From the experience of recent years, some characteristics of this dialogue have emerged:
there is an effort to emphasise the positive in everyone, and to discover commonly held values;
each person stays true to their own identity;
there is a commitment together to common values like solidarity, equality, peace, and fraternity;
everyone tries to give the best of themselves to the others, in faithfulness to their own convictions, to welcome others, knowing that each person has treasures of their own culture to give ;
this commitment leaves no room for proselytism; thoughts are shared to create a relationship with the other, not to win them over to one’s own ideas;
dialogue is based on deep respect for the other and on acting according to one’s own conscience, which everyone tries to follow in a coherent way;
the focus is on practical things, trying to act together, in actions of solidarity
the group is not closed in on itself, rather, it commits its members, from whatever culture, to work in their own environment.
the common objective is to build together a more united world, building among believers and non-believers alike, a fraternity that can be a witness for others.
As a result of the various conventions held at Castelgandolfo, groups of dialogue have formed in Italy, Europe, and South America.
Some groups explore themes of common interest, for instance “lay people and faith” or current affairs. Others, to broaden the dialogue, animate social and cultural projects, and others get involved in actions for solidarity.
Actions of solidarity
Various social initiatives have been supported in Eastern Europe (Croatia, Serbia, Albania), Russia, the Middle East (Jerusalem), Ecuador, Cameroon Republic, and Brazil.
“Dialogue among friends“. This is a newsletter translated into 5 languages, linking sixty existing groups and encouraging the exchange of experiences and reflections.
Secretariat for dialogue with people of no formal faith
Via Frascati, 306 00040 Rocca di Papa (Roma) IT tel. +39-06-9497488 fax +39-06-94790205
New Humanity Movement – International Secretariat
Via Valle della Noce, 16/6 00046 Grottaferrata (Roma) IT tel.


The group is now present in some 180 countries and includes members of various creeds, all dedicated to the spirituality of unity. 47.
CHIARA LUBICH, FOCOLARE FOUNDER, DEAD AT 88
Rome, March 14, 2008 (CWNews.com) Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare movement, died on March 14 at her home just outside Rome. She was 88 years old.
Born in Trent, Chiara Lubich was deeply moved by the hours she spent in prayer with friends during the heavy bombardment of the region by Allied troops in World War II. In 1943, at the age of 23, she took private vows and began working on the creation of a new lay movement.
The Focolare movement, which took its name from the Italian word for “hearths,” is dedicated to spiritual renewal in families and throughout the world. The group combines a strong Marian devotion with a commitment to ecumenical work, guided by the vision “that all may be one.”
Focolare spread quickly during the late 20th century, gaining official recognition from the Holy See in 1962. Today the lay movement claims hundreds of thousands of followers throughout the world.
Chiara Lubich had become an influential leader in the Church. She was a close adviser to Pope John Paul II, who appointed her to participate as an observer at several meetings of the Synod of Bishops. Upon learning of her death, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of her “tireless love for the abandoned Jesus” and her energetic work for “communion in the Church, for ecumenical dialogue and for fraternity among all peoples.”
Suffering from declining health for the past year, Lubich was hospitalized this past weekend when she had difficulty breathing. When she did not respond to medical treatment she chose to return home for her final hours of life.
The funeral for Chiara Lubich will be held at the Roman basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls on March 18. The Focolare movement will now face the choice of a new leader — who, according to the movement’s charter, must be a woman.


Catholic activist Chiara Lubich dies
March 17, 2008 http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=6232
One of the most influential women in the modern Catholic Church, Chiara Lubich, has died at the age of 88.
BBC news reports Lubich, who founded the Focolare Movement, died in Rome after years of ill health.
The UNESCO peace prize winner – who was close to the late Pope John Paul II – founded the lay movement, an organisation dedicated to helping the poor that has over two million supporters in more than 180 countries.
The movement seeks to spread Christian values by promoting traditional families and inter-religious dialogue.
Born in the northern Italian city of Trento, she felt a call during World War II at the age of 23 to alleviate human suffering.
Pope Benedict praised her “constant commitment for unity within the church, ecumenical dialogue and brotherhood among all people”. “I hope that all those who knew her or met her, admiring the wonders God performed through her fervent mission, follow in her footsteps, keeping her charisma alive,” the Pope said.
She won the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1996, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Prize in 1998 and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1977.
Her funeral will take place next Tuesday at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, the Vatican said.
1st Focolare Cofounder Dies
Rocca di Papa, Italy, April 2, 2008 (Zenit.org) Chiara Lubich’s first companion in founding the Focolare Movement died Tuesday, just two weeks after Lubich herself was laid to rest. Natalia Dallapiccola, 83, was “the first to follow [Chiara]” in death, just as she had done in life, a note from Focolare reported.
The Focolare movement highlighted the key role Dallapiccola had had in spreading their charism of unity in the countries of Eastern Europe. Lubich sent her to West Berlin in 1959 to start the movement there. Three years later she was sent to eastern Germany with the first group of Focolare doctors, requested there by the local bishop faced with the fleeing of medical professionals to the west. Dallapiccola also established contacts in Poland, then Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Lithuania.


Though her health was already waning by 1976, she opened within Focolare the mission of interreligious dialogue, building relationships with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist leaders. “Chiara had called Natalia ‘Anzolon,’ angel, in the Tridentine dialect, because of the ever living love in her for everyone,” Focolare statement noted.
‘Mirror Room’ Helps People Discover Divinity Within Themselves*
Post by Denden, Canada: August 21, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Though the idea is nice to help other people know that all of us are children of God therefore we shouldn’t be harming one another, there is a dangerous doctrinal error here in praying before a mirror instead of in front of the BODY and BLOOD of JESUS who is TRULY PRESENT in the TABERNACLE. This is reflected by the comment of the sister that the meditation room is a more important place of prayer than the TABERNACLE. If she has not been moved to love others while praying in front of Jesus, it is because she has not fully grasp the command of Christ to love others as he/she love himself. I think that to simply remind people about it frequently is enough to change our attitude towards others not necessarily having to pray in front of the mirror. This could lead to heretical views and watering down on the teachings of Christ and the Church. Look at the movement of Focolare founded by Chiara Lubich.
*Please see this ministry’s report entitled “UNIVERSAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT, INDORE” at
INFORMATION ON FOCOLARE, INDIA
The Focolare completes 25 years in India by Margaret Francis
In The Examiner, The Archdiocesan weekly of Bombay, January 21, 2006, Full page report.
EXTRACT: November 27, 2005 marked an important milestone in the life of the Focolare Movement in India.
St. Andrew’s Auditorium, Bandra was bustling with activity and universal brotherhood as it was the venue for the programme… It was the Silver Jubilee of the Focolare Movement in India! …Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Ivan Dias together with two more Bishops and a number of priests from different parts of India…
The programme was interlaced with artistic interludes.


A professional Bharata Natyam dancer performed an exquisite dance beseeching God to come into his soul and transform his mundane existence into one of divine glory of worshipping the Lord.
The audience watched the dance with reverence and awe, particularly because it was done by a Christian artiste and this form of dance has for a long time, been part of the Hindu culture…
Inter-religious Dialogue, one of the most beautiful fruits of the Focolare Movement, is an important tool for building unity. Various personalities who have been working with the Focolare for the progress of inter-religious dialogue in India were interviewed.
A hymn of praise to God our loving Father, whom we can all call upon by whatever name our faith teaches us, was sung by one of the eminent professors of the Hindu-Christian dialogue.
And as a gracious conclusion to a programme so profoundly full of grace, Cardinal Ivan Dias bestowed his blessing with encouraging words to the Focolare…
Super Congress’09: Children vow to stand up for peace
http://www.thehindu.com/2009/08/11/stories/2009081150770200.htm The Hindu, Staff Reporter, August 11, 2009
Coimbatore: As part of the Super Congress 2009, that took off in Coimbatore on Saturday, the participating children from various countries took a pledge to stand up for peace here on Sunday.
With the theme “Peace: Action for Violence against Children and Young People”, the Coimbatore Peace Festival was held at the Avinashilingam University for Women. The events began with the inauguration of the Peace Corners. It was an exhibition of the myriad religions and religious rituals and festivals of India. Then, the children and all others who were part of the Congress gathered on the grounds of the university and took part in the peace pledge.
T.K. Shanmuganandam, Chancellor, Avinashilingam University for Women, administered part of the oath that made the children promise that they would work with dedication to preserve and strengthen the unity of the communities and nations. They also guaranteed never to resort to violence and that they would always try to settle all differences and disputes peacefully.
The other part of the oath was administered by Alan Nazareth, Managing Trustee, Sarvodaya International Trust, Bangalore. He led the children in the pledge to commit themselves to peace and that they would always stand up for peace.


The pledge was followed by a video presentation on Hiroshima Day. Saroja Prabhakaran, Vice-Chancellor, Avinashilingam University for Women, Marina Pracchia and Roberto Catalano, representatives from the Focolare Movement, addressed the children. Cultural programmes by children representing various countries and cultures were performed.
Posting in KonkaniCatholics yahoogroup Digest No. 2081 by Adrian Pereira, November 15, 2009
The Movement & Our Charism
The Focolare Movement is an ecclesial Movement. It is part of the new charisms of the last century, which John Paul II, in his Apostolic Exhortation, ‘Christifideles Laici’, defined as “graces of the Holy Spirit for the edification of the Church, the good of mankind and the needs of the world.”
Every new movement has a particular charism, ours is – Unity!
Origin & About the Founder
During World War 2, as with most of Europe, the Italian city of Trent was being regularly bombed. In the midst of all this destruction, a group of young girls – most in their late teens & early twenties – used to take shelter in one of the many underground air-raid shelters. One of them was Chiara Lubich.
Each of these young women came to realize that nothing in this world is indestructible – all their dreams were destroyed. One wanted to go to University but could not, another looked forward to staying in a big house, but it was destroyed and another girl was waiting to get married to her fiancé but he never came back from the war.
They concluded that everything was “vanity of vanities” and could be destroyed. Everything except God Himself – so each time the air-raid sirens would go off, they would rush to the shelter and take along with them a copy of the Gospel.
There, gathered around a small fire-place (led by our Founder – Chiara Lubich), they would read God’s word and contemplate on it. On one such occasion, they came across the words of Jesus – “Father, May they all be one – as You & I are one”. They found new meaning in this desire of Jesus and from then on Unity became their way of life. They focused on “Living the Gospel” and loving everyone they came across – without exception.


