Laeken in 1912 was a commune on the outskirts of Brussels. The King and his family lived in a castle there. Bourgeois families, attracted by this “royal” proximity, settled there. A canal runs through Laeken. The canal stimulated industrial development and job creation, leading to the immigration of a working class, often from rural areas. Living and working conditions were characterized by exploitation, dependence and precariousness.

Laeken 1912. Cardijn was 30 years old. He was appointed vicar in the parish of Our Lady of Laeken, which boasted a prestigious church that regularly welcomed the king and royal family. Ordained a priest in 1906, Cardijn had pursued studies, not in religious science, but in the humanities. He had travelled to England, the leading industrial power at the time, to see how workers were organizing themselves. Born into a working-class family, he had sworn to his dying father that he would devote his life to the advancement of young workers, harshly exploited in the context of booming industrialization.