aims, the organization of militant Catholics directly dependent on the hierarchy takes concrete form in ways that reflect the tendencies and traditions of individual nations. Nevertheless, certain common features and specific differences can easily be discerned.

Common characteristics. — Catholic Action is an organization of lay people with “their own and responsible executive functions” (Pius XII to Catholic Action of Italy, 1946). This means that, unlike the nature of religious associations, it is the laity who, in Catholic Action, have the honor and duty of translating the directives of the hierarchy into concrete works of apostolate. The priest in such organizations has the function of representing ecclesiastical authority, of promoting the spiritual formation of members through initiatives designed for that purpose, and finally of safeguarding the integrity of the organization’s direction with regard to faith and morals. All else—whether in the realm of study, organization, or action—falls to the laity.

Catholic Action stands outside and above political parties (Benedict XV, 8 January 1919; Pius XI to the ordinaries of Italy, 2 October 1922; to the Patriarch of Lisbon, 10 November 1933; Pius XII to the president of the Italian Catholic Action Youth, 12 March 1943. Cf. Concordats with Austria, Germany, Italy, etc.), even while providing social and political education for its members and engaging in political action when “politics touches the altar” (Pius XI, 20 September 1923). In such cases, the politics of Catholic Action is that of the Church itself—religious action in the political sphere. It may happen that, at a given historical moment, there is practical agreement between the stance of Catholic Action and that of a political party on certain social issues, but this does not diminish the value of the principle.

Specific differences. — Centralized organization is characteristic of Catholic Action in Latin countries, with the exception of France and Belgium; decentralized organization is typical of Catholic Action in the Anglo-Saxon world.

The unitary and interclass character—whereby, for example, all young people are organized in one national association and all women in another—is found in Italy, Spain, and the Ibero-American nations; the class-based character, with its specialized organizational forms and hence a federal structure, is found in the Anglo-Saxon world.

The same distinction applies to the parochial nature of associations, understood as the principle that the first and fundamental nucleus of the organizational structure is the parish—this being the case where the parish is still a living reality of associated religious life, as in Italy and some Latin nations; whereas it is not the case where the parish either no longer exists or has never been a concrete, living community felt by the faithful.

Even more varied are the formulas structuring the individual branches of Catholic Action in different nations; yet here, more than anywhere, we see that adaptability which is proper to every healthy and vital organism. It should be added that within the same nation, changing circumstances may call for new organizational formulas, while the fundamental characteristics of the general structure of Catholic Action remain intact. This has indeed occurred in Italy after the First World War, during the Fascist regime, and in the post-war period (cf. the Storia dell’A. C. I. in the manual by L. Civardi, II).

History: T. Veggi, Il movimento sociale cristiano nella seconda metà del s. XIX, Vicenza 1902; F. Olgiati, La storia dell’A. C. (1865–1904), 2nd ed., Milan 1922; E. Soderini, Leone XIII, 3 vols., 1923–23; A. De Gasperi, I tempi e gli uomini che prepararono la «Rerum Novarum», 1945.

Law: cf. the most widely used commentaries on the CIC under the title De laici; A. Perugini, Concordata vigentia, Rome 1934; D. Menicucci, Natura giuridica dell’A. C., 1936; J. N. Gänechea, Principia iuris politici, 1939; V. Falzone, F. Palermo and F. Costantino, La Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana, 1948.