YCW Rally

TO CELEBRATE the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Young Christian Workers a national rally is being held at the New Gallery in Regent Street, London, tomorrow week.
Bishop Worlock of Portsmouth is expected to address the 1,000 members and exmembers attending the rally, which will be followed by a Mass and a dance.
The occasion is also being marked by the publication of a special edition of New Life, the movement's magazine, which has contributions from some of it's best-known members, including Pat Keegan and Fr John Fitzsimons, who review the past, present and future of the movement.
Thre are today branches in 120 countries and a membership of three and a half million, of whom some 17,000 are in England and Wales.
Paul McGee, the general secretary, sees the aims of developing and educating a leadership among young workers as valid today as they were 50 years ago.
The main problem for British school-leavers today, and also for young workers, is the prospect of unemployment, and the main priority at present, Mr McGee says, is to inform school-leavers of the opportunities available to them and to help them understand their rights and how to get them if they fail to find work.
At the same time local groups are being encouraged to lobby their MPs to demand the right to work for young people.
The YCW was founded in 1925 by Fr (later Cardinal) Joseph Cardijn in Belgium, when it changed its name from the Young Trade Unionists and received recognition from the Belgian bishops. Cardinal Cardin, who studied sociology and political science at Louvain University, was appointed its first national chaplain.
In 1925 Pius XI greeted the founder with the words: "Here at last is someone who comes to me about the working mass of people."