March 2026
Ban bombing: Leo - Histoire de la JOC du Québec - Era of change for families - Henri Caffarel - Joseph Wresinski - Re-imagining the movement
Friends
This month we begin with Pope Leo’s appeal for a ceasefire in the Middle East and his condemnation of aerial bombing.
We have a story on the work of former Slovak YCW leader Marta Košíková plus another story on Fr Joseph Wresinski, the former French JOC leader who founded ATD Quart Monde.
We share the news that French JOC chaplain Henri Caffarel, who later founded the Equipes de Notre Dame (Teams of Our Lady), has been declared venerable by Pope Leo, who has also called a special meeting to discuss families in October.
We have a story on the new film documentary on the history of the Quebec JOC as well as a Gospel reflection on the life of St Oscar Romero.
Finally, we are pleased to announce that our Lenten Compassion fundraising appeal for Baby Eliana has been successful. We will keep you posted on the progress of her treatment.
The Centre International Cardijn Team
Ban aerial bombing: Pope Leo
“Airplanes should always be carriers of peace, never of war!” Pope Leo has said. “No one should be afraid that threats of death and destruction might come from the sky.”
Pope Leo recalled the aerial bombardments of the World Wars and other conflicts, which still continue today.
“After the tragic experiences of the twentieth century, aerial bombings should have been banned forever!” he said. “Instead, they still exist, and technological development, positive in itself, is being placed at the service of war. This is not progress; it is regression!”
Pope Leo XIV: Planes should bring peace, not war and destruction (Vatican News)
Marta Košíková carries on legacy of Fr Anton Srholec
The Resota resocialization community was founded in 1991 by Salesian and Roman Catholic priest Anton Srholec (†86). A man who went through communist prisons and uranium mines to decide to serve the most vulnerable after the revolution. Ten years after his death, his legacy is still alive in a house on the outskirts of Bratislava.
He called his community a “strange order” with a smile . It was made up of men tested by life. He loved them. And they loved him. For many years he kept a chronicle about them. And when they died, he added an entry to it, which remained perhaps the only memory of the men whose existence no one else missed.
Today, the facility is run by Srholc’s niece, former Slovak YCW leader, Marta Bariak Košíková.
READ MORE
Bol som v pekle! Toto je nebo s anjelmi, hovorí zlomený muž o Srholcovom útulku Resoty (I was in hell! This is heaven with angels, says broken man about Srholc’s shelter Resota) (Plus7DNI)
L’histoire de la JOC au Québec
Ils s’appellent Ghislaine Patry, Yvon Lemay, Marie-Claire Nadeau... Ils avaient 15, 17, parfois 18 ans lorsqu’ils ont franchi les portes d’un sous-sol d’église pour rejoindre la Jeunesse ouvrière catholique (JOC). Ce qu’ils y ont trouvé n’était pas seulement un lieu de rassemblement, mais une école de vie, de conscience et d’action.
Le documentaire Voir – Juger – Agir : L’histoire de la JOC au Québec, réalisé par Annie Deniel et produit par André Vanasse de la coopérative Funambules Médias, redonne voix à cette génération de jeunes travailleurs et travailleuses qui ont contribué, dans l’ombre, à transformer le Québec.
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Voir, juger, agir : L’histoire de la JOC au Québec (L’Aut’journal)
Era of change affects families: Pope Leo
“Our era is marked by rapid changes which make it necessary, even more than ten years ago, to give particular pastoral attention to families,” Pope Leo observed, announcing a meeting of presidents the world’s bishops conferences to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia.
“There are, in fact, places and circumstances in which the Church “can become the salt of the earth” only through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families,” he added. “For this reason, the Church’s commitment in this area must be renewed and deepened, so that those whom the Lord calls to marriage and family life can, in Christ, fully live out their conjugal love, and that young people may feel attracted, within the Church, to the beauty of the vocation to marriage.”
Pope Leo’s own parents were active members of the Christian Family Movement in Chicago.
