[6] They were hosted in Mechelen by the archbishop, Engelbert Sterckx, who died in December 1867,[4] although much of the practical management fell to Isidore-Joseph du Rousseaux, a teacher at the junior seminary where many of the sessions were held.
[1] It led directly to the 1868 founding of a Federation of Belgian Catholic Workers' Associations (a precursor of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions).
[11] The 1891 congress, held 8-12 September, followed the publication of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical on social issues, Rerum Novarum, discussion of which dominated proceedings.
[12] There was a strong attempt from the political right to relativise or minimise the encyclical's impact and "correct" the leftwards tendency of the Social Congresses that had been held in Liège in 1886, 1887 and 1890.
Concerned about the development of Christian Democracy and the generation of policy ideas outside political circles, the Catholic Party then in power insisted that the fifth congress be strictly apolitical.