The Idea Grows
Many around Chiara and her friends were impressed by their little acts of love during the war, where at times they gave everything they had to someone needier, always believing that God would provide a hundred-fold and HE did. People would come knocking at their door and were never turned away. 49.
As people approached them for help, they also wanted to know that amidst so much destruction what made these girls so cheerful and were inspired by their experience. Many decided to follow their simple principle, to actually “Live the Gospel” and the movement grew.
It was later recognized by the Holy Father as an ecclesial movement and was given the name – The Work of Mary. However, as the origin of the movement was around a Fire-Place (Foco in Italian), the movement also came to be popularly known as the Focolare.
The Movement Today
The Movement Today has grown across more than 190 countries around the world and has among its members, peoples of all nationalities, creeds, cultures, ages and walks of life. We have children, youth, those married, religious (even Bishops & Cardinals) who follow our Ideal of Love and Unity. We build unity in the world by doing small acts of love at the individual level. Then at the community level, there are a number of events and activities. At a more universal level, we are also involved in helping the Church further its inter-religious dialogue with Muslims (primarily in the US), with Buddhists (in S.E. Asia) and Sikhs, Hindus (in India).
This is easy – you are already a member if you simply follow the gospel and try to live it in your life, in your own small way. Then of course, you are invited to know more about us, so you can better understand our spirituality and calling. As our charism is Unity, we are open to everyone, who dreams of a united world and of spreading God’s love to all.
In India, we have centers in Mumbai (Mahim, Santacruz & Goregaon), New Delhi and Bangalore. We also have regularly a number of activities and out-reach in Goa, Pune and Mangalore.


To know more about the Focolare, I invite you to visit the International Website: http://www.focolare.org/home.php?lingua=EN
As mentioned by Prem, there might have been some controversies related to our involvement in inter-religious dialogues, of which I am personally not aware. However, Prem, I am sure if you are seeking the truth even in this matter, my friends will be happy to answer your questions.
If you are anywhere in India, you can send an email to email@example.com and request for specific information on current activities at your location. You are welcome to mention my reference & how you heard about the Movement.
GENERAL INFORMATION RELATED TO FOCOLARE
The Seven Capital Vices of the Movements, According to “La Civiltà Cattolica”
Three “dangers” and four “challenges”: through the magazine of the Rome Jesuits, the Vatican makes a critical appraisal of the movements. A warning for the Neocatechumenal Way, Focolare, Sant´Egidio, and Bose
by Sandro Magister
ROMA – With John Paul II, the communities and movements that have arisen within the Catholic Church during the past few decades have enjoyed a mild climate, wrapped up in the friendship of the pope. But shadows gather where light shines. A recent editorial in “La Civiltà Cattolica” listed the “dangers” and “challenges” posed to the Church by many of these movements. The editorial – dated June 19, 2004, entitled “The ecclesial movements today,” and signed by Jesuit Fr. Giuseppe De Rosa – is all the more important insofar as it was reviewed and authorized before printing by the Vatican secretariat of state, as is the rule for every edition of “La Civiltà Cattolica.” Reading it is like glancing over a reminder note, not for the use of the current pontificate, but for that of the next, with a list of unresolved questions. And the answers must be found. In making a survey of the “dangers” and “challenges” posed by the movements, the magazine does not mention names. But its not difficult for the experts to identify the institutes under criticism, point by point.


According to the editorial by “La Civiltà Cattolica,” “the most serious and difficult challenges that the ecclesial movements pose to the Church today” are the following four.
THE LEGISLATIVE VACUUM
The first is “the lack of an overarching law.” “The present code of canon law does not deal explicitly with the ecclesial movements,” and this generates confusion. They must be “given canonical systemization”: an undertaking “which, however, shows itself to be particularly difficult.”
This observation is valid for most of the movements. An important exception is represented by Opus Dei, which, since it became a personal prelature – the only one in the Church today – has enjoyed a solid and untouchable juridical framework.
The second concern is the presence in some movements of religious men and women belonging to other institutes: this “has provoked an identity crisis for some of them and has induced others to leave their own institutes or to establish a sort of dual membership.” This phenomenon is observed especially among the Charismatics and members of the Neocatechumenal Way. It frequently happens, for example, that Jesuits or Franciscans become part of these movements. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, official preacher of the papal household, is a famous case of dual membership: he is a Franciscan friar, and at the same time he is part of the Charismatic movement Renewal in the Spirit. There are many cases of dual membership among the Charismatics. In the Neocatechumenal Way, on the other hand, it happens more frequently that a religious abandons his own institute of origin and shifts completely to the movement founded by Kiko Argüello e Carmen Hernández. It is understandable that ancient and glorious religious families would not look with a kindly eye upon the exit of their own consecrated men and women, and the passage of these into new movements.


NON-CATHOLICS IN THE HOUSE
The third challenge “is constituted by the fact that some ecclesial movements […] admit baptized non-Catholics”: if these “were to become very numerous, they might influence the general assemblies to make substantial statutory changes, putting in danger the Catholic nature of the movement itself.”
This brings to mind the Focolare movement founded and headed by Chiara Lubich, which counts among its members thousands of non-Catholics and non-Christians, among whom are many Muslims and Buddhists. It is true that the non-Catholics belonging to Focolare do not enjoy any deliberative power, but the fear is that they might gain influence as a pressure group and weigh upon the public image of the movement and of the Church, in a relativistic sense.
More substantial is the case of the monastic community of Bose, the founder and prior of which is Enzo Bianchi. There are some non-Catholics who have full membership in this community: the Swiss Reformed pastor Daniel Attinger, two other Protestants, and the Orthodox monk Emilianos Timiadis, previously the metropolitan archbishop of Silyvría. And this is enough to make it impossible for Bose to receive canonical approval from the Holy See, not to mention the other obstacle constituted by its being a mixed community, with monks and nuns in the same monastery.
PRIESTS TORN AWAY FROM THE DIOCESES
The fourth critical point mentioned by “La Civiltà Cattolica” deserves to be cited in full:
“The most delicate challenge is that of the participation of priests in the movements. It must be remembered, in the first place, that some movements have created their own seminaries, in which the students are formed according to the charism of the movement and prepared to be priests at the service of the movement itself. Then there remains the open question of the canonical incardination of these priests: if the movement has as its marks universality and missionary activity, which are recognized and approved by the Holy See in granting the movement the status of a public association, who should incardinate its priests? Generally, recourse is had to an instrumental incardination, in which a bishop well disposed toward the movement incardinates the priest into his diocese, while leaving him available – in general full time and with full freedom of movement – to the movement itself, through a written agreement.


This means that a priest thus incardinated is at the service of the movement, wherever it may need him. But difficulties can arise if a bishop is succeeded by another who does not agree with this type of incardination, or if urgent and grave pastoral needs require the presence of the priest in the diocese: in this case, it can happen that the bishop tends to restrict the freedom of the priest and ignore the written agreement. Among other issues, such an agreement has more a formal than a juridical value, as it is not provided for in canon law.”
Many movements correspond to this profile. The most visible case is that of the Neocatechumenal Way, with more than fifty “Redemptoris Mater” seminaries throughout the world, from which thousands of priests have emerged and been juridically incardinated in the dioceses, but are often, in fact, at the exclusive service of the Way.
Analogous cases include the Community of Sant´Egidio, Focolare, the Marian Oases, the Missionary Community of Villaregia, and many more: all with priests at their service, ordained or contributed by friendly bishops.
The solution proposed by “La Civiltà Cattolica” is that “the movements that are by nature universal and missionary should obtain the faculty of incardinating their own clergy,” as is the case for the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits, and for the institutes of consecrated life in general.
In effect, among the movements that have arisen during the past few decades, some have already obtained the faculty of incardinating their own priests: the Legionaries of Christ, the Lefebvrists who re-entered the Catholic Church, the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo – linked with Communion and Liberation and with superior general Fr. Massimo Camisasca – and, naturally, Opus Dei, as it is a personal prelature.
The Neocatechumenal Way has tried, in the past, to obtain the status of a personal prelature. But without success. Many of the new movements have characteristics that make them unsuitable for full approval by the Vatican Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life.


+39-06-94315635 fax +39-06-9410972
e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org – email@example.com
Città Nuova, opinion magazine – has celebrated 50 years of activity in 2006 (www.cittanuova.it). Since the end of the 1950s it has always been close to its readers, in order to inform them on world events, ecumenism, culture, art, and theater from the “perspective of unity” and to make known the movement’s spirituality and experience. It has progressively multiplied in the five continents and today 37 editions in 22 languages are published all over the world.
Città Nuova in English:
New City – England: http://www.focolare.org.uk/Newcity.htm
Living City – U.S.A.:
New Humanity, a bimonthly magazine for a theological-cultural formation.
Unity and Charisms, for the world of religious congregations
Gen’s, for the priesthood
New Humanity Movement – International secretariat
Via Valle della Noce, 16/6 00046 Grottaferrata (Roma) IT tel. +39-06-94315635 fax +39-06-9410972
Maria Voce in Asia: in dialogue with Buddhists in Japan and Thailand 01/01/2010
The Focolare President is beginning the New Year with her first trip to Asia, to visit Focolare communities. A special focus will be interfaith encounters, continuing the work of Chiara Lubich. The trip has the Pope’s blessing
Maria Voce, Focolare president, leaves on her first trip to Asia with the Pope’s blessing, “in the hope of numerous graces”. His blessing is “extended to all the communities in the countries to be visited, which are especially close to the Pope’s heart.” So said the letter signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State.
The programme includes: Korea (6-10/1), Japan (11-16/1), Philippines (17-31/1 including Tagaytay, Manila and Cebu), Thailand (1-20/2 including Bangkok and Chiang Mai)
Of particular importance are the interfaith meetings.


