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The International Union of Social Studies of Malines and the Catholic Cultural Turn


 The present article argues that the unexpected end of the Union de Malines’ Code de morale culturelle, an international collaboration of prominent twentieth-century Catholic moral theologians, should be attributed to three shifts in Catholic Social Teaching, only the first two of which the Union de Malines managed to undergo: from scholastic hegemony to theological diversity, from social doctrine to personalism, and from a juridical style of writing to a humanistic one. Particularly this last shift, introduced by the Second Vatican Council, proved to be a too big a leap for the Union, understood as a ‘little social tradition,’ to take. The cultural turn, which the Union de Malines had in fact anticipated, proved by the end of the council to belong to the future.

In 1961, the French Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu announced in his programmatic La fin de l'ère Constantinienne the renewal of Western Christianity and its transformation into a global church, including the collapse of the classical doctrinal tradition of social Catholicism.1 For a long time this tradition had given the impression to offer a monolithic body of principles, based on clear philosophical foundations and expressed in magisterial documents, on which Catholic civilization could be built as a 'third way' between capitalism and socialism. The new approach of the papal encyclicals Mater et magistra (1961) and Pacem in terris (1963) and even more so Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes (1965) seemed to affirm Chenu's observation. It was widely felt that the conciliar "pastoral shift"2 had rendered the 'Grand Tradition' of Catholic Social Doctrine obsolete and had installed a new approach to modernity on the part of the Catholic Church, an approach which legitimized the valid diversity of 'little social traditions.'3 Yet some traditions were more apt to thrive in this new context than others. Though successful in the interbellum, the International Union of Social Studies of Malines (Union Internationale d'Etudes Sociales de Malines hereafter, Union de Malines) now faced a challenge in realizing its past core aims of studying social problems and actualizing the social doctrine of the Church in resolutions and moral codes: surveys of Catholic Social Doctrine on a certain topic. Although the Union's plan to draft a Code de morale culturelle already constituted a shift away from its previous alignment with the grand tradition of Rerum novarum,4 the project encountered challenges that arose from ecclesial and societal developments. Though practically complete by 1964, the Code de morale culturelle was never published, and the project came to an end in 1969 when the Union de Malines ceased to exist after the death of its secretary, the economist Giovanni Hoyois. Reflecting on the Union's demise, the historians De Maeyer and Van Molle concluded concerning the failure of the integration of new social themes and a global perspective that "without doubt the Union had become literally too old to do so."5 Yet in what exactly did its anachronistic character consist? This question remains to be answered.
The present contribution argues that the answer to this question may be found in three shifts that the Union de Malines was bound to undertake if it was going to align itself anew with the Catholic Church's evolving grand tradition of social teaching. First of all, we will see that after years of inactivity the Union de Malines had to work for the rejuvenation of its members in order to ensure its continuation and renew its own tradition. This process required the Union to undertake a shift away from the scholastic tradition towards integrating theological diversity. Secondly, the drafting of the Code de morale culturelle required the Union de Malines to undertake a shift away from its philosophical basis in the theory of natural law towards a more personalist approach. Thirdly, and unexpectedly, the drafters of the code had to deal with a major development in Catholic Social Teaching: the convocation of the Second Vatican Council in 1959, the plan, at the end of 1962, to devote an entire schema to the Church in the modern world, and the eventual inclusion of a chapter on culture in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes. All these events impinged on the redaction of the Code de morale culturelle and pushed the tensions between the grand and the little tradition to their limits. The conciliar pastoral shift from a juridical to a humanistic style of engagement proved to be particularly challenging for the Union de Malines to adopt.
