subsistence, etc. Here, we are speaking only of celibacy freely chosen for the love of virtue. It could be allowed when these three are cumulatively present:
1. That it could be foreseen that they will live chastely, not only with others, but also with themselves. How many of them become the parish priest's cross with their scandalous lives! The cross of confessors for the habit of habitually falling into solitary sins!
2. That their choice is in fact spontaneous, rather, that it is manifested with a certain insistence.
3. That, in general, particularly when it comes to women, they have the means of livelihood or that they can have easily a means of livelihood. How many times, when turned9 old, or fallen ill, turned the laughingstock of nephews and nieces or also of brothers and sisters, they are forced to live a miserable life or to take refuge in the hospital!10 In so many cases, only the hope of inheritance could impose some respect.
HEADING X
THE FORMATION OF WOMEN'S ZEAL
Prof. Pasquinelli1 writes in Settimana sociale (Social weekly): Last year a postal money order worth L. 100 reached the office of the Unione Popolare with these words that say entirely a real Christian perception, responding to the needs of the times, of the good
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willed today: the brothers of Terni, for a grace received, offering to the Unione Popolare. A poor woman wrote to the same office: Coming back from Lourdes, I send to you what is left with me, L. 2.00. But it is not always so: on the other hand, one would say that the woman who looks as good, devote, faithful interpreter of the Gospel doctrine, is much farther from zeal, very far from the Christian women's movement: others would even feel almost horrified by it. How little then is to offer works or money! The evil has two causes: two remedies could heal it.
The first cause is the lack of instruction regarding all the Christian doctrine, on all the pontifical documents, on all the examples of the first Christians and of saints who have honored the Church of God. They know the usefulness of a communion, of a holy rosary campaign, of the construction of a sanctuary: but they do not know the encyclicals: Rerum novarum, Graves de communi, Il fermo proposito.2 They ignore the great concerns of the pope for the institution and the spread of the Unione delle donne cattoliche (Union of Catholic Women). Convinced of having done everything, if they have spent something for a more or less sacred celebration, they do not consider if the people's life were truly religious, people who often mix swearing with the Lord's hymns. They do not care to see around them people who are alien to the Church; and, believing themselves to be a class of people favored by God,
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some devote women spend long hours deploring the times, the novelties, men, with any thought of improving them... And granted that this should come to their mind, they would immediately fall back: There's nothing we can do! Therefore, there is not only deficiency in instruction, but also in education to zeal. What is needed then is instruction united with education.
Instruction on the responsibility of women, on the nobility and on the ease of her mission. It is good, through advice, examples, instructions and conferences, to let these three truths, with patience and constancy, be deeply imbibed by daughters, women, spouses, mothers.
Responsibility: it is the clear consequence of the mission and the power of women in the formation of customs: it is, however, little understood, much lesser felt. And yet, women, though not ordinarily made for great problems and grand scholarships, would be very well capable of having an intuition of it, and to experience noble sentiments for it. God has equipped them with such attitudes.
This task the priest shall find quite easy since he shall speak to women regarding zeal in the field of the home. A mother ordinarily lives for her children and merely mentioning them, stirs the most delicate fibers of her heart. The wife, who has endowed her affections to her companion, given her by Providence, feels as hers all her husband's interests. There is no
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wayward daughter who remains insensitive to the well-being or ills of her parents or of her brothers and sisters.
More difficult would this task be when it concerns the women's zeal outside the home, though it may not be organized: more arduous yet if it were organized: most arduous yet if it were a social and economic organization. The devote woman is especially shy: organization demands a studious mind that ascends to the consideration of the power of union: the social and economic organization, by curing the ill on its roots, is most effective, but it is not understood by ordinary, shallow, or superficial souls. Nonetheless, no one has to despair: women in these activities are not called to assume directive positions: they have to be guided by the clergy. Well, ordinarily, women are so docile that one can hope of seeing them do what is suggested to them: experience, also in this case, is a good teacher. And more: there is a method of teaching that captures attention and wins over even less open minds: a method that over and above other method counts more for women: through induction, by facts, by examples. One has to speak of the deeds of so many saints: narrate the stories or the biographies of good mothers, wives, women, who almost forgetting that they belong to the weaker gender, have performed marvelous deeds for the good of the Church and of society. Let the women's movement,
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which today is expanding, ever so fruitful with good deeds, be especially known. Promote the subscription to periodicals that illustrate it, like those mentioned earlier: Matelda,3 Azione muliebre (Women's Action), La donna ed il lavoro (Woman and work), Vita femminile (Women's life), ecc. As a general rule, let there be no long speeches, conferences that fly over heads: instead, easy treatments, familiar conversations, detailed diffusion, done everywhere, especially during visits.