The Marian Oases, for example, apart from having a woman as superior general, have communities of men and women together: under these conditions, it is unlikely that they would obtain from the Holy See permission to incardinate their own priests.
To this list of four unresolved problems, the editorial of “La Civiltà Cattolica” adds three warnings of other dangers inherent to the movements.
The first danger: “The tendency to make absolute their own Christian experience, holding it to be the only valid one, for which reason the ‘true’ Christians would be those who are part of their own movement.”
The second: “The tendency to close themselves off; that is, to follow their own pastoral plans and methods of formation for the members of the movement, to carry out their own apostolic activities, refusing to collaborate with other ecclesial organizations, or seeking to occupy all the territory themselves, leaving scarce resources for the activities of other associations.”
The third: “The tendency to cut themselves off from the local Church, making reference in their apostolic activity more to the methods of the movement and the directives of its leaders than to the directives and pastoral programs of the dioceses and parishes. From this arises the sometimes bitter tensions that can be created between the ecclesial movements and the bishops and pastors.”
Disputed Questions – Like Salvation Outside of the Church
ROMA – To celebrate the 25th anniversary of John Paul II’s pontificate, cardinals from all over the world will converge on Rome next October. The journalists who cover the Vatican, meanwhile, are traveling in the opposite direction. From Rome, they are swarming to 25 cities on five continents to talk about the pope.
It’s an initiative of Italy’s foreign ministry. Sandro Magister was assigned Tokyo, a congenial city with his preselected theme: the relationship between the Catholic Church and the great non-Christian religions, in particular those of Asia.
Here is the complete text of the conference address:
John Paul II and the Other Religions: From Assisi*
to “Dominus Iesus”
by Sandro Magister
Tokyo, June 18, 2003 *Assisi: see pages 35, 36, 46
There are some events that John Paul II and he alone, has wished should take place.


He has desired them and brought them into being, for the first time in papal history and against the will of many members of the Church of his time – cardinals, bishops, priests, and faithful. It is likely that no other pope will reproduce them, at least not in the same way.
He carried out the first of these very special events at Assisi on October 27, 1986. He called to his side representatives from the most varied religions in the world and asked them to pray for peace – each to his own god. The multicolored swath of religious men in Piazza San Francesco, with the pope among them dressed in white, was a potent symbol.
But it was a dangerous symbol as well. Even though the idea was far from John Paul II’s intention, the message that came out of this meeting, for many, was one of a kind of United Nations of faiths. It seemed to speak of a multireligious coexistence in which each faith was as good as the other, and among which the Catholic Church took its place as an equal.
Years later, in fact, on August 6, 2000, Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger felt it their duty to make a declaration that would act as an antidote to this relativistic poison. It was titled “Dominus Iesus,” and it recalled a basic, fundamental Christian truth: that man finds salvation only in Jesus. The declaration triggered an earthquake. From without, the champions of secularism accused the Church of intolerance. From within, charges of anti-ecumenism sprang forth. This was a sign that “Dominus Iesus” had pinpointed a real malady in the Church, one that was discovered in Assisi and that had its destabilizing effects in Asia, and even more so in the Indian subcontinent. But let’s take things in order.
The first event on this rocky road was staged in 1986, in the town of Saint Francis. John Paul II made the announcement on January 25, and the critical reactions came immediately, especially within the Vatican Curia. But the pope wouldn’t be bridled, and entrusted the management of the event to one of his trusted cardinals, one of the few who agreed with him on this point, the French cardinal Roger Etchegaray, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.


The liturgical aspect was handled by Virgilio Cardinal Noé, the previous papal master of ceremonies. The scenographic and organizational aspects of the event were entrusted to the community of Sant’Egidio and the Focolare movement, both seasoned engineers of media events and already at the center of an international network for relations with non-Christian religions.
On October 27, television stations all over the world broadcast the images of the event that the pope had so strongly desired: pilgrimage, fasting, prayer, peace among peoples and religions. John Paul II even revived a medieval tradition by invoking on that day a “divine truce,” a halt in the use of arms on all war fronts throughout the world. It so happened that practically no combatants paid attention, but the symbol outweighed reality, and the image of the pope praying with the heads of so many different religions established itself as one of the most powerful signs of his entire pontificate.
But at the same time, critical reservations about the event were taking shape. The event in Assisi added fuel to the fire through some of its more excessive gestures. Some of the city’s churches were allotted for the prayers of Buddhists, Hindus, and African animists, as if these buildings were neutral containers, void of any indelible Christian value. The Buddhists set up a shrine of Buddha on the altar of the local Church of Saint Peter. The absence from Assisi of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the prefect for the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was not improperly interpreted as the self-distancing of the cardinal who, by his office, is the custodian of sound Catholic doctrine. The pope himself did not escape criticism. There were those who recalled that in February of that same year, during his voyage to India, he had given speeches of unprecedented openness toward that country’s religions, and at Bombay had
even let a priestess of the god Shiva anoint his forehead with a sacred Hindu symbol. A few of those who complained about this were Indian bishops. One of them, from Andhra Pradesh, said, “The pope knows Hinduism from books, but we, who live with it and see the damage it does to our good people, would never make certain speeches.”
“Redemptoris Missio,” 1990
John Paul II was aware of the criticisms.


But that’s not all – he welcomed and shared the deep meaning of the remarks made by Ratzinger and others of similar stature. The pope confirmed this in an encyclical that he began to draft soon after the meeting in Assisi, which would come to light in 1990: “Redemptoris Missio.” As seen in its initial Latin words, the same as those in the title, the theme of this encyclical is the evangelizing mission of the Church, as it obeys the command of the Risen Jesus to His disciples, to go forth and teach and baptize all men, even unto the ends of the earth. As often happens, this encyclical was not produced in a vacuum, but was given in response to a real or feared straying from the mark: a stroke of the rudder by the successor of Peter to put the barque of the Church onto the right course.
The straying in question is, more specifically, the impoverishment of Catholic missionary vitality, its dilution into a vague dialogue with other religions and cultures, or even worse, into a dialogue stripped of the will to proclaim the truth and to solicit conversion to Christ, the only savior. 52.
In effect, beginning from the affirmation of the Second Vatican Council in the decree “Nostra Aetate,” according to which “the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in other religions,” the period after the council saw the widespread approval of the idea of transforming the missions into a simple commitment to foster the maturation of the “seeds of truth” present in the various religions – in other words, to help the Hindu be a good Hindu or help the Muslim worship his one God – as if these seeds were themselves distinct ways of salvation, independent of Christ and even more independent of the Church.
“Redemptoris Missio” decisively contrasts this “indifferent mentality, unfortunately widely diffused among Christians as well, which is rooted in incorrect theological views marked by a religious relativism that leads to the conviction that one religion is as good as another” (no. 36). The encyclical reaffirms the necessity and urgency of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus. This means an explicit proclamation. It means a proclamation made in the certainty that no other religion can save anyone apart from Christ, the only “way, truth, and life.” Few at the time noted the centrality of this encyclical in the teaching of John Paul II.


But ten years later, when the pope thought it necessary and urgent to return to these themes, many citations from this encyclical were used emphatically in “Dominus Iesus,” which reemphasized even more definitively than “Redemptoris Missio” that proclaiming Christ to the nations is both unavoidable and irreplaceable.
The Asian Question
In 1994, John Paul II explained again his view of relations between the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions in his book/interview entitled “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” published simultaneously in many languages.
The pope maintains that there are religions that are by nature “particularly close to Christianity,” like the animist religions of Africa, from which conversion to the Gospel can come more easily. But he formulates an opposite judgment concerning the “great religions of the Far East”: Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism. These “are of a systematic character,” and are thus far less penetrable. This explains why, in these regions, “the missionary activity of the Church has born, we must acknowledge, very modest fruit.”
But the pope dedicates most of his attention and concern to Buddhism. This religion, he says, “is, like Christianity, a religion of salvation,” but the doctrines of salvation contained in these religions are “contrary” to each other. Buddhism’s salvation is “negative,” based upon the conviction that “the world is evil, and is the source of evil and suffering for man,” and that “to free oneself from this evil one must free oneself from the world.” This does not involve drawing nearer to God: “Complete detachment is not union with God, but the so-called ‘nirvana,’ or rather a state of perfect indifference toward the world.” Ultimately, “Buddhism is to a great extent an atheistic system,” despite the fascination it exercises. “Thus it is not out of place to warn those Christians who open themselves enthusiastically to certain proposals coming from the religious traditions of the Far East.”
These unexpectedly harsh judgments that the pope expressed in regard to the religion of Buddha provoked protests among Buddhists, but also among Catholic theologians in the avant-garde of dialogue with other religions. There were those who thought John Paul II was retreating from the advances in dialogue made in Assisi.


