“Coming Home to School”
Some reflections on
Canon Constant-Guillaume van
Crombrugghe
and their importance
St George’s College Junior
School, Weybridge
by
October 2003
This paper was written in October 2003 while staying at the
Josephite Community at
The inspiration for this paper came during the meeting of the
Headmasters of the Catholic, Christian,
This is paper is a follow-up to “Not just any old school
or
My particular thanks must go to the following people:
- Fathers Raymond, Achiel, Edwin, Willem, Joseph (Valkeners) and Joseph (Misha mi Kwet), my Josephite confreres – while not forgetting Maria and Gozi - for their warm welcome, hospitality and support during my stay at Leuven.
- Fathers Aloïs and Paul at College Melle for all their help and assistance.
- Sister Alice Nugent DMJ for her help and support.
- Professor Terry Merrigan, a former classmate at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven in the late 1970s, for allowing me to attend his lectures on “The Theology of Christian Doctrine” during my stay at Leuven.
- Antony Hudson, my successor at SGCJS, for taking over the baton of leadership at SGCJS.
- To Fr William and his Regional Council for allowing me to have a year off after my retirement as Headmaster before returning to work as a member of the chaplaincy team at St George’s College in September 2004.
Finally I would like to dedicate this paper to all those who
journeyed with me for better or for worse during all or part of my 18 years as
Headmaster of the
Contents
Part One Some insights into the person of Canon Constant van Crombrugghe.
Part Two “His spirit will continue to animate the schools he has founded”.
Notes:
- Extensive use has been made of footnotes in this paper. This is to keep the main body of the paper to a reasonable length allowing an initial skim reading of the paper to pick up its main thrust. A reflective and slower reading using the additional information in the footnotes can then be done at a more gentle and leisurely pace.
- Place names in
Part One Some insights into
the life of Canon Constant van Crombrugghe.
Canon Constant-Guillaume van Crombrugghe was born and baptised in
Grammont in the region of
His father, Ghislain-François (1761-1842), was a successful brewer
in Grammont and belonged to a well established and wealthy family that traced
its origin in the city of
Canon Constant van Crombrugghe was a tall man, well read and educated, shrewd and highly intelligent, a man deeply rooted in his own time. He was a man of deep prayer and possessed a singular desire to submit to the will of God throughout his life.
Constant was by temperament a gentle and patient person who could, at different times, be either very juridical and or quite charismatic. His early life was full of zeal and energy whereas his later life was characterised by a deep love for those around him.
While by natural inclination a conformist, van Crombrugghe was always open to the consideration of new ideas and willing to adapt his own views and methods to new situations and circumstances as they arose providing, of course, they did not challenge his fundamental position as a conservative, ultramontane priest.[3]
Constant’s many talents included the ability to inspire other people, to put people at their ease and to win their respect and confidence. Among his weaknesses was his appalling handwriting.[4]
Van Crombrugghe was a man of very strong principles to the point of being extremely uncompromising and intransient at times. He was usually a man of tact and diplomacy.[5]
He was a fluent and persuasive speaker who spent his entire life
trying to promote his Roman Catholic beliefs within a society which, under the
influence of
The final resting place of Canon Constant-Guillaume
van Crombrugghe in the chapel of the Josephites at Grammont.
During his life, van Crombrugghe undertook a wide variety of activities which included being:
·
A Roman Catholic Priest, Canon
and Dean of
· Secretary and special envoy to the Bishop of Gent
· A member of the Diocesan Council of Gent
· An elected delegate to the 1830 National Constitutional Congress of Belgium
· The author of several books and a newspaper columnist
· The Founder of Religious Orders
·
Headmaster of the
·
Director of Catholic Education
in
· A director of the “Le Catholique des Pays-Bas” newspaper
· A benefactor of the poor
·
Responsible for the choristers
of the Cathedral of Amiens in
· A Prison Visitor
In recognition of his services to
Today the world of education is awash with educational jargon and new Government initiatives. Consider the following list:
- School League Tables
- Interactive computer based teaching and technology
- Marketing (including Prospectuses and Advertising)
- Continuous Professional Development (including Mentoring)
- Performance Management
- Planning (including the provision for differentiated learning)
- Resources (Human and Teaching)
- Admissions (including improvement of pupil numbers and parental choice of schools)
- Problems in gaining University entrance from private schools
- Finance (including School Development Plans, Staffing levels, Fees, and Bursaries)
- Curriculum innovation (including a government imposed National Curriculum)
- Health and Safety
It may be surprising to discover that only the first two points on this list would be totally new issues for Constant van Crombrugghe (CGVC)[6], the Founder of the Josephites[7] who spent most of his working life during the first half of the 19th Century.
