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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),” Vatican News reports.

As happens so often, press reports play down or even ignore the fact that he began his priestly ministry as a YCW chaplain. Let’s start with that experience.

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YCW chaplain

Born on 30 July 1903 in Lyon, France, Henri Caffarel was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Paris on 19 April 1930.

Almost immediately, he was appointed as chaplain to the national secretariat of the Young Christian Workers (JOC or YCW) movement, where he worked closely with many leaders.

In his biography of Charles de Foucould (Charles de Foucauld et ses premiers disciples), Fr René Voillaume, founder of the Little Brothers of Jesus and the Little Sisters of the Gospel, recalled a letter he had received from Henri Caffarel in 1934 explaining how he accompanied YCW leaders, André Hess and Georges Gaboriau, in the creation of a small worker community:

Among the seeds of this fecundity, there was one which touched us in particular and was to be like a prefiguration of an announcement of what our fraternity would one day be, although at the time we did not yet perceive it as such: it was the admirable initiative of two YCW workers, one of whom, André Hess, was a true friend of mine.

In April 1934, I received the following letter from Henri Caffarel:

“I think of you and your brothers and sisters often; I am deeply one of you. And after sharing my prayers with you, I come to ask for yours and those of your community for a work that the Lord Jesus has entrusted to me. I am so sure of your understanding and your fraternal prayers that you are one of the first people I turn to: André Hess has left the Young Christian Workers (YCW) [after completing his term as national secretary] and has taken a job at Renault as a skilled labourer. At the end of each day, he retires to his small working-class room in the heart of Billancourt, with his best friend, who is also a former YCW leader. And there, as at work, they pray, they worship, they love the Father, united with Jesus in the name of the entire vast working class that surrounds them and that they want to save at all costs. They wish to be, indeed they are, the voluntary representatives of the entire suffering working class before God, offering up in a continuing offertory the sins, the miseries, the distress of all these abandoned souls.

“For them, it is a vocation similar to yours, very similar and I am impressed. They share the same desire of becoming one with those whom one wishes to save, in order to save them better; of becoming a worker with the workers, living among them, in the same living conditions, of becoming workers just as you have become Muslim among the Muslims.

“It seems to me that this new work is the logical culmination of the great charitable effort undertaken for the past fifty years. First, there was an interest in working conditions in order to change them; initially by the promotion of Catholic professional organisations. Then, without downplaying their importance of these organisations, the Young Christian Workers (YCW) arrived proclaiming Christ, and were primarily concerned with forming apostles who would radiate their influence throughout their communities in order to transform them morally and materially.

“And finally, perhaps complementing this initial work, comes André’s new undertaking, which may attract many workers, whose main objective is to establish centers of intense charity and true contemplation right in the heart of the working class, among the working masses.

“Perhaps (but again, this is what I am trying to discern from the Lord’s will, and it is possible that it will be different), we will one day see small communities of four or five workers in major industrial centres, living the Gospel fully, leading the workers to say, “See how they love one another,” and revealing to them Christ who wants to save them.

“The Cardinal of Paris, who admirably encouraged André Hess, asked me to accompany and assist them. It is a great joy, but also a great responsibility. That is why, with great confidence, I come to ask for the prayers of the dear community of El-Abiodh. This is, however, quite confidential; I would not want anyone other than the younger brothers of El-Abiodh to know of this letter.”

And three months later, Fr Caffarel wrote to Brother André, whom he had known for a long time: “I commend André Hess and Georges Gaboriau, his companion, to your prayers. You understand their vocation, help them, so that the two communities may truly be sisters… Why shouldn’t there be a connection between them? Does Father Voillaume have any objection to this? It seems to me that it would broaden their souls, their prayers, and their lives.”

We naturally accepted this profound communion in a shared contemplative vocation of intercession, and we remained in contact with André Hess for some time. Little was said about this experiment, which remained discreet and almost hidden. Unfortunately, I have neither a precise recollection nor any document that would allow me to know what became of our relationship with André and Georges. Indeed, this experiment in contemplative life within the working class encountered misunderstandings and even strong opposition, to the point that it had to cease. Could this generous initiative, too, have come too soon, at a time when it could not yet be understood?

Teams of Our Lady

This work with the YCW and more generally in the field of Catholic Action deepened Caffarel’s conviction that laypeople – not just the clergy – were called to holiness in the midst of ordinary life, a conviction that would profoundly shape everything that followed.