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Tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia (Vatican)
Families will shape the Church’s future
Pope Leo XIV’s framing for October 2026 is striking. He notes that in many places, “the Church can become the salt of the earth only through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families,” writes Richard Pütz That is not a throw-away line. It is an acknowledgment that institutional structures and clergy alone cannot reach where families live. The future of the Church’s mission depends on forming laypeople who know how to carry it out.
Amoris Laetitia called for new forms of “missionary creativity.” It urged the Church to move beyond simply repeating doctrine and to actively strengthen marital love “under the impulse of grace.” Cardijn’s See–Judge–Act offers a tested, grassroots method for doing that. CFM provides over eighty years of practical experience using this method with real couples in real circumstances.
If the summit is to be more than bishops talking about families, it needs families talking to bishops. That means the work starts locally, now.
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Kitchen Tables and Cathedrals: How Ordinary Families Could Shape the Church’s Future at the 2026 Bishops Summit (Cardijn Reflections)
Venerable Henri Caffarel, YCW chaplain and Teams of Our Lady founder
Pope Leo has approved a decree declaring venerable Henri Caffarel, a French YCW chaplain, who later founded the Teams of Our Lady movement.
During an audience with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, on 23 March 2026, Pope Leo authorised the promulgation of a decree recognising “the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Henri Caffarel, diocesan priest, founder of the ‘Equipes Notre Dame’ (Teams of Our Lady) and the ‘Fraternité Notre-Dame de la Résurrection’ (Our Lady of the Resurrection Fraternity).”
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Venerable Henri Caffarel, YCW chaplain and founder of the Teams of Our Lady (Cardijn Research)
Joseph Wresinski, ancien jociste et fondateur d’ATD Quart Monde
L’enfance de Joseph Wresinski, fondateur d’ATD Quart Monde, se déroule dans le quartier de la Doutre, à Angers, dans des conditions très précaires. Sa famille d’origine polonaise et espagnole vit dans une grande pauvreté.
Très tôt confronté aux difficultés matérielles et aux humiliations liées à la misère, Joseph Wresinski restera marqué toute sa vie par cette expérience.
Sa vocation sacerdotale se révèle progressivement au contact de l’Église. Enfant, il fréquente les sœurs du Bon Pasteur à Angers et commence à servir la messe dans leur chapelle. Plus tard, sa rencontre avec la Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne (JOC) confirme son désir de devenir prêtre.
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Joseph Wresinski, un prêtre angevin qui fit de la lutte contre la misère un combat spirituel (RCF)
Cardijn: Re-imagining the movement
Sometimes you hear people say: “The YCW is outdated, it’s had its day.” Others go further and say: “The YCW has gone bankrupt,” wrote Cardijn in 1950.
It’s only when you constantly rethink the movement, its purpose, its raison d’être, that you see it must continually surpass itself, must always renew itself in order to remain the YCW, the movement that responds to the needs, problems, and difficulties of young workers today.
We must rethink the very essence of the movement, its essential reason for being. And this is what I ask you to do: to simply, openly, and frankly rethink some essential, fundamental aspects of the movement.
READ MORE
The YCW, a movement that constantly needs to be re-imagined (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)
Gospel: Our responsibility to see clearly
In the Gospel of March 24, Jesus is speaking to people who are questioning him, pushing back on him, not sure they believe him, writes Fr Chris Malano. And he says to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man… then you will realize…” He is speaking to the very people in front of him: people who are listening, but not recognizing who he is. The truth is already there: that no authority can require what is against God’s law, and that conscience does not disappear when orders are given. But the people listening to him do not recognize it.
And that is not only about them. It is about us, too.
On March 23, 1980, in a homily at the Cathedral in San Salvador, the day before he was killed, Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke to soldiers in his country. He said:
“ No soldier is obliged to obey an order counter to the law of God. No one has to comply with an immoral law. It is time now that you recover your conscience and obey its dictates rather than the command of sin.”1
READ MORE
The responsibility to see clearly: Memorial of Saint Oscar Romero (Bridging our worlds)
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