Though the history of the Union de Malines has already been surveyed by its last secretary Giovanni Hoyois6 and by De Maeyer and Van Molle, these studies gave only limited attention to the post-Second World War developments and the final days of the Union. Yet as a well-established organization in this period, the Union de Malines presents us with an opportunity for a unique case-study that sheds light on the transformation of Catholic Social Teaching in the 1960s, not from the point of view of the magisterial doctrinal tradition, but from one of the "many tongues" that had its own discourse in pre-conciliar times, one which also appealed in a forceful way to the Catholic Social Teaching that characterized ultramontane mass Catholicism.7 Despite the wide historiographical fields devoted to social movements such as the Catholic labor movement and Left Catholicism, or to theological currents such as ressourcement and the nouvelle théologie,8 the intellectual development of twentieth-century had become too old to attend the meetings,13 this invitation came at a decisive moment, a time to consider how to rejuvenate the organization. Such a possibility also raised questions about the organization's mission. From the start, the Union de Malines had understood itself as fulfilling the same mission as the Union de Fribourg, in a time when the social question had received new meaning, which therefore necessitated the development of a new social doctrine. The emphasis on a deeper understanding of the philosophical principles underlying these social questions was directly in line with the program set out by the original stakeholders of the Union de Malines, many of whom were located in the open neo-thomist milieu of the Leuven Higher Institute for Philosophy.14 Not without reason did the initiators, the Belgian minister Joris Helleputte and the president of the Semaines sociales de France15 Eugène Duthoit, ask Cardinal Désiré Mercier to take up the presidency of the Union de Malines. Subsequent secretaries, such as the professor of social theories Maurice Defourny and the professor of rural sociology Giovanni Hoyois, similarly guaranteed that the goals of the Union de Malines concerning the formulation of social theory kept up with the goals of neo-thomism as set out in Aeterni Patris, namely, to demonstrate, synthesize, and defend the faith. Established on this Thomist basis, the moral codes that the Union de Malines produced exhibited two of the three methodological characteristics attributed to neo-thomism by the French historian Etienne Fouilloux.16 To start with, the medieval scholastic inspiration of neo-thomism, which after the modernist crisis gave rise to a manualist tradition,17 was also reflected in the pedagogical approach of the moral codes, which often adopted a question-and-answer format. Scholasticism's speculative nature, the second characteristic identified by Fouilloux, does not seem to have threatened the Union de Malines, since its focus on social issues and not merely philosophical and theological topics kept 13 See the moral codes from adopting the metaphysical and rather abstract discourse of neo-thomism. The latter's deductive approach, which is the third characteristic, was by contrast very evident in the organization's moral codes, based as they were on Catholic Social Doctrine as previously defined in magisterial teaching. The reliance of the Union de Malines on the deductive method was, moreover, repeatedly highlighted in the introductions to the moral codes, as exemplified in the introduction to its code on politics: Without engaging in theological work, the Union seeks to chart these paths in the light of the Church's teachings. It would like to make an effort towards integrating Catholic doctrine into a system of thought that can constitute a social philosophy.
[…] Like the other Codes, this one is essentially based on moral speculation.
[…] It consists in proposing [to political action], according to the norms of natural law, a set of reflections likely to mark a point of departure, both for the conception of a constitutional order and for the day-to-day government of the State.18 The mainly Belgian and French composition of the Union de Malines expanded over the years to an international cast of approximately 60 members, who met on a yearly basis to discuss and approve resolutions and moral codes. progressive Christian milieu in evidence among disciples of the Leuven sociologist and founder of la cite chrétienne Jacques Leclercq, particularly André Molitor,23 and participants in the interdisciplinary study group Groupe de synthèse, such as Jean Vieujean, Charles Moeller, and Albert Dondeyne.24 Hoyois's reliance on this last group in particular enriched the Union de Malines with ideas about culture stemming from conversations between scientists, philosophers, and theologians. Hoyois also appealed to a number of international external experts. Over the years he started to rely more and more on the Jesuits: Edward Coffey, professor at the Gregorian University; François Russo, the ecclesial counselor for the Catholic presence at Unesco; Joseph Géraud, a medical doctor and priest; and Victor Heylen, a professor of moral theology at Louvain and national chaplain of the Christian Health Service. It should be noted that the last three were later proposed as new members of the Union de Malines, while Coffey already was.25 By the end of the redaction process, they had almost completely taken over the role that was originally filled by Action populaire. The introduction of these different groups into the work of the Union de Malines not only provided the organization with younger members, but also renewed it intellectually and methodologically. The previous focus on socioeconomic matters was subject to a cultural turn. Methodologically the neoscholastic dominance gave way to a phenomenological approach, much more common in the intellectual circles now joined to the Union de Malines. In sum, this organization devoted to the study of society and reliant on neo-scholastic tradition was now diversified by different cultural and theological currents.

