Our Founder

Constant-Guillaume van Crombrugghe:  

Educator, spokesman for the diocese of Gent (1826-1830), member of the Gent diocesan council, delegate to the 1830 National Congress, founder of four religious congregations, canon, precentor and dean of the cathedral in Gent. 

Born in Gerrardsbergen on 14th October 1789; died in Gent on 1st December 1865.  He was the second of seven children born to Ghislain-François Van Crombrugghe (1761-1842) and Cécile-Joseph Spitaels (1757-1826). At the age of ten, Constant’s parents arranged for him to teach catechism to the poor children living in the city.  

At 12 years old, he made his First Communion in Grammont on 15 August 1802 after which he was sent to a small boarding school, L’Hermitage (or Le Pensionnat) de Wilhours near Ath - in what is now southern Belgium. As this school only took pupils until 14 years old, Constant spent the following two years as a boarder at Le Pensionnat de M. De Wulf in Gent.  

In October 1805, upon the recommendation of friends, Constant was sent to Le Collège St. Acheul, another boarding school, at Amiens in France to continue his education.  The four years he was to spend at Le Collège St. Acheul, run by the “Fathers of the Faith” (les “Pères de la Foi”), turned out to be very influential in CGVC’s later life especially his long lasting friendship with Fr Sellier and the influence of Fr Pierre-Charles-Marie LeBlanc, the director of Le Collège St. Acheul. 

CGVC was born just prior to the 1789 revolution in the Austrian Netherlands which introduced a forty-one years of instability in that area. His opinions and methods in the areas of politics (Church-State relations), education and social work were formed within this turbulent historical context and were influenced by four factors: 

The early training he received as a member of a rich middle class family that formed part of the financial and political dynasty to which his mother belonged, the Spitaels of Gerrardsbergen. 

The traditional, classical (Greek-Latin) and ultramontane education he received from the Fathers of the Faith at their Collège St Acheul in Amiens, France between 1805 and 1809. 

The spiritual direction he received during those years from Louis Sellier, one of the Fathers of the Faith at Amiens, and from his granduncle and godfather, Canon J F G Huleu, Vicar General of the archdiocese of Mechelen and president of the major seminary. 

The equally ultramontane preparation for the priesthood which he received in the major seminary in Gent  (J De Volder, F De Volder, and A Ryckewaert) He formed a close alliance with A Ryckewaert and closely collaborated with him during the 1820-30s. 

After his ordination on 19th September 1812, CGVC was assigned for a short while as an assistant priest to the parishes of Mouscron, Kortrijk, and Heusden. In September 1814 Bishop de Broglie, who had just returned from exile in France, named CGVC principal of the almost defunct Collège d’Alost. This was due to CGVC’s having been taught at Amiens with the Fathers of the Faith who were much admired by de Broglie. Within eleven years he turned this school into one of the most renowned collèges in the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Netherlands. A number of well-known men in Belgian history (De Bracg Bishop of Gent and Dechamps Leader of the Belgian Catholic Party) attended this school during the headship of CGVC. 

The pedagogical principles to which CGVC adhered were the cause of the school’s success. They responded to the general desire for a return to tradition in education after the experimentation that took place during the French Occupation.  His theories of education were the antithesis of those promoted by the Enlightenment. He modelled the Collège d’Alost after the Collège St Acheul and offered a classical Christian humanistic education inspired by the traditions of 17th and 18th century writers and educationalists including François Fénelon and Charles Rollin. While Headmaster at Alost CGVC encouraged the creativity of his colleagues who were for the most part seminarians. Thanks to the impetus of CGVC the school became well known for the textbooks produced by the staff (for example J J De Smet “Histoire de la Belgique” in 1821).  