These examples may be said to be dead. But there are others that are alive, even more effective. They are those that every one may witness: they are the sights of misery; they are the social researches. The conferences of St. Vincent de Paul with their home visits furnish the true knowledge of the poor. To enter certain lofts, to see with one's own eyes the poverty, at times extreme, to listen to the pitiful story of families, of sickness, of domestic dramas and tragedies, etc., are things that are never ever cancelled:4 they give the better idea of the reality of life: they make one think of the good that remains to be done. And meanwhile, the need makes one say words of comfort and religion: meanwhile, one feels the need to give: meanwhile one gets out of one's own selfishness: meanwhile this thought remains deep in one's soul: I must not, nor can I, neglect others. Let women be initiated to these visits alone or in company with others: let her be initiated to approach the sick.
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The so-called social researches are no less useful. We have them on holiday rest, on the frequency of attendance of children in catechism, on hygiene and the morality in residences and in industries, on the conditions of work at home, on the employees of hotels, on rice plantation women workers, etc. etc. Let certain veils be raised, let certain mysteries be dug into and such miseries would appear in a way that women will not remain indifferent. Then one would see them come forward then to ask what could be done: rather, one would hear them propose initiatives themselves. Nothing perhaps is better recommended than these home visits and of these researches in view of formation of the social sense. On this matter, confront the booklet: Il senso sociale e la sua educazione (The social sense and education to it) - Leroy - (Published by the Azione sociale popolare - Via Legnano 23 - Torino - L. 0.50).
The famous Belgian Fr. Rutten5 in order to better understand, feel and remedy the ills of workers, set aside his Dominican habit for sometime: he went down into the coal mines, and worked with the miners' picks for some time. There he came to take part in the miners' conversations, listened from their own lips what their aspirations were, studied in detail their moral, religious, domestic lives. Having gone out of it, he started his great work of organization and social restoration: his words reflected the workers' sentiments: his works perfectly met their needs.
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The illustrious Le Play6 and, after him, his disciples were trained in the social science of conversations, done with the workers of the two worlds. He warns us of the serious danger that there is for those who aspire to do some good: to follow preconceived ideas, a priori methods. Rather, he emphatically points out how many more remain inactive because they do not know that there are things to do: they do not hear the sighs of persons who languish under the bad dream of their ills; they move in the world while judging this from what they see on the road and in squares. These are dangers that do not exist for those who know how to listen to the lessons of life, how it presents them, in their marvelous and always instructive simplicity. Here is one example:
Fr. Du Lac7 narrated that one day he was surprised to see a young woman worker of the Sindacato dell'ago (Needle workers' union), with her eyes very red. My daughter, have you been crying? Oh no, Father: I have not. What of these red eyes? It's because of the boiling water. What? Do you wash up with boiling water? No, but when work hours are extended, and I no longer could see well to guide the needle, I burn my eyes and this keeps me awake. It is a fact: it opens the way to knowing the painful sacrifices to which certain young women are condemned. Let surveys be made, home visitations too, let affectionate and discrete questions be asked: these are a very good means of learning and training for zeal!
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More than aiming on the minds of women, it is better to aim at their hearts. Not all enters in man through the intelligence: much passes through the will, much through feelings. In women, perhaps two thirds of convictions follow the road of the heart. The miseries of abandoned childhood, of threatened youth, of a vicious generations, of a despised old age, these move them. The sweetness of doing good, the examples of saints, the greatness of the reward, these lift them up. Women are made for being mothers: and it's impossible to think of mothers without thinking of big hearts. And it shall be that the priest, appealing to hearts, shall succeed in making women experience their responsibilities at home, in society, before the Church, before God.