The Code de morale culturelle: From Social Doctrine to Personalism
The project to produce a Code de morale culturelle was thoroughly rooted in the past work of the Union de Malines, which regularly issued relevant presentations of Catholic In the initial stages of the redaction work, the lines were mostly set out by Giovanni Hoyois together with Pierre Bigo and Alfred de Soras of Action populaire. They found a significant source of inspiration in the 1958 campaign of Pax Christi on the topic of encountering cultures and people.33 In particular, the leaflets on culture's relation to civilization, the West, religion, and technique were seen as an "excellent starting point" for their doctrinal work.34 In fact the leaflets were seen as highly suited for a "codification."35 As a consequence, the author of the 1958 campaign, Bretaudeau, was invited to the first consultation on the topic in Louvain. In addition to him, Hoyois invited de Soras, Moeller, Dondeyne, and Leclercq. De Soras clearly advocated a limited notion of culture as those disciplines aimed at the development of natural values. This classical understanding was firmly linked to a preference for high culture. De Soras nonetheless admitted that broadening the notion to include the supernatural significance of culture for the human person in all its aspects was an option,36 but in that case examining culture would become the task of a sociologist.37 The latter three, professors at the Catholic University of Louvain, were in a position to help make the shift from social doctrine to personalism. They were all advocates of twentieth-century Christian humanism who aimed to renew faith and theology. In order to succeed, they looked at the opportunities offered by literature, existentialism, and sociology, respectively. In their work they had introduced a broad, anthropocentric understanding of culture as everything by which people realize and express themselves, including all that is done in light of their supernatural end. De Soras, for instance, explicitly pointed out that his position, in comparison to that of Dondeyne, was "desalinated."38 The integration of this personalist viewpoint was later strengthened when a fourth Louvain theologian, Jean Vieujean, also joined the project. He explicitly pled in favor of incorporating the notions of suffering and the cross in order to highlight the supernatural end of culture within a Christian humanistic worldview.39 The same tension became clear in the discussions surrounding the code's chapter on education. The first draft of this chapter was written by the Louvain professor of moral theology Jean Laloup, and was then submitted to Jean Vieu- jean and J. Van Camp. Particularly the latter emphasized the supernatural value of education and its preliminary role in establishing the human vocation.40 Moreover he situated the redaction of this chapter within discussions about an incarnational as compared to an eschatological approach, thus introducing a second tension that was central in the development of Christian humanism. Emphasizing that culture was not at all an absolute value, he warned against a two-realm theory in understanding the relation of the natural and the supernatural.41 Jean Vieujean's reflections on this draft went along the same lines; he mostly argued for the use of more general principles, instead of case-studies, which he felt were too concrete. In sum, he pled in favor of a text more suited to a moral code. As he expressed it, "There are certainly elements to be retained. But they should be written in a more 'conciliar,' more timeless, and sometimes less local (Belgian) style."42 To comply with everyone's wishes, it was eventually decided to add a preliminary chapter to the moral code, defining its basic concepts. In particular, the clarification of terms such as 'cultural action,' 'religious culture,' and 'supernatural action' were intended to alleviate ambiguity concerning the use of the term 'culture' throughout the code and thus make it presentable to the members of the Union de Malines. As Hoyois remarked to de Soras, the Code de moral culturelle had to adopt a new understanding of culture: I am not surprised by your comments on the definition of culture. We are currently tending to move beyond the framework drawn by traditional conceptions of French thought, and the broad sense accepted by the project will undoubtly surprise many people. But it seems