Celebrating 75 years of the Melbourne YCW

Present and former YCW leaders joined with the Cardijn Community Australia on 8 September to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the YCW in Melbourne in 1941.

Fr Bruce Duncan CSsR celebrated a mass with us at the YCW House in North Fitzroy. In his homily, he noted the connection of the anniversary with the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, linking it to the "incarnational" theology of the movement.

Current Australian YCW national president, Zoe Cresswell, welcomed participants, thanking them for the contribution to the movement over the years.

On behalf of CCA, Stefan Gigacz said the event was an expression of solidarity with the new generation of YCW leaders and highlighted the need for former YCWs to support the growth of the movement today.

"Recent newspaper reports of the underpayment of tens of thousands of young workers in supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants exposed by former YCW fulltime worker, Josh Cullinan, have illustrated the continuing need for the YCW today," he said.

Wayne McGough signaled the enquiry into family life currently being developed by the Cardijn Community.

Following the mass, we adjourned to the Lord Newry Hotel for further sharing of memories and development of intergenerational solidarity.

Cardijn Community Australia founder Kevin Vaughan with former Melbourne diocesan leader, Fr Wayne Edwards 

 Former Melbourne YCW fulltimer Terry Byrne with former national leader Julie Mercer

 Former Brisbane YCW president Chris Hartigan with current YCS worker Jessica Russell

 Cardijn Community leader Wayne McGough

 Current YCW national president Zoe Cresswell with Denis Sheehan, Di Dixon, Mick O'Brien, Mick Leahy, Chris Dixon and Fr Bruce Duncan

Kevin Vaughan with former YCW national leader Fred Sim

Former Labor MHR Dr Race Mathews, who is currently a book on distributism which sheds light on the contribution of the YCW Cooperative, with Denis Sheehan

Melbourne YCW turns 75

The Australian YCW and the Cardijn Community Australia will host a commemorative mass to mark the 75th anniversary of the official foundation of the Melbourne YCW on 8 September 1941.

Fr Bruce Duncan CSsR, director of the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy will celebrate the mass with us.

Welcome to join us for this historic occasion.

Following the mass, we plan to go for dinner at the Lord Newry Hotel.

Melbourne YCW 75th Anniversary1941 – 2016

Commemorative Mass

with Fr Bruce Duncan CSsR

7pm
Thursday 8 September 2016

YCW House
537 Brunswick Street
North Fitzroy, 3068

Phone: 03 9489 4387

Historical note

In around 1937, Kevin T. Kelly, a member of the Campion Society, began the earliest known efforts to start jocist groups for teenage male young workers in Melbourne.

In 1940, Fr Frank Lombard also took up and built on these initiatives. Within a year, Archbishop Daniel Mannix had approved the transformation of the existing Catholic Boys Legion into the YCW. The same year, a jocist girls' movement began also in Melbourne that would eventually take the name of the National Catholic Girls Movement (NCGM), the forerunner of the Girls YCW.

Fr Lombard chose the date of 8 September 1941, celebrated liturgically as the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, as the symbolic date of the birth of the Melbourne YCW. Therefore, it’s a fitting date to celebrate both the original birth of the Melbourne YCW and its rebirth today.

“We are always beginning again” - Joseph Cardijn