The mission's nobility. It is said that when Buonarroti had finished the statue of Moses8 he felt so crushed by his work, and in admiration he is said to have addressed it these words: Speak! Why can't you...? Silence followed his question. He worked but on matter.
Instead, women are artists on souls...! How unfair is the world! It raises monuments to authors of canvasses and of cold marble artworks: and why should none be made for them who form living, sensitive souls?! The women educators, or the women of zeal in general, are the true hidden benefactors of humanity. Meanwhile, there is this beautiful affirmation
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of a member of the English parliament when the postulates of the suffragists were being discussed: Women, remaining in their places, have stronger influence on laws, than men in the parliament: every law becomes possible, responding to the soul of the people, hence necessary, when women have prepared its hive, by forming customs.
We admire the strength and the ingenuity of men: but man is born of woman: as a baby he is carried in the arms of a woman and fed by her milk; as a young child, she shapes his soul; as an adult, he adjusts to the likes of the woman with whom he finds joy and repose; as an old man, his angel is always a woman who sustains him, comfort him, points heaven to him, finally closes his eyes.
Then, in Christian thought, the mission of women is yet much more sublime. To cooperate in the salvation of men is something divine: to provide not for this earth but for heaven, not for the world but for eternity. To cooperate with the priesthood, in his vocation, whose comparison cannot be found on earth: to teach the truth, to teach the holiest of morals. Something divine is it, so to say, to be associated with the work of Jesus Christ himself: Veni ut vitam habeant.9 The work of God is perhaps not sublime enough...?
Women shall draw great courage from these
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fragmentary considerations, adjusted to their intelligence. Very often women become embittered in the persuasion of having too much inferiority face to face with men. Let them feel elevated, let their self-esteem be lifted up: it is God, not for any of their merits that they are made so. And God made them so for the purposes of His loving Providence: let them not become proud, nor should they feel embittered.
The mission's being easy. Very often, also women who understand10 their mission and their nobility allow themselves to be beaten by getting scared: how can one ever succeed to hear this broken society? Raised this way, the objection would not be wanting of bases. But let it be known: every woman is not called to do everything, but only a small part. In the world, the Lord assigned to each one her place, her part of the work, her sphere of influence: and adjusted energies and attitudes to them. It is only according to what one has received shall give the proof. Well, each woman has but to do her share: at home, among neighbors, among acquaintances, in organizations she participates in, without jeopardizing her duties.
But are there needs general in nature, perhaps on the provincial, national or world level? Most true, and women must bring in their contribution to the entire work: but it remains to be a limited contribution. If the work is broad, many shall be the workers: if
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the organization is general in nature, many shall be the members. To each would be allotted but a small part, according to11 her strength and her circumstances. Rather, it is precisely in such associations that she is enlightened, comforted, sustained in work.
Nothing is more useful in clarifying the ease of women's mission than a practical exposition of the different activities that they could assist. Here are the means: present easy and short books; introduce statutes and programs; make an orderly commentary on them. There must be no hurry, though; let one not expect to persuade everyone in the same degree; nor should one entertain the illusion that all of them would be on our side.
An idea presented is a seed planted: before one could see the fruits ready for harvest, months have to pass first. Contradictions and disapproval were promised by Jesus Christ to his apostles. The humility needed for the priestly ministry is often fruit of very little success: trials are the signs of a special love of the Lord for a soul.
Education. - To educate is worth as to cultivate the habit, so it has been said. The entire science of pedagogy and of physical and moral education consists in forming good habits. The child trains his eyes to readily distinguish letters, syllables, words: the philosopher trains the mind to formulate reasoning: the soldier
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trains his hand to speedily operate the gun; the musician trains his fingers to play the keys... Indeed, the child will learn little if he listened to a dry description of the letters of the alphabet: the philosopher, without exercising his mind, would not know the structure of a syllogism. And who would call one a good general if he spends years and years closed in a military academy and studying the mechanics of a gun, the topography of a country, tactics? How would one be taken as a professional if he has done nothing but study his duties? Exercise, apprenticeship, trials, retrials are a must. And when, with infinite repetitions, errors and corrections, one has reached ordinarily doing things well in an art, then, one is educated.