that this notion alone takes sufficient account of the recent contribution of the human sciences, in particular psychology and sociology, which tend to explain the human being taking into account the whole context, human and other, in which he is integrated, and in which he is deeply rooted, In 1961, the time was considered right to convene a new session of the Union de Malines in order to discuss the state of the moral code. However, of the around 60 members, only seven were ultimately able to attend the session. This limited commitment was, as Hoyois observed, the difficulty that had been faced in drafting the moral code. The second difficulty, and the greatest challenge in the redaction according to Hoyois, was the underlying debate about the notion of culture as it was used in the moral code. The result of this debate was not to choose for one or the other, be it the limited, classical idea of culture or the broader understanding, but rather to integrate them in one synthesis.44 Three years later, at the 1964 sessions of the Union de Malines, the drafting of the moral code had advanced well. The text had been reworked by external experts and by members of the Union.45 It was noted that the redaction was "sufficiently concise, and approached the style of a juridical code."46 Indeed, divided over four chapters, the code defined the most pressing issues of modern culture. The first chapter, which dealt with the basic notions of culture, was a novelty in the Union's tradition. This chapter afforded the opportunity to introduce the code's understanding of human nature and culture, the latter in its different aspects, social meaning, and diversified expressions. These descriptions emphasized the human person, human dignity, and the idea of 43 "Vos remarques sur la définition de la culture ne m'étonnent nullement. On tend actuellement à sortir du cadre tracé par les conceptions traditionnelles de la pensée française et le sens large qu'admet le projet étonnera sans doute plus d' un esprit. Mais il semble que cette notion soit seule à tenir compte suffisamment de l' apport récent des sciences humaines, en particulier de la psychologie Among the members of the Union, it was particularly Czeslaw Strzeszewski who contributed in this phase; for the non-members, it was Russo, Heylen, and Géraud. 46 Compte-rendu 1964, in F-Hoyois 800.
socialization. The second chapter provided a deeper analysis of physical culture, intellectual development, science, beauty, and religion and culture. The third chapter engaged with the promotion of culture through education, information diffusion via new media, as well as through work, technique, and leisure time. The last chapter addressed the social meaning of culture with elaborations devoted to the encounter between diverse cultures, as well as to the social environment, the family, the state, internationalization, and the Church. In a sense, this last chapter was a response to twentieth-century internationalism.47 In sum, the concept of culture, as it was used in this volume, could be defined in the following way: "Because it takes human development, i.e. the realization of human nature's potential, as its formal object, culture is fundamentally human."48

The Conciliar Influence: From a Juridical to a Humanistic Style
In Second Vatican Council.51 Given that this shift was only something that happened at the council itself, the Code de morale culturelle had to be adjusted in accordance with the conciliar developments. At different stages, it became clear that the Union de Malines had partly prepared the path for the Pastoral Constitution, but the Union could not sufficiently adjust its own course in keeping with the far-reaching results established in Gaudium et spes. The tension between the work of the Union de Malines and the council can be perceived by examining the influence of the moral code on the redaction of Gaudium et spes and the difficulty of publishing the moral code after the council. That Charue would appeal to Hoyois is no surprise. Just as it had not been foreseen that the Second Vatican Council would deal with the relation of the Church with the modern world, the theme of culture had also been largely absent up to the moment Cardinal Leo-Joseph Suenens launched the idea to deal with the Church ad extra on December 4, 1962.52 Although Suenens was the nominal president of the Union de Malines, he never made an effort to connect the