After completing his work with the YCW, Fr Caffarel was appointed to the French Catholic Action secretariat for the media, including radio and film. From 1936 until 1939, he organised spiritual retreats, particularly for students.

In 1938, when a young couple sought his guidance on faithfully living their marriage vows, Caffarel replied, “Let us journey together.” This encounter led to the first meeting of what would become the Teams of Our Lady on 25 February 1939.

The idea took off and rapidly developed into a movement that now exists in eighty countries.

After World War II, in 1947, Fr Caffarel drafted the charter for the movement, which also took the title of “Teams of Our Lady.”

The Charter makes robust demands on couples including the practices of daily prayer together and a monthly “Sitting Down,” a time of personal reflection. “Once you have seized the spirit of Teams, you will have no trouble in agreeing to their discipline,” Caffarel said. Living the Gospel in a couple’s life was, in his view, “the way to holiness.”

Caffarel also insisted on the mutual enrichment of the sacraments of Orders and Marriage as “complementary” sacraments responding to the vocation of love.

The Teams of Our Lady website explains Fr Caffarel’s spirituality of marriage and the movement as follows:

Father Caffarel (1903-1996) had a deeply held conviction that couples were made for happiness. Marriage is one way towards this because the love received and the love given are sources of happiness. For him, human love was fundamentally a way to gain access to God, through Jesus Christ. Over fifty years ago, Father Caffarel took the initiative to gather together couples to reflect with them on the sacrament of marriage and conjugal life. After meeting with a few couples, Father Caffarel decided to explore the mystery of the sacrament of marriage and to bring his theological reflections to the Church. The latter were always based on meditation of the Word of God, but also on the observation and participation of couples as well as the contributions of confirmed theologians. Based on detailed surveys, he elaborated a renewed outlook of Christian marriage and of sexuality. For him, the union of a man and a woman was the sign that not only revealed and represented the mystery of the Christ-Church union, but also contained and reflected it. The conjugal community was a cell of the Church and participated therefore in the life of the Church, where Christ accomplished his mission as prophet, priest and shepherd.

In 1945, Fr Caffarel also founded a magazine L’Anneau d’Or (The Golden Ring) dealing with ​​marital and family spirituality, which had a great impact and was widely circulated in Catholic circles, especially in France, until its demise in 1967.

The Teams continued to grow and develop throughout the 1950s and 1960s, with large gatherings taking place at Lourdes in 1954, Rome in 1959, and Lourdes again in 1965.

Concerned with marriage preparation, in 1956, he launched the Centres de Préparation au Mariage (CPM) (Marriage Preparation Centers ), which were initially linked to the Équipes Notre-Dame (Teams of Our Lady), before becoming an independent movement.

In 1957, he launched a small magazine, Cahiers sur l’oraison (Notebooks on Prayer ), which, along with correspondence courses that he developed, occupied his time for many years until 1989.

Vatican II

In 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed him to the Preparatory Commission on Lay Apostolate for the Second Vatican Council and he continued to play an active role as a peritus during the Council itself.

As a result, he was able to share his renewed theological understanding of marriage

Below are extracts from two documents (in Cardijn’s personal archives) that Henri Caffarel drafted for the Preparatory Commission:

Fr Caffarel’s thinking on conjugal spirituality ran well ahead of official Church teaching. Indeed, he faced strong criticism from other more traditional theologians, including Fr Sebastian Tromp SJ, who served as secretary of the Preparatory Theological Commission for Vatican II and also for the conciliar Doctrinal Commission.

Later, Pope now St John Paul II noted that Caffarel, “anticipating the fruitful directions of the Second Vatican Council,” set forth the call to holiness as integral to marital and family life, particularly as expressed in Lumen Gentium, §11.

Gaudium et Spes also echoed the very convictions Caffarel had been teaching since the late 1930s, speaking of the reality of married sexuality and spirituality and inviting further reflection on it, affirming that the love made visible through husband and wife is a symbol of the love of God who is Love.

The Council made a significant shift by using the language of personalism — describing marriage as a “partnership of love” – and elevated mutual love to equal standing with procreation, declaring that “the intimate union of marriage, as the mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children demand total fidelity from the spouses.”

Caffarel had championed similar ideas in the Teams and in L’Anneau d’Or for nearly two decades before the Council began.

Final years

In 1973, he retired to a house in Troussures, which he transformed into a house of prayer.

He died in Beauvais, France on 18 September 1996.