Neither has this principle less importance when applied to moral and social life. Virtue is a habit: and to form virtue is the purpose of education. Zeal is a habit: social sense is a habit; to develop and guide them means to educate in zeal, to educate the social sense.
We admire learned conferences; we advice books, newspapers, magazines; we still believe private propaganda, based on conversations, as useful. If we do not lead others to start doing something, we shall always obtain little fruit: just like how could one pretend to produce a good musician by merely describing to him musical instruments... Let a woman take up an ignorant girl, give her catechetical
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instructions, lead her to communion; let a woman pray for the salvation of other persons, let her do the heroic act of charity, let her offer herself as victim for the salvation of sinners: let a woman remain in communication with the association for the protection of young women, for informing on the emigrant women; on Sundays, let her assist the girls of the patronage of workers, let her take part in the union of Catholic women...; with these activities, she shall be more effectively, more quickly, more practically educated in zeal. Without them, one perhaps may have a broad and profound instruction, but never true education.
In some English parishes, next to the sacristy, there is often a small booth for selling religious-social publications, the so-called little penny bookstores. The parish priest at times admonish people to buy something to give as gift: alms of truth!
A young woman was poor, but she so much desired to do some good. For about a year, she placed inside a small bag those petty sums that she happened to receive. With her small savings, she bought different kinds of good books and made them circulate among about fifty girls. A saintly work! It was advised to her by her confessor who wanted to put her on the path of zeal. A priest, speaking of his vast parish, used to say: Finally I have managed to let into the hearts of a number of ladies that today so many paths for doing charitable works have been opened, that
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today we need modern devises. A countess left me as inheritance a big place to turn into an oratory; an elderly lady, her friend, established a fund for the yearly catechetical prizes; I know of another woman who already thought of a parish bulletin! It takes, however, a long work of persuading! It took as well so much effort to let such a conviction mature ever more! I began by inviting them to teach catechism, then to take part in the parish activities, then I organized12 a patronage for children, etc., etc.
One does not immediately walk with sure and accelerated steps. In getting down to work, there are two practical rules that assure good effect of the activities and the formation of women cooperators.
Take aptitudes in consideration, by providing occasions for setting them to work, according to particular tendencies. Generally, teachers are better catechists:13 and, with the parish priest making them interested in these, they would take it to themselves to also teach in school. There are women who, for their social position, can have a special influence: thus for example, the wives, the mothers, the daughters of the town or provincial councilors: likewise some nobilities whose example and word can, also during our times of democracy, be of strong stimulus. Some, for example, may just be able to distribute the parish bulletin
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to families, others can, through modern devises, lend a strong help to the good press; all can pray. A woman shall consider it a great honor to speak in a conference. Another woman, humble and pious, shall be better equipped to spread devotions and religious groups...
In the second place: let the work be gradual.14 It is not just possible that one who did not have any task in behalf of others can, at once, assume position in a cultural circle or in a school of home economics. It would be exposing her to failure, and to the exercise of a tyrannical manner of governing which would end up in alienating others from the priest. The first step should be to recite the ordinary prayers with the spirit with which they were composed, that is, for the common interests: give us today our daily bread... forgive us our debts...15 pray for us sinners... Then, the idea that on earth there is not our I alone! Then shall follow the special prayers for sinners, for priests, for the pope: and, little by little, with each one's spirit allowing it, the organization of victim souls and of the apostolate of prayer would be reached.
To assign some work of zeal at home, where intimacy and familiarity, make the way easy, will not be difficult. Rather, the priest shall often have people asking for directions, who would confide a holy pain due to the uselessness of his efforts, who would confide to him little victories.
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Having to do with an external organization, the first step is made up by purely religious organizations: Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Living Rosary, etc.; the second, by those organizations that, having purely religious purposes, include also material goals: Ladies of Charity, Conferences of St. Vincent the Paul, child-care centers, etc.; the third, by those that have social goals: homes, assistance to travelers, cultural circles; the fourth step, made up of those that aim at prevalently material objectives: trust funds, school mutual funds, workers' funds...
It helps to notice, however, that among the different levels, the works of pure beneficence ought always to be on the first positions; Christian women, as we come to know them today, more easily understand them.