redaction of the schema for which he was responsible with the work of the Union de Malines.53 The integration of the Union's work with the chapter on culture in Gaudium et spes was in fact mostly due to Charue. In the spring of 1963, when a first draft of the chapter on culture was being developed, Charue was added to this subcommission, and during the second intersession, he was appointed to temporarily preside over it. At the same time, he started to seek the advice of Hoyois on the topic. The latter provided Charue with some general remarks on the schema and some specific suggestions for the third chapter on culture.54 By the end of 1964, the chapter still needed some "major overhauls" according to Hoyois.55 Around the same time, Charue informed those responsible for schema XIII that the moral code produced by the Union de Malines could be of assistance in their redactional work, even expressing regret that the work of this organization had not been taken into account previously.56 A double strategy was employed. On the one hand, Charue intervened to have Hoyois sending a copy of the Code de morale culturelle to Achille Glorieux, secretary of the Mixed Commission together with Sebastian Tromp.57 Hoyois only met with the demand at the end of January 1965.58 On the other hand, an attempt was made to foreground the ideas of the Union de Malines. On the personal level, Charue informed Glorieux that the Jesuits Coffey and Russo were both members of the Union and could be involved in the work of redaction to a greater extent. At the same time, he requested that Hoyois be appointed a peritus.59 Although that request was not honored (in fact it was only Charue's other recommendation of Dondeyne as a possible peritus that was granted), Charue continued to support tying together the work of the Union de Malines and the subcommission on culture. This attempt was exemplified not only by Charue's invitation to Hoyois to be present at a meeting on January 20, 1965 with Dondeyne, Moeller, Etienne, and Ladrière,60 but also by Charue's mediating role between Hoyois and the editor-in-chief of La Civiltà Cattolica Roberto Tucci, who was one of the other important figures for the chapter on culture. On a more textual level, Hoyois too remained active by providing amendments to the chapter.61 It seems, however, that the work of the Union de Malines was not able to surpass the influence it achieved with Charue, for no other trace of their work can be found in the archives of the other central players in the redaction of Gaudium et spes, Pierre Haubtmann, Gerard Philips, and Charles Moeller.
The difficulty that the Union de Malines faced in disseminating its ideas must be understood on a different level than merely the one of lacking the right connections. It is much more the case that the concept of culture as presented In the remarks of the first, it became clear that the progress of the council called for a rapid publication of the code.64 Next, the decision was made to change the name of the Code de morale culturelle to La culture et l' homme.65 This decision was simultaneously an effort to highlight the project's continuity with the previous work of the Union de Malines, as well as an effort to align the document's name more closely with contemporaneous interests. Indeed, when in the end the Union failed to publish the code before the end of the council, a process was initiated to revise the code according to the chapter on culture in Gaudium et spes. For this task, Hoyois approached Heylen precisely because he had earned his stripes in the conciliar redaction process. Heylen, however, referred Hoyois to Dondeyne, who according to him, was "the man" with the competence to revise this code on culture.66 Charue had already said as much to Hoyois in February 1965, pointing out that the role of Dondeyne in the crucial Ariccia meetings of the conciliar subcommissions had been "primordial."67 This recourse to Dondeyne ironically brought the redaction process back to the decision taken at the 1961 session to integrate two perspectives on culture into a single moral code: the dogmatic perspective represented by Action populaire, and the sociological perspective represented by Dondeyne. The fundamental contribution of Dondeyne to the conciliar chapter on culture had made him an authority for the post-conciliar time, when the standards for moral theology would be set by this conciliar document.