In reality, in the same chapter of his book/interview, the pope recalled the interreligious encounter of 1986 in words that, if anything, might have suggested the contrary suspicion. The “historic” meeting in Assisi, he said, had convinced him more than ever that “the Holy Spirit works efficaciously even outside the visible organism of the Church.” And “he works upon the foundation of the ‘semina Verbi’ that almost constitute a common soteriological root among all the religions.”
The Enigma of the ‘semina Verbi’
To non-specialists, the preceding phrase may sound enigmatic. “Soteriological root” means the capacity for eternal salvation. The “Verbum,’ ‘Logos’ in Greek, is the Son of God made man in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, through whom the world was made and by whom all men are saved. As for the ‘semina Verbi,’ ‘the seeds of the Word,’ this is a very ancient expression, coined by Justin Martyr c. 150 A.D., which returned in the documents of the Second Vatican Council to designate whatever is “true and holy” even in the non-Christian religions.
To be precise, according to the early Fathers of the Church, including Augustine, the ‘seeds of the Word’ do not fecundate the pagan religions, of which the Fathers give an extremely negative judgment; they are rather to be found in Greek philosophy and the wisdom of the poets and the sibyls. But in its modern version, the formula is applied precisely to the non-Christian religions, with two meanings. The first meaning is that of the Second Vatican Council, in which the ‘semina Verbi’ are the mysterious presence of Christ the savior in all religions, insofar as these contain what is “true and holy” and thus salvific as well, but always through Christ, in ways that only He knows.
The second meaning is the one adopted by some theological currents during the second half of the twentieth century. In the judgment of their adherents, non-Christian religions have their own salvific capacity, not a mediated one; all of them express the manifold experiences of the divine, in an independent and complementary way; and Christ is the symbol of these manifold ways rather than the one necessary way.
The oscillation between these two meanings is not only a matter of theological dispute.


It influences pastoral practice, the missions, and the public profile of the Church. The second of these meanings, in particular, took shape in a precise religious enterprise on the border between Christianity and Hinduism, created in India in the middle of the twentieth century by three spiritual adepts who came from Europe.
The Saccidananda Ashram
These three are the Frenchmen Jules Monchanin (1895-1957) and Henri Le Saux (1910-1973), and the Englishman Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), all priests, the latter two Benedictine monks. Monchanin and Le Saux, who emigrated to India, founded an ashram there in 1950, a place of meditation and prayer, dedicated to the Indian-Christian contemplation of the Trinity. They gave the ashram the name Saccidananda, a three-part Sanskrit word that evokes the ‘trinity’ of the Vedic religion: the origin of all, wisdom, and beatitude. 53.
The Saccidananda ashram stands even today in the wooded heart of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, in a sleepy little village called Thannirpalli, 300 miles south of Madras. And yet, this remote spiritual place soon became an extraordinary and cosmopolitan center of attention. In 1968, when Monchanin and Le Saux left the scene, Bede Griffiths became the site’s spiritual guide for a quarter of a century, and the ashram became part of the Camaldolese Benedictine family. Some of the most famous Catholic theologians working in the field of interreligious dialogue made extended visits there: from the Indian-Spanish priest Raimon Panikkar to the Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis; from the Senegalese Aloysius Pieris, another Jesuit, to the American Camaldolese Thomas Matus.
The place itself visibly displays the interweaving of the Christian and Hindu faiths. Even now, whoever visits the ashram will be struck by the resemblance between the church in which the monks pray, which contains some Buddhist elements, and a Hindu temple. The “Holy of Holies” is dark and mysterious, like the cavern of Mother Earth from which the new creation arises.


The colorful cupola is populated with saints and with four depictions of Jesus similar to the Buddha, a lotus flower, and the symbols of the five elements, all the way up to the vertex of infinite divinity. The monks begin every prayer with the sacred Sanskrit syllable “Om,” the primordial sound from which the earth was born. Every liturgy is reshaped and reflects interreligious spaces without immediately recognizable boundaries.
There is, however, a surprising element that leaps immediately to the eyes of the visitor, even more now than in past years. The few monks of the ashram are Indian, but the men and women who come to the monastery for hospitality are not: almost all of them come from Europe and North America. Conceived by the spiritual adepts of the Old Continent precisely as a bridge between the Christian faith and that of the Indian subcontinent, the Saccidananda ashram would seem to have failed to achieve its stated objective. It seems to reflect an unresolved problem entirely within Western Catholicism.
Cardinal Ratzinger Takes the Field
It is the problem that Cardinal Ratzinger subjected to incisive criticism in a substantial discourse given in Mexico in May of 1996 to the South American bishops, but intended for the entire Catholic world. It was a watershed address. Ratzinger, with the pope’s full consent, pointed to interreligious relativism as “the fundamental problem of faith in our time.” A few months later came a document from the International Theological Commission in line with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Then came the investigation of the theologian Dupuis, the most visible exponent of a “pluralistic theology of religions.” Then came the declaration “Dominus Iesus.” All of this was to reorient the Church with regard to a tendency judged as being extremely dangerous.
In his discourse in 1996, Ratzinger describes religious relativism as “a typical product of the Western world,” which is all the more insidious in that “it puts itself in contact with the philosophical and religious intuitions of Asia, particularly those of the Indian subcontinent.” And why is this so dangerous? Because throughout its history, Christianity has confronted various religious and anti-religious challenges, from Greek polytheism to Islam to modern secularism, but now that the Eastern religions are presenting the challenge, Western Christianity is more vulnerable.


This is because the Eastern religions have a natural affinity for the secular relativism that reigns supreme in the West. Thus they exercise a contagious fascination that smashes the very foundations of the Church.
The Church has sought to respond to this challenge in various ways over the past decades, and the 1996 document by the Theological Commission traces these responses back to three main principles. There is an “exclusivist,” or “neo-orthodox” current, which in the Catholic context stakes itself on the traditional magisterium, while that of Protestantism follows the great theologian Karl Barth. This current defends the thesis that Christianity is the only salvific faith and the only direct revelation of God to humanity. For the exclusivists, the ancient expression “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” (“Outside the Church there is no salvation”) holds firm.
Then there is the “inclusivist” current, which is well represented in Catholic theology by Karl Rahner. For its adherents, the previous maxim is reversed: “Ubi salus ibi Ecclesia” (“Wherever there is salvation, there is the Church”). And what they mean by the Church is a community as vast as the world, made up of baptized persons, professed Christians, but also by masses of “anonymous Christians”: those believers who find salvation in their respective religions, including those of Asia, and enter mysteriously by these tortuous ways, without realizing it, into the one Church of Christ.
Last come the “pluralists.” The most embattled of these is the Presbyterian theologian John Hick. But this current has its defenders even among Catholics, lead by the American Paul Knitter, followed by Panikkar, Pieris, and the spiritual teachers of the Saccidananda ashram. For the pluralists, Christianity does not have the right to make an exclusive claim to the truth. Even Christ is a transcendent reality, composed of all of his historical incarnations, of which Jesus is not the only – and perhaps not the last – instance. For the pluralists, the “Shema Israel” of the Jews, the Christian Creed, the Muslim act of faith “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,” and the Buddhist belief that at the heart of reality there is the emptiness of Nirvana all have their own saving power.
But are these professions of faith all equally true? This is a serious question.


From the assertion that “all faiths are valid” for salvation, the pluralists pass quickly to the assertion that “all faiths are true.” But can truth be relativized in this way? One can understand why Cardinal Ratzinger, the guardian of the Church’s doctrinal truth, would see a grave danger in theological pluralism. The fact that the secular and religious relativism of Europe and America receives this sort of consecration from the East adds to the persuasive force of his argument.
The Dupuis Case
Until the end of the ’90’s, anyway, pluralistic theorizing was limited to intellectual circles. Things changed when one of the regulars of the Saccidananda ashram, the Jesuit theologian Dupuis, left India and came to the Gregorian University in Rome, run by the Jesuits, the most authoritative of the pontifical universities and the one that for centuries has formed the leaders of the Catholic Church worldwide. 54.
In 1997, Dupuis published a book that was also the outline of his teaching, with the title “Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism.”
Until then, Dupuis had had a reputation as an orthodox theologian. The Vatican had called him in as a consultant for the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The secretary of the council at the time, Michael L. Fitzgerald, now its president, while speaking in Assisi at the tenth anniversary of John Paul II’s meeting with religious leaders, introduced him as “a Catholic theologian who avoids pluralism and forcefully opposes the trivialization of Christ.” And when the much-hyped book came out, the Gregorian endorsed it with great praise; the enthusiasts included Fitzgerald and the rector of the athenaeum, Giuseppe Pittau, the former rector of Sophia University in Tokyo and currently the secretary of the Vatican congregation for Catholic education.
But the wind changed a few months later. On April 14, 1998, “Avvenire,” the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, unexpectedly did a hatchet job on the book, in an article written by a theologian with strong Vatican ties, Inos Biffi (no relation to Cardinal Biffi). Also in April, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the one Ratzinger presides over, opened a preliminary inquiry of Dupuis and his book.


In Tokyo, Japan, on 15 January Maria Voce has been invited to address 5000 adherents of the lay Buddhist movement Rissho Kosei Kai (RKK),
while on 3 February in Bangkok, Thailand, she will speak at the IVth Christian-Buddhist symposium on the subject, “Dharma and Buddhist compassion – Christian Agape in the world today.” The symposium has been jointly organised by the Mahachulalongkorn University in Chang Mai, the Focolare Movement and the RKK, and there will be participants from Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, USA, Great Britain and Italy. While in Thailand, Maria Voce will meet Grand Master Ajahn Tong and will speak to young Buddhist monks at the Mahachulalongkorn University.
“This dialogue is in continuity with that begun 30 years ago by Chiara Lubich. After her departure, it must not stop, it must receive a new boost,” said Maria Voce. In 1981, at the invitation of Nikkyo Niwano, Chiara Lubich had shared her Christian experience in Tokyo with over 10000 adherents of the RKK, sowing the seeds of a dialogue of life that has developed over the years. “The Focolare movement in Thailand has many Buddhist friends
that share this Ideal and who are working together for a more united world, and for lasting peace for all,” declared the Buddhist monk Pra Thongrattana at Chiara Lubich’s funeral. Bearing a message from Grand Master Ajahn Tong, he had said, “Chiara is the one who brought light to a world in darkness.”
In each city she visits, Maria Voce will go to meet the local Catholic Bishop, and will also meet the Focolare community.
In Korea, her programme includes a meeting with a small group of parliamentarians who belong to the Focolare’s Political Movement for Unity.
In the Philippines, on 28 January in Manila, she will take part in a round table during the meeting for all the Bishops and clergy of that country, an event which happens every ten years.
FROM THE WEB SITE OF EX-MEMBERS OF FOCOLARE
Welcome on the website for and by ex-members of the Focolare movement. The website is made in order to give people who have left the Focolare a chance to meet in freedom.