It has not been long since a woman, among the most advanced in the religious-social sphere, pointed out these three steps for the training of speakers. Assign them: to read a passage of a book good for the meetings; to write something that they, at first, will only read, then they shall prepare things by themselves; to speak onstage and then to deliver little speeches on occasions. It is well understood: while it is aimed to train them to deliver speeches, intellectual and moral training ought not to be wanting: rather, this should precede the other.
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It is among the young ladies that the priest has greater bases to hope for success in this work. In the girls' oratory he finds the easier way of leading women to zeal: there, he could train the most capable cooperators. Among the older ones and the most assiduous in the oratory, he could easily establish: a school of perseverance or a finishing school: the Association of the Daughters of Mary; the school of the good housewife, to entrust to sisters or teachers: a sewing or embroidery school, etc. If a discrete number of students is reached, a class of religion would be providential: and if there were many workers, an employment office or a workers' patronage would be useful; if emigration has become a part of the people's mindset, attempts should be made to stop it with social workshops, or else evade the sad consequences through suitable instructions.
Meanwhile among young ladies, more than among young men, a roving small library would be more successful: enrolment in the national social security system could be provided for; other similar activities could be thought of, like the funds for women workers, funds for dowries, etc.
While these keep united together the young ladies, they often offer occasions for the priest to approach them and to give them, through conferences and advice, religious instruction proportionate to their needs. Union will make them stronger in preventing
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what is evil: they will go out of the narrow circle of selfishness; they shall think of the mission to which they are destined.
Youth is also the sweetest and strongest bond through which he could keep close to himself the entire population. It has been seen before and it is not useless to remember it again.
Shall it remain a dream?
I quote from Settimana sociale (Social weekly) (1912 no. 11) as follows: For a time now, I dream, I long for an institution that my imagination draws as something beautiful and achievable, and which I have not revealed to the public yet considering that I am glad to refer to it just in case someone would tell me: Let's try it. The project that I dream of would be a school, a social economics for women.
1. In said school would be admitted those girls who are older than 16 years, and young widows, who would demonstrate themselves inclined for pious and charitable Christian works.
2. They would be contemporaneously taught:
a) The more necessary and useful manual work for women.
b) Home economics (school of the good homemaker)
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c) The art of taking care and assisting the sick (nursing school).
d) The method of teaching well the Christian doctrine.
e) The social propaganda in favor of women, for example, conducting small conferences or readings of good materials, etc., to girls and to women of the masses.
3. At the end of the course - the duration of which would be decided more or less long according to what is wanted - these young girls, gone back home, could do great good in the village, in the small town, in rural municipalities, especially there where there are no sisters or when these are driven away because of the ill-will16 of the times.
4. They could:
a) Teach catechism.
b) Gather the more grown up girls, in turn teach them work for women,17 home economics, read to them good literature.
c) To assist the sick, prepare them, when needed, for the last sacraments.
d) To become in their village of origin industrious propagandists and the connecting link between a given village and the central committees of associations of Catholic women or other similar organizations.
e) To lead local pious associations or institutions like the Daughters of Mary.
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9 Stands for diventate = have become.
10 All'ospizio = At the hospice.
1 Archimede Pasquinelli (Jesi 1874 - Rome 1918), first president of the youth section of the diocesan committee of the Opera dei Congressi, was a personal friend of Giuseppe Toniolo (Treviso 1845 - Pisa 1918; prominent economist and sociologist) and of Romolo Murri (Montone Sanpietrangeli 1870 - Rome 1944; priest and theoretician of the Democrazia Cristiana). Dismissed from teaching in state schools for being too “Popish,” he decided to dedicate himself full time to politics and to social journalism. From 1903, he collaborated with Il domani d'Italia (Italy's tomorrow), a political broadsheet founded in Rome by Murri two years earlier, but transferred to Bergamo after the condemnation of the founder for Modernism. He eventually collaborated with L'ora presente, in his city of origin. In a necrology that appeared in the same paper, Pasquinelli was described as “an active organizer, agitator, poor and happy organizer of strikes, a militant of popular struggles”.