The school at Alost was also meant to foster vocations to the priesthood. When it became clear that its fees were too high and excluded a number of likely candidates, CGVC established a second boarding school (Tweede Kostschool) attached to the main collège. The government of Willem I soon came to consider the Collège d’Alost a dangerous centre of ultramontane, pro-French and neo-Jesuit opposition. After increasing harassment, the Collège was finally closed by the decrees of 14th June 1825 which virtually eliminated all Catholic run private and semi-private secondary and higher education in the Netherlands.   

With the closing of the Collège in 1825, CGVC became the spokesman for the Gent diocese on the Board of Directors for “Le Catholique des Pays-Bas”, a newspaper founded to voice opposition to government policies. It was CGVC who drew up the statutes of the newspaper and, as the diocesan representative, influenced the positions it took in favour of the absolute freedom of the Church and education, and its call for religiously inspired education. At the same time CGVC was also the representative of the diocese of Gent in its discussions with the archdiocese of Mechelen.  In the face of growing government restrictions and a papal envoy (F Capaccini) who seemed to favour the king’s point of view, Gent and Mechelen felt the need to develop a common stance vis-à-vis the king and government. CGVC’s counterparts in the Archdiocese of Mechelen were Charles van der Horst, a Dutch lawyer and the spokesman for Archbishop de Mean and Engelbert Sterckx, the dean of Antwerpen, Vicar General and the future Cardinal Archbishop of Mechelen.   

CGVC played an important, but little known, role as consultant, intermediary and “clearing house” of information in the final efforts to obtain a change in the attitude of the papal envoy with regards to the “Collegium Philosophicum” at Leuven. This had been founded by the government for the purpose of preparing priests in sympathy with its religious policies.  Thanks to the concerted efforts of the dioceses of Gent, Mechelen and Luik (Liège), the papal envoy eventually changed his opinion. The papal envoy together with the Bishop of Liège then persuaded Willem I to lift the restrictions concerning the minor seminaries and attendance at the “Collegium Philosophicum” was made optional. 

In 1829 CGVC became secretary to the new bishop of Gent, Van de Velde and a member of the diocesan council. CGVC held considerable influence in the diocese for the next four years. He was named director of Catholic education for the two Flanders after the 1830 revolution. With the rise of the liberal-catholics, many of who were former colleagues of CGVC from Alost, his power and influence diminished and after his involvement in the 1833-1834 polemic between the lamennaisian liberal-catholic newspaper “Le Journal des Flanders” and the ultramontane “Le Mémorial du clergé”, CGVC left the diocesan council for four years. CGVC returned to the council in 1838 after the appointment of the new bishop of Gent Delebecque. 

After the 1830 revolution CGVC was elected delegate to the National Congress from Alost.  Through the numerous connections he developed while Headmaster at Alost, and through his influential role in the diocese, CGVC became the most influential of the nine priest elected as delegates from Flanders. Through his quick intervention at the beginning of the Congress he prevented the bishops from requiring the resignation from the Congress of the delegates who were priests, For their part the bishops wanted to avoid national and international criticism which might arise from the involvement of the Church at the Congress. CGVC together with E Sterckx prepared the letter which Archbishop de Mean  address to the Congress. It asked for absolute freedom of religion, public worship and education. These were the themes of the two speeches made by CGVC at the Congress. 

The first speech concerned articles 10 and 11 of the proposed draft constitution. CGVC supported the call for absolute freedom of religion and against possible government prevent of worship in cases where public order was threatened. CGVC saw the latter which would be used by a possibly hostile government as a pretext to eliminate worship. 

The second speech concerned article 13 of the proposed draft constitution. He opposed the use of a system of preventive measures in order to safeguard education. During the debate on this article the amendment proposed by CGVC and his group only narrowly avoided losing priority in voting. It was thanks to the quick action taken behind the scenes by CGVC that his group’s amendment finally became article 17 in the final text of the Constitution. 

