Catholic Action was launched by Pope Pius XI in December 1922 by means of his Encyclical Ubi Arcano. Seven years later, on the 5th April 1929, Prof. Fr Daniel Callus OP set up the first Malta Catholic Action group among University students and a year later, in October 1930, Mgr. Enrico Dandria organised some of the existing youth groups into a Federation of Catholic Action Centres. Catholic Action is an organisation of lay people who freely commit themselves, as an organic community and in direct collaboration with the Hierarchy, to work for the fulfilment of the general apostolic aim of the Church.