The letters of CGVC to the Josephites and the record kept by Guillaume (later Ignace) van den Bossche, the first Superior General of the Josephites, show how all those points mentioned in the list on the previous page, apart from those first two, were addressed and dealt with by the Founder during his life.[8]
During CGVC’s early life, present day
These events helped to form CGVC’s attitudes towards both the government and education. He became totally convinced that education could not be separated from religion. It was important for education to offer Christian morals, beliefs, practices and values so that future leaders could have the correct priorities in re-christianising an increasingly de-dechristianised society. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that CGVC should passionately champion the cause of total freedom from state control for religion and education at the 1830 National Congress.
The National Congress of 1830 was called to establish the constitution
of
The debate about the freedom of education was held on
“Gentlemen,[11] just as we desire the
freedom of worship and of the press, we also desire the freedom of education:
today one cannot exist without the other.
It was, to use the language of a
previous time, to avoid the influence of the Jesuits, that in 1825 so many fine
educational establishments were destroyed, thereby forcing parents in our
Catholic provinces to seek schools for their children abroad.
It was, under no less frivolous
pretexts, that under the name of the “Philosophical College” that the former
general seminary at Louvain was re-established and all other seminaries were
pitilessly suppressed all over our former Kingdom of the Netherlands. Let us
profit from the lessons of the past and be on our guard against such powerful
expressions of prudence, order, or public good. By reclaiming the freedom of
education, by demanding for families the quality which is guaranteed by
competition, the free right of the father to choose into whose hands he wishes
to confide his son’s future, what are we asking except to allow parents to
exercise a natural prerogative, an inalienable right which has seldom been
argued except by a “Julian the Apostate”, a “Robespierre”, a “van Maanen”.
We are in fear of abuse, and it
is against this abuse that we wish to pre-arm ourselves, but is there any
divine gift which man does not abuse? He will, therefore, also abuse the
freedom of education just as he will abuse that of the press. Is that abuse a
sufficient justification for shackling the press and surrounding education with
a network of preventative measures? That is what the former government wished
to do, because it had sworn to enslave the Belgians: but a Belgian is incapable
of such enslavement; he will smash the shameful chains forged for him. In the
Provincial Estates, M. de Baillet let the calm and male voice of reason be
heard; in the Second Chamber Messrs de Sécus, de Gerlache, Le Hon. de Stassart
and many other enlightened friends of their country made clear the pressing
need that the nation has of free education. You have the joy of having in your
midst these worthy men whose eloquent words you will remember all the more
clearly. All they have been calling for has been the freedom of education, and
the entire nation repeats today the same demand.
Whatever else, I am convinced
that the supervision which is being proposed will have no other effect than to
frighten, to torture consciences, to prevent the establishment of good schools
and to prolong the ignorance of a people that loves instruction but who would
go without it rather than to see it imposed on them by the administration and
at the whim of the civil power.
The honourable previous speaker has proved
to us, strongly and at length, the need for education: we all agree on that
point. He has spread out before us the advantages of knowledge and the evils of
ignorance. All of us, without exception, share these very sentiments. But
no-one, I believe, can have concluded from that the need for the government to
monopolise public instruction; that conclusion, I am certain, would not have
come to the mind of any Belgian.
If a teacher is badly informed, if he
retains discredited and vicious methods, the number of his pupils will soon be
reduced; if he has no moral standpoint, his deserted school will serve as a
warning for those parents who might have thought of confiding the education of
their children to him.
That the courts should punish those
misdemeanours which occur within education, we agree. But nothing more; no
preventative measures; we will reject them with all our strength.”
The clear strategy CGVC had worked out to win the debate was almost
undone when one of the group, Fr de Sécus, presented an amendment representing
the group’s “fall back” position too early in the debate. In the end, by the
narrowest of margins 78-71, victory was assured and the Congress adjourned at
CGVC also made use of his political skills to help the Josephites to come through a number of difficulties with compliance to a series of local and national regulations concerning the state governance of religious orders and education which he opposed.[12] Ignace van den Bossche even recorded in his Journal the tacit acceptance by CGVC of this non-compliance with some new government rules and regulations.[13]
At one point political subterfuge employed by CGVC to protect the Daughters of Mary and Joseph is quite breathtaking.[14]
Despite his obvious political acumen, CGVC was not, by inclination, an innovator. He was much more of a revisionist and possessed a real flair for organisation. He took the best ideas he could find from others and then adapted them for his own means and ends.[15]
CGVC was also lucky enough to inherit the considerable business prowess of his parents which he further honed when running the family business during the illness of his uncle François.[16]
Within CGVC’s own family, his granduncle and godfather Jean-François-Ghislain
Huleu (1746-1815), a priest in the diocese of
Huleu, who had twice tried his own vocation as contemplative monk, had
himself established a religious congregation of sisters to educate the poor
girls of
Most important of all, however, it was under the direction of Huleu that CGVC developed his own personal spirituality[18]
The cornerstone of CGVC’s spirituality was his “active submission”
(Ignatian election) to the will of God with the result that everything CGVC did
in his adult life, he did so because he truly believed it to be God’s will.