On June 10, Ratzinger and the other cardinals of the congregation decided to conduct a secret investigation.
Even Dupuis was told nothing. But another signal appeared in the middle of the summer. “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the bimonthly published by the Jesuits in Rome, issued a review critical of Dupuis’ book. The review was as authoritative as the man who wrote it, the respected Jesuit Giuseppe De Rosa. But it had an even greater value, as do all the articles of “La Civiltà Cattolica”: it was read and approved before publication by the Vatican secretary of state. The article ended with a list of accusations in the guise of questions, first of all about Jesus Christ: “Does the Christology of Fr. Dupuis do full justice to the contents of the New Testament and Tradition?” Then it asked about the Church: “Has it given the proper importance to the mediation of the Church in the work of salvation?” It finished with a question about the necessity of converting unbelievers: “If the other religious traditions have their own salvific figures, their own prophets, their own sacred scriptures; if they are already the people of God, already part of the kingdom of God, why should they be asked to become disciples of Christ?”
On October 2, 1999, Dupuis was finally told that he was under investigation. The Jesuit Father General, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, sent him a list of the points of controversy, which had been established by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was given three months to present a brief in his defense. Meanwhile, he was obliged to speak to no one about the contested themes. He could not even continue to teach, as his course at the Gregorian was closely connected to those themes.
It was the notice of the termination of the course, posted at the Gregorian, that brought the case into the public eye – and the polemics broke out immediately. The English Catholic publication “The Tablet” came to the defense of the accused with an article by no less than the Austrian cardinal Frank Konig, over ninety years old and one of the pillars of the Second Vatican Council. But the most resounding reactions came from India.


The archbishop of Calcutta, Henry D’Souza, accused the Vatican of wanting to gag theologians by attacking one “respected for his orthodoxy” with the intention of silencing them all, with India especially in its sights. And it’s true, in fact, that India was under fire. Before the outbreak of the Dupuis case, the last two condemnations by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were from that subcontinent. The first was Tissa Balasuriya, a religious of Sri Lanka, who was excommunicated in 1996 for his disturbing book in which he demolished important articles of the Creed, and was then readmitted to the Church on condition of repentance. The second was Anthony De Mello, an Indian Jesuit who wrote wildly successful best-sellers, still sold in dozens of languages, who was condemned “post mortem” on June 24, 1998, under the accusation of having dissolved God, Jesus, and the Church into a cosmic, somewhat New Age spirituality with an oriental flavor.
“Dominus Iesus,” 2000
The Holy Year of 2000 was drawing near, as planned and prepared with great care by John Paul II, and the Church seemed to want to establish clarity withindoors. The inauguration of the Jubilee, in reality, refocused some of the critics. The ceremony of the opening of the holy door was audaciously new, compared with tradition, and was vaguely interreligious: the resplendently vested pope was surrounded by dancers in Indian costumes perfumed with oriental scents. But the pope was in no frame of mind for peaceable concessions, as demonstrated by the strong gestures with which he opened the Jubilee year: from the “mea culpa” for the sins of Christians in the past, to the remembrance of the martyrs of yesterday and today, to the solemn reaffirmation of the doctrine according to which “Jesus Christ, and no one else, can give us salvation.” (Atti 12:4)
This reaffirmation took on weight in a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated August 6, 2000, whose title is taken from its initial Latin words: “Dominus Iesus.” It is not presented as an organic treatment of the relationship between the Christian faith and other religions. It limits itself to defining the errors to be corrected and to repeating the essential truth.


One of its central passages reads: “The thesis that the revelation of Jesus Christ is of a limited, incomplete, and imperfect character, and must be completed by the revelation present in other religions, is contrary to the faith of the Church….This position radically contradicts the affirmations of faith according to which the full and complete revelation of the salvific mystery of God is given in Jesus Christ” (no. 6).
“Dominus Iesus” shields itself with many citations from the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Even so, as soon as it was published, it was met with a deluge of criticism, both from within and from outside the Church, second only to the reception that the highly controversial encyclical “Humanae Vitae” received in 1968. The most famous of the theologians, Hans Kung, labeled it as “a combination of medieval backwardness and Vatican megalomania.” 55.
It was rejected by leaders of other Christian confessions and other religions. There were protests from defenders of secularism, tolerance, ecumenism, and dialogue.
But the more striking fact is that among the critical voices there also appeared those of senior leaders of the Church hierarchy. Archbishop (now Cardinal) Karl Lehmann, the president of the German bishops’ conference, contested the declaration’s lack “of the style of the great Council documents.” The other German archbishop, Walter Kasper (also a future cardinal), complained of “communication problems.” Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini echoed his comment, hoping that “little by little things will be made clear.” But the most clamorous was the distancing of the Australian cardinal Edward Cassidy, then president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. From Lisbon, where he was participating in an interreligious meeting after the model of Assisi, Cassidy contrasted the ecumenical sensitivity of the office over which he presided with the insensitivity of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directed by Ratzinger: “We, with our ecumenical experience, have a sensitive ear that tells us something is being disturbed.


They, on the other hand, have the scholastic manner of saying ‘This is true, that is not true.’ This document has created ambiguity, and now we must seek to avoid imprecise interpretations.” To reassure the critics, Cassidy added that in any case “Dominus Iesus” did not bear the pope’s signature, as if to say that its authority was weak and that it could be corrected easily.
Return to the Origins
In fact, it was Ratzinger who signed the document. But at the end of the document, it was also written that John Paul II had “ratified and confirmed [it] with sure understanding and with his apostolic authority and [had] ordered its publication.” And to avoid any ambiguity, on Sunday, October 1, 2000, the pope intervened publicly and in person to reemphasize that he had wanted “Dominus Iesus” and “approved it in a special way.”
Ratzinger himself countered the specific accusations made by Church authorities, in an interview he gave to “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,” reprinted on October 8 by “L’Osservatore Romano.” “Dominus Iesus,” the cardinal said, represented the Council documents “without adding or taking away anything.” Both Cassidy and Kasper “participated actively in the drafting of the document,” and “almost all of their proposals were accepted.” If there were a problem of understanding, “the document should be translated, not scorned.” But above all, “with this declaration, whose authors proceeded step by step with great attention, the pope wished to offer to the world a great and solemn acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord at the Holy Year’s culmination, thus firmly bringing the essence of the Christian faith to the center of this event.”
The polemics surrounding “Dominus Iesus,” Ratzinger concludes, must not obscure its true objective, that of forcefully reaffirming “the essence of Christianity,” summed up by the apostle Paul in the formula of faith “Jesus is Lord”(1 Cor. 12:3).
This last statement is the one that really marks this dispute.


A cardinal and theologian, Giacomo Biffi, archbishop of Bologna, takes it up and repeats it in pointed words: “That the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should have thought it necessary to intervene in the question of ‘the uniqueness and universal salvific character of Jesus and the Church’ with the declaration “Dominus Iesus” is of unprecedented seriousness, because in two thousand years there has never been felt the need to recall and defend such basic truths.”
The follow-up to the events comforted both Ratzinger and Biffi, as well as the pope. In the fall of 2001, among the most important cardinals and bishops meeting for a synod in Rome, none of them returned to polemicize over “Dominus Iesus.” On the contrary, most of them agreed that religious orthodoxy was in danger, and that it was necessary to restate fundamental truths. Dupuis made his amends, and signed a Vatican pronouncement that reaffirmed that “it is contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the various religions of the world as ways complementary to the Church in the order of salvation.” The theologian Angelo Amato, a specialist in Christology and oriental religions who had lived for many years in India and was one of the authors of the outline of “Dominus Iesus,” was promoted to the top level of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Ratzinger’s chief collaborator.
And thus John Paul II, on January 24, 2002, could return to Assisi with greater tranquility for an interreligious prayer meeting similar to the one in 1986. Similar, but not the same, that is. It took care to avoid any appearance of syncretism and confusion. Ratzinger, who had stayed away the last time, came to this meeting. His conviction, which is also that of the pope, is that “the faith of simple believers must be protected.” And this is the function of the magisterium of the Church: “The baptismal Creed, in its ingenious literalness, is the measure of all theology.


And the Church must be able to tell its faithful which opinions correspond to the faith and which do not.”
To make a sum of this account, between the first and the last of his trips to Assisi, John Paul II has accompanied the whole Church on a rediscovery of the fountain of its life, its reason for being: “Dominus Iesus,” Jesus is Lord.
Lilly Marie Caldwell Medina
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:47 AM Subject: Surprise !!!!
…I was taking a Eucharist course with the Bishop of Miami, it was very interesting, but I expected to learn more things, people started to talk too much to the Bishop about the problems in their parishes and did not let him give the class as he was supposed to, but it is O.K. I met very nice people…
I am very impressed with the attachments you sent to me about the Tsunami, very impressed also with the story of the 400 Catholics that nothing happened to them. Certainly you are privileged, good Christian, good writer, much talents and thanks God you give Praise to HIM using them for HIS Glory.
Michael, I met some persons of a movement called “Focolare Movement” founded in Italy by Chiara Lubich, she is still alive, do you know something about this movement? I have been doing some searching in the Internet but I will like to know more about them. I was considering join them, but first I want to know in the very deep inside of the movement their real doctrine and way of working with the Church. Well Michael, receive my love to you and family.
God Bless + Lilly Marie Medina, USA
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 5:32 PM
Dearest Michael, Thank you very much for your reply + news. I’ll keep pray from now regarding the problem in your eye.
Here below the e-mail that I sent you after I met Fr. Joseph in Calcutta:…..
… And I have shown the works of Fr. Joseph to one of our Carmelite Father (he was an official exorcist for a while…) so, he also told me that his writings are very well done (he asked me if there are copies of Fr. Joseph’s writings also in Italian and Spanish!!!). I really hope to get in touch with Fr. Joseph in the future (and he encouraged me to do so).