Read more

Pope Leo advances six causes for sainthood (Vatican News)

Henri Caffarel (Wikipedia)

Teams of Our Lady

Teams of Our Lady Charter

Fr Henri Caffarel (Modern Day Saint)

John Paul II, Address to Teams of Our Lady 2003 (Vatican)

Books by Henri Caffarel (English translations)

Love and grace in marriage (Internet Archive)

Being present to God: Letters on prayer (Internet Archive)

Twenty YCW and YCS leaders, chaplains and seminarians were beatified alongside a group of Scouts and Catholic Action chaplains at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, on Saturday 13 December 2025 (video above).

During the celebration, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, himself a former YCW and YCS chaplain, read the apostolic letter on behalf of the Holy Father.

Apostolic Letter

To grant the wishes of Our Brother,
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline,
Metropolitan Archbishop of Marseille and
President of the Conference of Bishops of France,
those of many other Brothers in the Episcopate
, and those of many faithful,
after consulting the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints,
We decide, by Our Apostolic Authority,
that the Venerable Servants of God

Raymond Cayré , diocesan priest,
Gérard Martin Cendrier , professed religious of the Order of Friars Minor,
Roger Vallée , seminarian,
Jean Mestre , faithful layman,
and their forty-six companions, martyrs,
who did not fear to offer their own lives even to the shedding of blood,
to bring witness to the consolation and comfort of the Gospel,

may they henceforth be called Blessed , and may they be celebrated
on May 5th of each year in the places and according to the norms established by law. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Given at Rome, near St. Peter’s, on November 11,
in memory of Saint Martin of Tours, bishop,

in the Holy Year 2025,
the first of Our Pontificate.

Leo PP. XIV

Below is a list of the YCW and YCS leaders with links to brief biographies

YCW leaders

Jean Lépicier (1921-1945), died at Buchenwald;

Bernard Lemaire (1920-1944), died of typhus at Buchenwald;

Maurice Grandet (1920-1944), died of typhus at Buchenwald;

René Ponsin (1923-1945), died at Buchenwald;

Claude-Colbert Lebeau (1922-1945), died at Zöschen;

Jean Chavet (1922-1945), died of typhus at Mauthausen;

André Parsy (1922-1944), interned at Zöschen, died at Trebitz;

André Vallée (1919-1945), died at Flossenbürg;

Henri Marrannes (1923-1945), died in Zwickau;

Louis Pourtois (1919-1945), died in Mauthausen; Camille Millet (1922-1945), died in Flossenbürg;

Marcel Carrier (1922-1945), died in Neustadt during the “death march”;

Alfredo Dall’Oglio (1921-1944), Italian naturalised French, died in Wuhlheide;

Marcel Touquet (1914-1945), died in Ravensbrück;

Lucien Croci (1919-1945), died in Barth;

Jean Mestre (1924-1944), died shortly after his arrest;

Jean Perriolat (1920-1945), died in Mauthausen;

René Rouzé (1922-1945), died in Dora-Mittelbau;

Henri Euzenat (1920-1945), who died at Dachau;

Eugène Lemoine (1920-1945) (also a Scout), died at Zöschen;

Bernard Morizot (1924-1945) (also a Scout), interned at Buchenwald and shot.

YCS leaders

Jean Préhu (1920-1945), YCS lay leader (and Scout), died at Dachau.

So too did YCS leader, Jean Chavet, who was also a YCW leader (see above)

Priests

René Giraudet (1907-1945), interned at Bergen-Belsen, sick with typhus, died in Paris;

Victor Dillard (1897-1945), who died at the Dachau concentration camp;

Louis Doumain (1920-1944), died at the Zöschen concentration camp;

Pierre de Porcaro (1904-1945), who died at the Dachau concentration camp.

Jocist seminarians

Roger Vallée (1920-1944), who died at Mauthausen;

Jean Tinturier (1921-1945), who died at Mauthausen.

READ MORE

Homily of Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich

Martyrs of the YCW and YCS (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

The cause for canonisation of Argentine business leader and Christian Family Movement founder, Enrique Shaw, has taken another step forward after the alleged miracle attributed to his intercession passed the medical stage.

The alleged miracle will now be evaluated by a commission of theologians of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Catholic News Agency reports.

The vice postulator of the cause and the military bishop of Argentina, Santiago Olivera, informed the Argentine news agency AICA of the development.