After the National Congress retired from public political life but continued to support the union that had made the constitution possible and helped to found “L’Union”, the unionist newspaper. Through his two congregations of teaching religious founded in 1817, CGVC now hoped to “re-christianise” a “de-christianised” society through education and thus make it safe for the Church and what he considered its divine mission to teach. Both groups were founded in response to the economic and moral distress of the poor caused by the 1817 famine.  

On 6th March 1817, CGVC established the “Daughters of Mary and Joseph” at Alost. They ran a lace making school for girls and offered a form of primary education. In 1818 they opened another in Grammont but it was only in 1830-31, thanks to the sudden influx of two groups of women from Mouscron and Bellegem, that CGVC was able to move the congregation into the education of the middle-classes. In 1834 he divided the congregation. The sisters in Grammont became “The Sisters of Mary and Joseph.” While the sisters at Alost, Mouscron and Bellegem remained “Daughters of Mary and Joseph”.   

In 1838 he again divided “The Daughters of Mary and Joseph” into two autonomous groups. “The Sisters of Holy Joseph”, whose mother house was in Bruges while “The Daughters of Mary and Joseph”, whose mother house was in Malines became “The Daughters of Mary and Joseph known as The Ladies of Mary”. CGVC carried out all these changes in order to better meet what he considered to be the differing educational needs of the rich and poor and in order to respect the jurisdiction of the bishop of Bruges and the archbishop of Malines and to make better use of the talents of his individual religious. “The Sisters of Mary and Joseph” and “The Sisters of Holy Joseph” remained diocesan congregations while “The Daughters of Mary and Joseph known as The Ladies of Mary” obtained final papal approval in 1878. 

On 1st May 1817 CGVC founded a group of male religious in Grammont, “The brothers of Holy Joseph”. These religious were also to offer a form of primary education to boys and young men from the poorer classes. This included training in a trade and rudimentary religious instruction. In spite of government opposition and the impossibility of obtaining civil recognition for the group, it was further developed in the 1820s.  

In 1820 CGVC obtained Episcopal approval for the brothers and began to move them in the direction of education for the rich middle and upper classes. Due to a lack of vocations he was unable to divide the brothers as he did with the sisters. In 1837 he changed the name of the brothers to “The Institute of the Religious of St Joseph or The Josephites”. At the same time he arranged for them to take over the boarding school of Melle. CGVC then decided to introduce priests into “The Josephites” and for the next 26 years he tried to develop a “mixed” congregation of priests and brothers offering a commercial, literary and scientific education to the liberal middle classes. The 1857 law on academic grades for university entry forced CGVC to offer the Greek-Latin education of the traditional collège. 

In later life CGVC suffered from increasing poor sight and a form of neuralgia originating from the sunstroke he suffered in 1857 and in 1863 CGVC retired completely from public life including his work with prisoners at Gent. In 1863 CGVC tried to obtain papal approval for his “mixed” order of priests and lay religious but because of the disappearance of part of the constitutions sent to Rome for approval and also because of Rome’s unwillingness to admit a novel form of constitution. [“The Josephites” were declared to be a lay congregation. In 1897 “The Josephites” gained approval from Rome to become a clerical (priestly) congregation]. 

All of the activities of CGVC seem to have had as their central purpose the “re-christianisation” of society through education. Although by nature, he was conservative, ultramontane and traditional in his opinions, he nevertheless used a wide variety of methods to achieve this one goal. The writings of CGVC were very pragmatic. Whilst at Alost he composed manuals for the use by the pupils: the “Manuel de la Jeunesse Chrétienne” and “Art épistolaire à l’usage de la jeunesse”. One of his 1815 speeches at Alost against the educational policies of Willem 1 was published as “Sur l’éducation”. In 1827 with others he wrote a pamphlet entitled “Réfutation des observations sur les libertés de l’Eglise” against the plans of Willem 1 to set up a State Church. Published in 1839, “Règlement des Professeurs” was written by CGVC as a practical guide for Josephite teachers. 

(Based on the text prepared by Guillermo C Garçia in 1980.)