Then, Michael, I wrote to you again from Bombay, bringing you some news from there:…….
You see Michael! Jesus permitted that I met and spoke directly to Fr. Korko, just a little while before I left St Xavier’s…
So, he informed me about his last year of Sabbatical time… He gave me a couple of “good” addresses (SIGH!!!!) of indo-
Christian Ashrams, and he encouraged me to write back to him… He is going to apply to the new Jesuit Provincial Father to manage a new place somewhere… I’ll investigate about that, and I’ll let you know…
In Bombay everything went well. I stayed in St. Pius X Seminary Complex, so I met many priests there. A community of Focolare is very close to the Seminary, so I met consecrated people also there. Yes, Michael, there was enough time to meet Bro. Alvito too (but I think that, if the Lord, in a way, didn’t permit that, it could mean that it wasn’t the right moment!)… Pietro Braccu, Italy
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:38 PM Subject: Your website
Dear Mr. Michael Prabhu,
I am a practising Catholic in the Charismatic Renewal (not a part of any group) and would like to be updated with the teachings of the Catholic Church and any other anti-catholic teachings that infiltrate the Church, which I found on your website. Please add me on to your e-mailing list.
I would like to suggest a few topics that you could include in your website:
The Focolare movement (Catholic in origin but seemingly going the wrong way)…
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 12:58 PM Subject: Re: THANK YOU FOR WRITING
Dear Bro. Michael Prabhu,
…Regarding some info on Focolare, please click on the links below
In the first link, though the facts of Focolare as put forth by the blogger seem authentic, this person’s ideas/ideals as represented in her website seem questionable. She is against the Catholic Charismatic Renewal itself, which I think is due to lack of involvement with the right group(s) and unclear direction.
The second link is a support website by people who have left Focolare due to various reasons….


APJ
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 3:23 PM Subject: FOCOLARE
If you have any documentary [printed] evidence of errors* in the Focolare movement, please send me or tell me where to locate them. *The errors are connected with ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue Love, Michael
EXAMPLE 2: The Examiner, January 21, 2006, Full page report. The Focolare completes 25 years in India
Dear Reverend Fathers and friends,
If you have any documentary [printed] evidence of errors* in the Focolare movement, please send me [with source details] or tell me where to locate them.
*The errors are connected with ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue, and even New Age, I understand!!!
If you know anyone in India or overseas, layperson, priest or Bishop, connected with the Focolare, could you, in confidentiality, please give me their contact information? Love, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 10:35 PM Subject: Re: FOCOLARE
Dear Mike, I am glad you have taken up about this movement.
I always felt the Focolare too had a contribution to make to he evil that’s affecting the Church. I felt that in the name love of IRD is extending too far. I gather that at their gatherings in Mumbai one of the activities that they have by way of recreation is Yoga. This is reliable info.
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 1:40 AM Subject: Re: FOCOLARE
Dear Mike, I am trying to get you details of Focolare….but there is the same difficulty as this minister expressed. The reason: many have experiences a great bit of love, acceptance and respect in this movement and hence they would not want to betray the movement where they have felt blessed… yet at the same time they know that there are a few instances of new age practices. One of them even said: Why blame them (Focolare) when the Church in itself is corrupt and promoting these things or are even silent or not clear about many things?????????? So very true.
Maria Laura Pio
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 5:31 PM Subject: Re: FOCOLARE
Dear Michael, Hello! I just read your mail.


I have often heard those same things about the Focolare, but I never went to dig up the matter. There is a recent blog created by ex-members of the Focolare: http://blogfocolare.blogspot.com/ I do not know these persons, but perhaps if you contact them, they can give you information.
Warmly in Christ, Maria Laura, Switzerland
UPDATE JANUARY 1, 2013
priest, name withheld
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2012 2:30 AM Subject: remember – be aware
I remember that a few years back we had a little telephonic discussion about the Focolare and we did feel that something was wrong about it. I did not do any further study on it at that time because Pope John Paul II was an active promoter of this movement along with many in the hierarchy in Rome and here too. I do not know how they have landed in Mumbai and have a base here in Mumbai. I do not know whether you have done some research on them but it seems to be a very serious issue. I have realized the seriousness when I was talking to a person very much involved with the Focolare and was stunned at her conviction and the hurt she experienced when I had to tell her that it is a dangerous movement to be in.
I see that Cardinal Oswald Gracias also holds a same philosophy of God and love, as evident from his many interviews and that he is often in touch with them.
The following link gives a fantastic exposure
I always felt that it was a movement in the church to prepare the way of the Anti-Christ!
– CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS –
THE FOCOLARI MOVEMENT AND ITS INTERNATIONAL RAMIFICATIONS
By Dr. Regina Hinrichs
This article was written from a conference given by the author to the congress “Theologisches”, at Fulda, in October 1997.
For many years, Dr. Hinrichs has undertaken researches regarding contemporary subversive religious movements. During her works, she was naturally led to put her attention to the powerful organization of the “Focolari” (in Italian, hearths, homes) and to its “Charismatic” founder, Chiara Lubich.
The “Focolari” (whose original name is “Opus Mariae”- The Work of Mary) defines itself as a militant movement for unity, open to persons of all convictions.


Today, its influence spreads to the whole world. They are very active propagators of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogues. – Le Sel de la Terre, No.25
THE VISIBLE ORGANIZATION OF THE “FOCOLARI”
To make a sound judgement concerning the Focolari Movement, to understand the personality of its founder Chiara Lubich and untangle the interdependence which unite the multiple international ramifications of this movement, it is necessary to take a look at its organization and the extent of its network.
Let us start by some figures. During the ecumenical meeting of Graz, (Austria), in the summer of 1997, Chiara Lubich boasted that there are followers of more than three hundred churches were adhering to her work founded in 1943. According to her own informations, the movement counts more than 90,000 internal members, to which is necessary to add two million sympathizers from more than one-hundred eighty countries. The “Words of Life”, commentaries of the passages of the Holy Scripture composed by Chiara Lubich, have been translated in ninety languages. Twenty-seven publishing houses belong to the “Focolari“.
There are multiple ways to adhere to the movement: in the center members are found who are tied by a formal engagement and live in little communities according to the practice of three vows (poverty, chastity, obedience); then, come the married adherents who equally make vows; finally, the voluntary collaborators who belong to one of the satellite organizations surrounding it.
Thus the movement of volunteers is born, that is the group of laymen without formal engagement, which has given birth to the “Movement for a New Society”. This one, in its turn, has promoted the “International Bureau of Economy and Work (labor) which enjoys a consultative voice at the UN.
We must also mention diverse associations Gen (from the Italian, generations): that of young adults, that of the youth and of the children, who all add to their name this formula: “For a United World“. Let us also notice the male musicians (Gen Rosso) and also the female musicians (Gen Verde), and also the Gen S (seminarians), for the Focolari disposes of their own seminaries for the formation of priests. It is then just that the foundress speaks of “our” theologians and of “our” theology.


The site also provides information for people not yet familiar with the Focolare and for people who consider leaving the movement.
FOR MEMBERS OF THE FOCOLARE AND GEN MOVEMENTS
Last update: February 23rd 2008
Dear Gen, Pope and Popi, volunteers and members of other branches in the Focolare movement.
Welcome to the alternative Focolare website. This is the place on our website for people who are part of the Focolare or Gen movement.
If you come across this website while you are a member of the Focolare, I can understand if you feel hurt, surprised, shocked or even angry. “Who is this person, writing about Focolare and why?”, you might ask.
Who made this website?
I have been a Gen for many years, later a Volunteer and member of a national Coordinating Council of the movement. After 20 years I have started to ask questions about the way things are done in the movement. Even after insisting for a long time, my questions were not answered. I was supposed to trust in the Love of God and the voice of Jesus in our midst. I have given may years of my life to the movement, many thousands of dollars, I even married the person that was meant for me according to my Gen-assistant. I called the pope and popi my brothers and sisters, and yet sadly we have grown apart.
Now I could have started a new life and forget about this period in the movement. It would have been the easy way. many former members do like this. Why not me? I don’t have a grudge against the movement. I do not hate, nor feel bitter. I am aware of and grateful for the good things that have happened. I am aware that I was part of something big. I can still remember the meetings in Rocca di Papa, Frascati, Loppiano, Castel Gandolfo. I feel my heart beating while listening to Gen Rosso and Gen Verde. Nothing is forgotten, and still I have decided to take my life a step further.
So why this website?
Several years ago I had the opportunity to meet Mother Theresa of Calcutta. With some pride in my voice I told her that I was a gen.


Later on, we shall come back on this point.
At regular intervals, the various Gen organize feasts. There are also summer meetings called Mariapolis and “general telephonic conferences” of each month. These reunions have for purpose to assure the cohesion at the bosom of this very widespread organism, to stimulate the spiritual life of members and to exchange news from the movement.
We must also mention the “colonies“. Nineteen exist to this day. The first ones are founded in Italy, such as that of Lo Piano installed near Florence since 1964. Others have been added with the passing of years, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Africa, in the United States, in Argentina, and in the Philippines.
Thus, let us recognize it, in almost fifty years, a considerable work has developed and widely spread in the entire world, a work which does not cease to grow and which is supported by numerous diocesan priests, religious, bishops, cardinals, and by the pope himself. As a matter of fact, to give an idea of the approbation which Pope John Paul II grants to the Focolari: he reserved to them the exclusive use of the audience’s room of Casteldolfo.
THE FOCOLARI: A MOVEMENT FOR THE UNITY OF RELIGIONS
After having briefly described the external structure of the Work of Mary (Opus Mariae, such is the official name of the Focolari), we must examine the foundations of this truly impressing construction. What are the spiritual and religious convictions which form the basis of this organism?
Three evangelical texts – strangely interpreted- are at the origin of the intuition of Chiara Lubich:
1) The prayer of Jesus ut unum sint;
2) The promise of the Lord, “When two or three are gathered in my name, I in the midst of them”;
3) The abandonment of Jesus on the cross expressed when He cried: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me.”
These three formulas are closely tied between them by the idea of unity. For it is this experience of unity which is at the base of the work of Chiara Lubich. Here are her confidences on this regard: “In a shelter illuminated by a candle, we were reading the Gospel. We felt particularly attracted by the prayer of Jesus Ut unum sint (St. John 17).


