‘The most significant factor of the last one hundred and fifty years is the urbanisation of the world’ said Fr Houtart, Secretary of the International Centre for Research in Religious Sociology. Addressing the members of the International Catechetical Year at Lumen Vitae, he compared the revolution caused in society by this phenomenon to the barbarian invasions of the fourth century, which changed the face of the world as it was then known. This signifies, he said, far more than an increased density of population in the cities; it is a real transformation of social life. M. Labbens, President of this Society, also speaking during this course of lectures in religious sociology, went so far as to assert that ‘The world is about to give birth to a new civilisation'.