“For the greater glory of God” was CGVC’s own personal motto in his early life.”[19]
For CGVC, the spiritual writings of St
Teresa of
As well Bishop François Fénelon’s educational writings, CGVC made great use of Fénelon’s extensive spiritual writings. CGVC would often copy out, in his own poor handwriting, the spiritual maxims and sayings of Fénelon including the following text:
“Try to savour God, never look upon Him as a
powerful and inexorable judge who constantly keeps watch in order to reprimand
us and to compel us on every occasion. See how gentle He is, how He adjusts
Himself to our needs and has pity on our weaknesses. Become familiar with Him
as a tender and compassionate Father”.[20]
For CGVC, God was “all-merciful” and “all-compassion” whose tender love surpasses that of a mother or father.[21]
It is not always appreciated how closely CGVC identified himself with both the life and the spirituality of Francis de Sales.
In a letter to his niece Clothilde, CGVC shows just how much he was drawn towards St Francis de Sales:
“Celebrate the feast of St. Francis de
Sales, very dear Child, with that moderation regarding which that saint gave
both such fine examples and such admirable precepts. You will not forget me, I hope, that
day. I have always loved St. Francis de
Sales; I ought to have imitated him? God
frequently urged me to do so, but, to my shame, I must admit that I have
not. I am going to begin again to make
efforts, although age and deep‑rooted habits no longer render the
practice of meekness as easy as it would have been in my youth.”[22]
It was from the Fathers of
the Faith and St Francis de Sales that CGVC developed his devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.[23]
Above all, however, CGVC’s spirituality was based on St Ignatius[24]
as interpreted by the Fathers of the Faith[25]
and not by the Jesuits.[26]
It was from this Ignatian spirituality that CGVC developed the central aspect
of his own spirituality and that of his religious orders of “Being an
Instrument of God’s mercy”.[27]
For CGVC, “Being an
instrument of mercy in the hands of God” is to be free to be used in whatever
way God wishes.[28]
For CGVC to become “an instrument of God’s mercy” means:
· Abandoning oneself to the will of God
· Being poor in spirit and poor in fact
· Being open to experiencing the mercy found in the Sacred Heart of Jesus
· Listening to the Holy Spirit.
· Proclaiming God as “all-merciful” and “all-compassionate”
· Being at the service of the whole Church
CGVC wanted all his religious to be formed so they could become “Instruments of God’s mercy”. This meant his religious had always to seek and totally at the disposal of the will of God. This act of “radical obedience” corresponded identically with CGVC’s “active submission” (Ignatian election) to the will of God.
If his individual religious had to become “Instruments of God’s mercy”, then collectively their distinguishing feature was to be their family based spirituality.[29]
Among the hallmarks of this spirituality based on the family was the joy, simplicity and openness of the religious. Being cheerful was so important for CGVC that an explicit reference to it was placed in the constitutions of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph:
“Cheerfulness,
meekness and politeness are specially recommended to the Daughters of Mary and
Joseph. They should show by their frank and agreeable manner that they are
happy to belong to Jesus”.[30]
CGVC’s own personal approach
to spirituality can be best summarised as follows:
“Not looking for
extraordinary prayer experiences, going forward peacefully in confidence,
trusting in God’s love and mercy, with simplicity, joy and thanksgiving;
finding God everywhere, loving Him through those who have in turn been taught
to love Him; totally abandoned into God’s hands and at His service and that of
His Church. These are the characteristics of Van Crombrugghe’s personal
synthesis of the spiritual life. It is simple, uncomplicated, filled with
gentleness and love and at the same time capable of inspiring one with zeal and
courage in the service of the Lord”.[31]
To help inculcate this largely Ignatian-based spirituality, Jesuit
priests, following their restoration in 1814 by Pope Pius VII[32],
would often give the annual retreats both to the Josephites and to Daughters of
Mary and Joseph. CGVC was eventually to sell his own country house, “Pausipone”,
at
After CGVC had completed his secondary education in