We were surprised ourselves, for these words no longer seemed to us difficult to understand; on the contrary, we were having the impression to understand them a little. We were sure: it was the rule, the Magna Carta of our new life.”
Likewise, these explanations taken from the mouth of the foundress: “The Focolari is a little community in the world, its members do not differ in nothing of this world, they dress and work like others. At the same, this community is something special, for it comprises of people who left the world, their country, their family, their work, in order to put their life at the service of the unity of the world.”
Of which unity does it treat? Upon which does it rest? In a “telephonic conference”, Chiara Lubich defined unity in these words. “The unity is that which results from the common research of the same luminous truth”
The principle of the religious unity of a group of persons is not therefore the unity of faith which they profess; it is not the revealed truth to which they adhere and all believe in the same manner, but the partaking of a same quest for research.
THE ECUMENICAL EXPERIENCE OF LONDON, ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PRAYER OF JESUS UT UNUM SINT
Chiara Lubich’s own testimony describing what she felt when she received the ‘Templeton Prize’, in London, can help us to grasp what she means by unity. (Let’s point out the passage that these words explain why her movement could so easily spread in the whole world.)
“After my speech in London, those who were present and who were followers of different religions seemed to me united. I asked myself, how did it happen? Perhaps the reason was that almost all were believers in God and in that moment He embraced us all? When I left, the first one to approach were the members of other religions. A Tibetan monk told me that he was going to write immediately to the Dalai-lama so that the latter put himself in contact with me. Four Jews expressed their joy telling me that at the bottom, the Old Testament is the trunk of the tree on which Christianity is grafted. Evidently, they meant to say that the development of our movement came from this same tree.


After, came the Hindus, Sikhs and others.”
Chiara Lubich herself interpreted this event as a realization of the prayer of Jesus ut unum sint.
“Even if we adhere to different religions, we become one. Perhaps it was so because all believe in God and that, in this sense, He embraces us all in a moment?”
An amazed Catholic will ask: how is it possible that Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, and Sikhs united in this room, all believe in God? In which God? It’s not thinkable that this is the triune God professed by the Christians.
Leaving from this experience of London, the movement of Focolari extended more and more in reversing the “narrow barriers” of diverse confessions, included there those of Christianity as it is visible in the citations which we have just read. Thus, because she had been particularly impressed by the fact that after her speech in London, Buddhists, Jews and Sikhs had approached her, the idea of unity among religions imposed itself to the mind of Chiara Lubich and became the first pillar of her work.
Then the question how to attain this unity conceived as a global unity? This unity, answers Chiara Lubich, takes body and fulfills itself in the measure when we become one with our brothers. “To be one”, “to make ourselves one” is a key expression of the Focolari movement. It signifies to listen, to be interested with the problems of the other person, to agree with, to confirm him in his preferences, to tie up a close relationship with him.
This program: “To make ourselves one” implies more: from the persons, it extends to religions and to diverse traditions; its field of action is universal. “We must make ours also the different civilizations also so rich, the sometimes traditions, and to make the germ of the Gospel grow” explains Chiara Lubich in a discourse entitled, “The Priest Today,” in which she highlights the idea that the priest today must be, before all, a man of dialogue.
“When two or three are gathered…” Jesus is in their midst.
Unity being the will of God (since Jesus said it in his prayer ut unum sint) from then on the Focolari movement works to accomplish the unity; it does the will of God and works in the name of Jesus. 59.


Consequently, Chiara Lubich believes that she can refer to the word of the Lord: “When two or three are gathered in My name, I am present in their midst” and apply it to her work. She draws from it the following commentary: “This word of Jesus is for the movement (Focolari) the norm of norms, it is that which has the incontestable priority: the presence of Christ among us. Thus the divine fraternity that Jesus has brought on earth for all humanity is invested of meaning and of life.”
Jesus is in the midst of us, she explains, when we practice reciprocal love which He asks us to practice; it is this love which accomplishes unity. Jesus is then “an enormous help (!) for a very lively ecumenism. With this help, we rediscover the fraternity which facilitates mutual comprehension and which destroys the many centuries of prejudices.
Three erroneous convictions are at the basis of the Focolari movement:
1. Man must, above all, establish peace on earth (in contrast, the First Commandment of the Christian aims at the love of God).
2. Religions are responsible for wars and conflicts (the Church teaches that wars and conflicts come from sin).
3. The unity of religions can bring peace on earth (Our Lord said, on the contrary: “My peace I give you, not as the world gives it”).
From Le Sel de la Terre, No.25
The Cry of Jesus on the cross: an appeal to overcome divisions and to re-unite by dialogue.
These reflections (see part I, July-August, 1998) lead us to the third pillar of the foundation upon which rests the spirituality of the Focolari: the cross, more exactly, the cry of dereliction of Jesus on the cross.
The cry which Our Lord did utter in His agony is interpreted by Chiara Lubich as a cry of anguish because of existing divisions and therefore, as an urgent appeal for reconciliation:
“By Him, by His cry, we are capable to engage ourselves beyond all wounds, of all separations and divisions, to reconstitute the unity of the Church.


Thanks to Him, we have acquainted ourselves with numerous churches and confessions, we have grasped their particularities and we have learned to esteem them; we feel like brothers and sisters, united by baptism and reciprocal love.”
In other words, the schisms and separations are due to prejudices, to diversity of mentalities and of cultures. The means which must logically permit to surmount these differences and these separations so sorrowfully felt, is dialogue.
For Chiara Lubich, the remedy to divisions is not therefore in the apostolic mission which obeys to the order of Christ; “Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them (…) teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt xxviii, 19-20), that is: announce to them the revealed truth, free them from errors that enchain them. For her, unity does not come from truth: the doctrinal intolerance constitutes on the contrary a seed of insupportable ruptures.
To make unity, the only way then is a dialogue. The inter-confessional dialogue among Christians, but also – since the movement is much wider than the borders of Christianity – the interreligious dialogue.
Chiara Lubich, worthy winner of the Templeton prize
For organizations and societies of thought that encourage this religious dialogue, Chiara Lubich has been occupying for a long time, an imminent place. To be convinced of this, it suffices to consider the abundant international rewards she has received in her life.
These prizes that she has received are numerous and reveal the esteem which is given to her in world religious circles:
-1977: Templeton Prize
-1988: the Prize “Feast of Peace” of Augsbourg
-1996: doctor honoris causa of the Catholic University of Dublin
-1997: prize of Education for Peace of UNESCO; doctor honoris causa of the Catholic Universities of Manila, Taipei and of Bangkok.
The Focolari movement has evidently benefited of the reputation of its founder: its growth, its international recognition and its introduction in organizations which pursue the same ends have been greatly facilitated by it.
The Templeton Prize
Firstly, we must present the Templeton prize instituted in 1972 by Sir John Templeton and awarded each year since 1973. It is the largest prize of the world (more than a million dollars). Among the beneficiaries, we find Mother Teresa, Roger Schutz, Cardinal Suenens, C-F.V.


Weizsacker, a Buddhist, a rabbi, a Hindu, and … Chiara Lubich.
Sir John Templeton instituted his prize to be the religious counterpart of the Nobel Prize. The latter has for aim to honor the progress in the natural sciences. Similarly, the Templeton prize encourages the “progress in religion”.
The presentation brochure of the Templeton foundation define clearly the meaning of “progress in religion”: since we note that there exists a progress in all that which pertains to human experience and effort, the same thing must happen in religious matter. Moreover, since in other domains, we witness an always more accelerated progress, it is necessary to expect the same phenomenon in the field of religion: a universe which does not cease to broaden requires a broadening religious conscience, new cultural horizons and new spiritual liberties.
Therefore, the intention for which this prize is given is clear: it is to reward the work accomplished for the conquest of the liberty of conscience in religious matters and to stimulate the initiatives of the pioneers in this domain. Thus, are judged worthy of interest, no matter from what religion they proceed, all efforts made in order to arrive at a deeper spiritual conscience or at a better understanding of what is the meaning of life, as well as all enterprises inspiring dedication and love or orienting man’s life towards God so that he finds there new creative energies.
The brochure emphasizes that syncretism – the attempt of fusion and reconciliation of diverse religious convictions – must be avoided. The Templeton prize is on the contrary destined to highlight the diversity of religious beliefs and of their expressions. Consequently, tolerance occupies there a very important place. There is no question of truth or error. On the contrary, it is simply a matter to help man to recognize “the infinity of the universal spirit”, the multiplicity of roads by which the Creator reveals Himself to man.
In vain do we look for the mention of a personal God, as the Christian faith requires. On the other hand, a few lines below, the text of the brochure speaks of “the Divine”. This equivocal reference truly appears to be an allusion to the Great Architect of the universe.
A prize well awarded?
Why was Chiara Lubich judged worthy to receive this Templeton prize? What motivated the jury to make this choice?
The brochure of the Templeton Foundation consecrated to Chiara Lubich gives several reasons.