The prelate explained from Rome that the miracle “has passed the medical consultation, but we must be very cautious because the process continues with the commission of theologians and then with the bishops and cardinals.”

“Once this happens, if everything goes well, Cardinal [Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints] will present to the Holy Father the permission to announce the decree of his beatification,” Olivera added.

Although there are still several steps to take, the vice postulator indicated Thursday that “today was a very important day. It passed the medical phase regarding what was presented about the healing.”

“We continue to pray,” he said and encouraged the faithful “to wait and be very respectful of the following stages.”

Enrique Shaw Tornquist was a layman, businessman, husband, and father. He was born on 26 February, 1921, in Paris. Shortly after, his family moved to Argentina.

He belonged to the Naval Military School, where he carried out an apostolate with great dedication.

In 1943 he married Cecilia Bunge, with whom he had nine children. In 1945 he asked to be discharged from the Argentine Navy for the purpose of becoming a worker and carrying out an apostolate among the working class.

He promoted the creation of the Christian Association of Business Leaders and died on 27 August, 1962, at the age of 41 from cancer.

In 1997, the preliminary stage for the opening of the canonization process began, and 10 years later the formal opening of the cause was presented.

The diocesan phase was concluded in 2013, and in 2014 the documentation was sent to Rome.

In 2020, documents were submitted in Rome for the diocesan investigation into the alleged miracle attributed to the intercession of Shaw.

On April 24, 2021, Pope Francis approved the decree that recognizes Shaw’s heroic virtues, declaring him “venerable.”

Writing in Aleteia, Larry Peterson noted that Shaw wanted to become “Christ in the business world.”

Enrique and a few friends had gone  to Buenos Aires a few times when they were given leave. It was on one of these visits that he met Sara. They fell in love and were married October 23, 1943. They would go on to have nine children together, with one of them becoming a priest. Enrique taught them all the importance of the Rosary and made a point of taking them to church every week. He set a fine example as a Catholic father.

At the end of World War II, Enrique started his business. By 1952, he established the Christian Association of Business Executives. He did this with help from Archbishop Joseph Cardijn of Belgium, who would later become a Cardinal. Enrique also became a prolific writer, publishing many books dealing with justice and honor in the workplace. He promoted intense evangelizing aimed at the business class in Argentina and Latin America. His goal and calling was to be “Christ in the business world.”

He was one of the founders of the Christian Family Movement in Argentina and was president of the Argentine Catholic Action.

READ MORE

Argentine businessman Enrique Shaw moves closer to beatification (Catholic News Agency)

Enrique Shaw, un paso más cerca de ser declarado beato (ACI Prensa)

Potential miracle connected to saintly businessman (Aleteia)

Enrique Ernesto Shaw (Joseph Cardijn Digital Library)

PHOTO

Crédito: Cortesía ACDE

Blessed María Guggiari Echeverría (12 January, 1925 – 28 April, 1959) – in religion María Felicia de Jesús Sacramentado – was a Paraguayan Catholic nun of the Discalced Carmelite Order, who was also an early member of the JOC in Paraguay.

She entered the order despite opposition from her parents and was close friends with Ángel Saua – a friend from Catholic Action who became a priest . ²

The cause for her canonisation of María Felicia began in 1997 during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, who declared her a Servant of God and confirmed her heroic virtue.

Pope Benedict declared her Venerable  on 27 March 2010.

Pope Francis confirmed her beatification, the ceremony for which was held on 23 June, 2018.

SOURCE

Maria Felicia de Jesus Sacramentado (Wikipedia – Spanish)

We are pleased to report that our efforts to launch the Cardijn canonisation cause have borne fruit.

Thanks to the efforts of Fr Felix Van Meerbergen in Belgium, on 16 January 2014 Archbishop AJ Léonard of Mechelen-Brussels Archdiocese launched an ecclesiastical tribunal to enquire into the canonisation of Cardijn.

Read the details of the launch of the process on this site.

We have also drafted a prayer for Cardijn’s canonisation for use by all those who wish to seek his intercession.

We also hope that our campaign may one day lead to Cardijn being declared a Doctor of the Church.

We encourage all to take up this prayer and to share your prayer intentions.

Sadly, several members of the original tribunal have now passed on, including tribunal president Mgr Stefaan Van Calster, historian Dr Jacques Vermeijlen and Fr Luc Roussel, and theologian, Dr Walter Ceuppens.

We hope and pray for the eventual constitution of a new tribunal to take the process forward.

Cardijn Community International