The role of Marie-Louise Monnet

Speaking of Pat Keegan, we should also mention Marie-Louise Monnet, who founded the JIC - the Jeunesse Indépendente Chrétienne Féminine (Young Christian Business Women) in France in 1931.

This happened after she had participated in a pilgrimage to Lourdes where was inspired by the example of the YCW and decided to do something similar for her peers.

Later she also founded the Action Catholique Indépendente (ACI) as an adult counterpart movement. In turn this became an international movement known by its French acronym, MIAMSI.

Also worth noting is the fact that she was the sister of Jean Monnet, known today as one of the founders of the European Union.

Sadly, there's little I can find in English about Marie-Louise Monnet.

However, the Open Tabernacle blog does note that as a lay auditor at Vatican II she was unable to speak on the Council floor:

"In contrast Pat Keegan, a leading layman, presented the Decree on the Laity on the Council floor during the third session, even though Marie-Louise Monnet, a French auditor, was responsible for a large input into that document."

In any case, it also raises the possibility that she had a hand in the "conscious and responsible" phrasing that I mentioned a couple of days ago.

Coming back to Pat Keegan, Fr Joseph Komonchak confirms that Pat offers a few more details of the Pope Paul VI's role in relation to Pat's conciliar speech:

"A footnote indicates that this text was sent to Felici on October 14, the day after Patrick Keegan gave his speech, which somewhat loosely followed this draft. One of the Pope's comments was purely stylistic; a second said that a sentence deploring the fact that so few lay people respond to the call to the apostolate was 'too pessimistic'; a third said that a reference to the laity's 'fraternal cooperation with their chaplains' was 'a little brief,' 'unless the thought is completed by some more vivid expression that would express the laity's submission to the hierarchy.' Neither of these phrases was altered in Keegan's address to the Council."

(Alberigo/Komonchak, History of Vatican II, Vol. IV, p. 24)