Firstly, the Focolari movement has shown the world that it no longer suffices today to adhere to an instituted church. The theologians of the 1950’s – states this document – were considering the church as the Mystical Body of Christ. At present, theology has made a double progress: we now speak of the “people of God” and we insist on the experience of a personal conversion to Christ. Now, these are the characteristic traits of the Focolari
Another sign of progress (equally present in the Focolari) – continues the brochure – is the new tone given to spirituality: traditionally, it was impersonal and abstract; from now on it nourishes itself from the lived experience of the individual. Our reader, quite surprised, will ask how could a multitude of saints nevertheless grow on such dry ground of the Church of old up to 1950!
Moreover – pursues the publication – the new commandment “love one another” extends indistinctly to all men, and it is what the Focolari practices in opening itself to persons of all convictions. (The word of Pius XII proclaiming the XXth Century, “the Century of the Mystical Body of Christ”, is even quoted at this place as if it designated mutual love between all men of all religions.) If then we practice this commandment in this spirit, our comportment will give birth to a mutual respect among states and peoples, will provoke a diminution of fear among men and the abolition of all their frontiers.
Finally, the text notes that Chiara Lubich and all her works are efficiently militant in the church at the service of ecumenism.
The ‘qualities’ underlined in these lines are for the least ambiguous. In fact, they are those claimed by the tendencies and the changes which brought the revolution in the Church. Consequently, we must ask ourselves: does Chiara Lubich truly possess these ‘qualities’; did she merit this strange prize or have we misunderstood and misinterpreted her person and her intentions? To answer, let us bring ourselves back directly to the statements pronounced by the person concerned on ecumenism and on the new ecclesiology.
Chiara Lubich and Ecumenism
In her speech after the presentation of the Templeton prize, Chiara Lubich treated at length of the expansion of her work beyond the limits of Christianity.
There she mentions the Jews to whom in a certain sense, are united to us Revelation.


On the subject of the Muslims, she emphasizes full admiration, to what point they are faithful to their religion. She is in ecstasy before the Hindus who give, she says, the first place to love:
“We love them just as they are and it is together that we look for these truths which unite us most narrowly to live them together, to share our experiences in our commitment for God and our brothers.”
Referring to the Gen movement which we have described above (see part I), she explains that the followers of other religions can be received in the Focolari, and then, call themselves according to their religion of origin: Gen-Muslim, Gen-Buddhists, etc. As to the fact that these members of other religions have a conception of God totally different from that of Christianity, it matters a little, it seems. Only love counts and the effort which we do to construct a world of love.
What Chiara Lubich wants is “to live the Gospel”. But having seen what precedes, we have the right to ask: of what Gospel is it about? What becomes of certain words of Christ like these ones: “I did not come to bring peace but the sword…” “I came into the world to bear witness to the truth”? What does she do about the warning against false prophets, of the condemnation of idolatry, of the affirmation that Christ is the key which must bring the fall and rise of a great number, and of many similar other works?
As we have seen, the end sought by the Focolari movement is unity; Chiara Lubich believes she is accomplishing the will of God, since she says:
“Jesus took the human nature in order that all may be one. On the Cross, in his dereliction, it is for that that He gave His life. Now, it is up to us to fulfil this end: above all, the Opus Mariae has made as its own the task to unite the entire humanity.”
Consequently, the ecumenical effort accomplished by the Focolari, if it concentrates firstly on “the instruction and sensibilization of Catholics in view of the unity of Christians and in view to obtain a fraternal community with the members of other Christian churches” cannot logically stay there; it aspires to embrace members of other religions.


Chiara Lubich and the New Ecclesiology
Concerning the Church, the statements of Chiara Lubich also go in the same sense as that of the Templeton Foundation. She is convinced that, thanks to Vatican II, the Church has done a great leap forward in the right direction. She gives as signs: collegiality and the priority given to love.
If, during the ecumenical assembly of Graz, she seemed to profess without ambiguity the faith in the one Church founded by Jesus Christ, she nevertheless adds: “in this context arises the fundamental importance of ecclesiology”. Of which ecclesiology is it about? Making allusion to Cardinal Willebrands who had spoken to her when the Templeton prize was awarded to her, she explains that it is necessary to deepen the ecclesiology of the “communio” that in this resides the great chance of future ecumenism and that the efforts to reach the unity of the Church must take that ecclesiology as a starting point. 61.
Moreover, it is in this sense that the Ecumenical Council of Churches and other similar institutions do operate, she says, when they seek to put to work an “ecumenical spirituality”. For the divisions which have shaken the foundations of the Church in the course of the past two thousand years have been caused by the diversities of opinions due to a defect of love among Christians.
She deplores these divisions of Christians which are contrary to the Divine Will expressed in the words of Christ “ut unum sint”. And since the lack of love is responsible for these divisions, an increase of love will be able to bring us to the lost unity.
“In the course of centuries, because of a growing indifference, a lack of comprehension, or even a certain hatred for the other churches, each church hardened itself, in a way. In each of them, then, a great love is necessary; a common love must seize all Christianity, a love which pushes us to have all in common, to be each a gift for the others.”
We note it again: the question of truth or error is not even mentioned. The church which she wants to build is not then the Una, Sancta, Catholica et Apostolica Ecclesia, which, one in Herself, in her doctrine and in her rites, is living until our days. What is this new church, then?


“We could thus figure out the future Church: that there is a unique truth, but that it expresses itself in different ways, that it is composed of different points of view and that it offers us its richness in a multiplicity of interpretations”.
This goes without comments.
Last point: how to achieve this new conception of the Church? We said it already: in instituting a universal dialogue which will include all the people of God.
“Thanks to this dialogue, we are more apt to discover, appreciate and live consciously this great heritage which is the common bond of all Christians. We desire to see this unique people who is already visible everywhere where there is a church”.
The Focolari Movement prototype of the future Church
The Focolari find themselves at the heart of this building of the Church of the future. Already, Chiara Lubich tells us, hundreds of thousands of persons, members of about three hundred churches, live the charism of unity which is at the bosom of the Focolari. These persons are the models of that which, at the universal scale of the world, still remains to be accomplished. During the speech she delivered in Manila for the presentation of her title of Doctor honoris causa, the foundress of the Focolari spoke of our theologians and of our doctrine, in referring to the Opus Mariae. What did she mean? She saw herself in a situation similar to that of St. Francis of Assisi, who by his own experience of poverty, was at the origin of a new universal doctrine; or even of St. Thomas Aquinas, who before being recognized as Doctor Communis, was the theologian of his particular Order. Similarly, Chiara Lubich esteems that her theology and her particular experience at the bosom of the Focolari must prepare the integration of the charism on unity in the entire Church.
“The charism of unity furnishes us with the conditions required to create a great theology of Jesus [which, evidently, did not exist up to this day! Ed], not a theology of Jesus of a thousand years ago but of this Jesus living today in His Church.
The presence of the little word “today” is always very revealing and disturbing, in this kind of discourse. For, Christus heri, hodie et in saecula, Christ is always the same.


She looked at me with much love in her eyes and said: “There is much more to life than Focolare…”
At that time I was astonished because I believed that there was not anything bigger than the Ideal. Only now I have come to understand the meaning of her words. It is the joy of loving Jesus, without structures, organization or dogmas that I like to keep in my heart, and forget about the rules and limitations that I found in the focolare. This website wants to show that there is more than Focolare, and that there is freedom of loving after you leave the movement. The only freedom I know is that of a free mind. Unfortunately, there is no freedom of mind, nor of speech in the movement. As somebody told me, “I had to leave the movement in order to live my life in a free Christian spirit.”
I am not reaching out anymore for the leaders of the movement, not to Chiara, Oreste, Sylvana, Gys, Pepuccio, Opus, Vale or any of the other leaders that I have met so often in Rome. It is clear to me now that they are beyond my scope. But I like to address the hard working focolarini, volunteers and gen who are in the countries where focolare is working. I like to start a conversation with anybody who still has a little bit of their own conscience and free will left, in spite of years of exposure to collegamenti that have encouraged you to give up your own thoughts, desires, feelings for the love of God.
I know that it can be hard for you to read this website. It seems to go against everything you believe in. It seems to attack your most precious Ideal. But please believe me, this is not the case. I must admit that I had years in my life that I felt bitter towards the focolarino who has manipulated my life, but those feelings are gone. There has been a time when I worked on this website out of negative feelings, but also those days have passed.
During the years of this website I have encountered many friendly people in the same situation. They made me see that this website has another purpose. I do not mean to attack the Ideal, nor encourage people to leave the movement.
What is the goal?


To put a contrast between the historical Jesus and the one who lives today in the Church is illegitimate. The famous words of G. K. Chesterton come to mind: “The Church alone preserves us from the humiliating slavery to be a child of our time.”
Thus, in an exemplary and living manner, the Focolari movement pretends to demonstrate to us that unity has been made possible, and that it incarnates the first step – but it may already be the second! – on the way which leads to the Church of the future.
The dream of a Cosmic Unity and of a New World
Obviously, one may ask what are the foundation and the nature of this unity which offers to the members of the most diverse religions and most varied philosophies the means to live together – because we are already very far from the starting point of the Focolari, that is, to live the Gospel. How can a Christian, a Hindu or a Muslim live this unity on a day to day basis? It is hard to imagine. What will be the basis of their community of life?
In Graz, Chiara Lubich has answered this question:
“Do nothing to another which you do not want him to do to you. This is the basis which enables us to live in a loving relation with the members of other religions.”
However, from what she has also said in this discourse in Graz, she is not content with the unity among religions; she aims further, to even envisage a more global spirituality of unity that will allow man to communicate with nature:
“To live an ecumenical spirituality signifies to give man a possibility more vast to reveal himself as sons and daughters of God, and when, in each domain, we all make an effort to preserve the nature, this one will answer mysteriously to our love as well as all that lives of God and subsists thanks to him.”
In weighing these strange statements, we ask what sense are we to give to “to reveal”, for, evidently, the word is not used in the sense which we know. We are very far from the supernatural revelation of the life of grace. The same question may be put forward concerning this mystic of the nature which “lives of God” and “answers to our love”. Hasn’t the pantheistic idea of the unity of the whole cosmos, of which the New Age publications speak so often, influenced this conception?