The discrepancy in content and style between the conciliar theology and the moral code would not prove to be the last hurdle for the Union de Malines. Although the first amendments for the revision of the moral code had already been drafted in August 1965,68 while the council was still ongoing, the moral code would not be finished before the closing session of the council, nor would it be finished thereafter. The publishing process proved to be a deathblow to the moral code, for three reasons. First of all, the Union de Malines had to search for a new publishing house to continue its series of codes. This was, on the one hand, the result of the split between the publishing house Spes and Action populaire. On the other hand, the idea of using another publishing house for this volume was also suggested by Russo, who wanted to reach a larger audience. Secondly, in their search for a more academic publishing house, be it the French Editions Universitaires, Desclée de Brouwer, or Casterman, it became clear that these publishing houses were rather hesitant to engage in this endeavor. The Editions Universitaires, for example, seriously doubted their regular customers would be "sufficiently interested," to enable the sale of at least half of the copies in their own book shops.69 In the end, Desclée de Brouwer proved to be the most viable option for getting the manuscript published, but only if the Union de Malines was willing to oversee the printing costs. 70 The ultimate failure of the project, however, is attributable to the Union de Malines itself. Despite Ho-Church History and Religious Culture 99 (2019) 504-523 yois's promises that the manuscript would be fine-tuned to bring it more in line with the Pastoral Constitution, the final revised version was never completed and never delivered to the publisher.71 Despite the "urgency"72 of this publication on account of the many commentaries on Gaudium et spes published in the same period, the work of the Union de Malines was never realized.

Conclusion
In his overview of the development of natural law theory in Catholic Social Teaching, Stephen J. Pope pointed out "the fundamental transformation of the character of Catholic social teachings that took place at the time [of the council]."73 This transformation, according to him, found expression in four important features: the recognition of the modern world, the affirmation of the historical context and development, a Christological ressourcement, and a renewed appreciation of human dignity. These features were certainly reflected in Gaudium et spes, which, with its central notion of reading the signs of the times (Gaudium et spes 4), would become the cornerstone of later Catholic moral theology. The council's transformation of the grand tradition of Catholic Social Teaching had a strong impact on the plurality of little traditions. A wellembedded tradition, such as the Union de Malines with its moral codes, could either incorporate the new conciliar perspectives on social ethics or cease to exist. The latter proved to be the case for the Union de Malines. This result, however, was not only due to the transformation of Catholic Social Teaching as an internal development of the Roman Catholic Church. It likewise resulted from the transformation of society, to which the council was able to respond more deeply than could be accomplished by the prescribed format of the moral codes that the Union de Malines produced. The possibilities for responding to these ecclesial and societal transformations were, moreover, limited. Particularly the rigid structures of the Union de Malines as an organization with yearly meetings and a relatively uninvolved membership could not catch up with a conciliar process led by highly motivated council fathers and theologians. In and the development of Catholic Social Teaching were still very much under discussion at the time; the authors of both documents were fully aware of the transitional and contextual nature of their work. The present article has affirmed Jean-Yves Calvez's observation that "Vatican II brought quite a change in the style of expressing the social tenets of Christianity."76 More than that, however, we have observed that the little social traditions of the Catholic Church have their own development, which is nevertheless interconnected with this grand tradition. On the one hand, despite being little, traditions such as the Union de Malines contributed to the development of moral theology on an intellectual level by the publication of their moral codes, but also on an organizational level by establishing networks and creating platforms by which theologians could diffuse their ideas. As such the little traditions were able to contribute, by providing ideas and authors, to the grand tradition at epochal moments, such as the Second Vatican Council. On the other hand, these little traditions were also highly dependent on this grand tradition and became vulnerable the moment a certain theological tradition was adopted as more authoritative than others, whether that tradition is Neo-Scholasticism or the pastoral theology of the Second Vatican Council. This case study of the Union de Malines points out that despite their interconnectedness both the grand tradition and the little social traditions followed their own pace, all contributing to theological renewal and paradigm shifts. As such they bore witness to the legitimacy of theological diversity that was heralded by Chenu in his programmatic article, affirmed in the conciliar documents, but questioned in the post-conciliar era. 76 Jean-Yves Calvez, "Things Old and New: Catholic Social Thought in Retrospect and Prospect," in Catholic Social Thought (see above, n. 6), 3-11 at 6.