2 Rerum novarum (1891) by Leo XIII on social problems; Graves de communi (1901) related with Rerum novarum and of Leo XIII himelf; Il fermo proposito (1905), by Pius X, for the reorganization of the Italian Catholic laity following the dissolution of the Opera dei Congressi by the Pope (1904).
3 Regarding this twice monthly periodical for young women, born in Florence and which for some time, would be composed by the Daughters of St. Paul, cf. La Civiltà Cattolica (notebook 1458, 18 March 1911): “We have under our eyes the first issues of this periodical, born with the new year in Florence, in order to serve the fold of young women. First of all the name of the most kind Dante heroine, with the symbolic motto “fior da fiore” (flower of flowers) recommends it. Its content recommends it even more... Without bunglings and heaviness, with well set up materials, and enlightened treatment drawn from artistic vignettes, with the delightful variety of topics, and even with the attraction of curious events and of games with prizes, although in the modesty of a novice, it reveals itself a periodical that is well conceived and better executed... We welcome it and recommend it to families in Italy and to mothers above all so they may give it as gift to their daughters.” In a following review in 1914, always La Civiltà Cattolica, information is given that its director is Marianna Bettazzi Bondi and that its main office and administration have transferred to Turin. - On this matter, a historical clarification is due: “The Daughters [of St. Paul] take care of the composition of the Matelda, of the correction of proofs and of writing,” thus the Unione Cooperatori Buona Stampa, n. 10, 1923 affirmed. Although the work lasted only briefly (about a year), it bears witness to an involvement in the women's world according to a declaration of Fr. Alberione expressed at that time to the Congregation of Religious: “The Daughters... render service to the world of women what the Pious Society of St. Paul renders to the world of men” (cf. documento 18, p. 376, in MARTINI C. A., Le Figlie di San Paolo. Note per una storia (1915-1984), Roma 1994).
4 DA Italian has scancellano instead of cancellano = cancel.
5 Ceslas Marie Rutten was born in Terremonde (Belgium) in 1875. He joined, at a very young age, the Dominicans, pursued his higher studies in Louvain. Having obtained his Licentiate in Theology, he graduated in Political and social sciences with a thesis entitled: Nos grèves houillères et l'action socialiste [The strikes of our coal miners and the socialist action] (1900) which won him a merit citation at the Parliament by the socialist Vanderveld. To document himself, Rutten did not hesitate to go down the mines and accurately describe the conditions therein in a detailed report. (1901).
6 DA has Le Plaj. Frédéric Le Play, engineer and professor, precursor of the Catholic Social Movement, was born in La-Rivière-St-Sauver on 11 April 1806 and died in Paris on 5 April 1882. From the revolution of 1830 he understood the gravity of social issues and dedicated himself to studying the life of the workers and above all the family. He conducted a survey of sample of 300 families from 1829 to 1853 (Les ouvriers européens, 1855). Le Play blamed the French revolution at least of three errors: a) faith on the original perfection of man; b) the conviction of the infallibility of the individual; c) absolute equality. Also three were the remedies proposed by him: a) respect for God and for religion; b) obedience as respect to the paternal role; c) moral chastity as respect for women. In spite of his social vision, Le Play remained little in favor of associations, coherent to his expectations for a reform of authority. His risk was paternalism.
7 Probably Stanislas Du Lac de Fugère, Jesuit, born in Paris on 21 November 1835, son of Louis-Albert, councilor to the Court of Counts. He finished his studies with the Jesuits Brugelette, in Belgium, and joined the Jesuits in 1853. He died in Paris in 1909, leaving behind different books, letters and translations from English.
8 Mosè, the famous statue that Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) sculpted in 1515 for the necrological monument of Pope Julius II, and which can be admired in the San Pietro in Vincoli Church in Rome.
9 Cf. Jn 10:10: “I came so that they might have life”.
10 DA says: anche quante donne comprendono... = also how much women understand.
11 Italian DA: giusta = right instead of secondo = according to.
12 The Italian DA has costituì instead of costituii.
13 The Italian DA has catechistiche instead of catechiste.
14 Alberione is particularly sensitive to this pedagogical principle of gradualness.
15 Cf. Mt 6:11 and Lk 11:3.
16 Original Italian tristizia = cattiveria, malvagità = ill-will, savagery.
17 Original Italian donneschi = femminili = womanly.