Bible in bomb shelter inspired Chiara Lubich
to change the world
Chiara Lubich, whose efforts to promote ecumenical cooperation and
peace brought her international renown, was, by the time of her
death in March at the age of 88, on first-name terms with Roman
Catholic cardinals, Anglican archbishops and Orthodox patriarchs.
But the appeal of the founder of the Focolare spiritual renewal movement extended far beyond the higher echelons of the Church, with tens of thousands of people making their way to Rome for her funeral on March 18.
Lubich's remarkable life was set on its course in 1943 when, at the age of 23 and in the midst of a world war, she founded Focolare, an Italian word meaning "hearth" or "fireside". Lubich's ambition was to gather humanity before the flame of faith, fostering peace and fraternity among men and women of all religions. She personally took as her starting point the Christian Gospels.
Today, more than 100,000 people in 180 countries across the world are members of Focolare, and about two million more count themselves as its friends or supporters.
In 1998, Lubich, became the first woman to win the European Prize on Human Rights, which was awarded in Strasbourg. In her acceptance speech, she said her movement was committed "not so much in proclaiming human rights, but in helping the greatest possible number of men and women to live a lifestyle that has, as a logical consequence, love and respect for the human person and for his or her rights".
Lubich was born on January 22, 1920 into a working-class family in Trento, northern Italy. It was in the air-raid shelters of Trento amidst the bombs of the Second World War that Lubich, by then a primary school teacher, first began to gather the people around her to help in her mission to promote peace.
Taking refuge in shelters during the raids, Lubich and her friends brought books to read: among them, the Bible. In it the group found new inspiration, and one night, after a particularly heavy bombardment, Lubich decided that she was being called by God to set up a new organisation that would do his work when the war ended.
She organised a group, and she and her friends began visiting the most disadvantaged parts of the city, bringing whatever they could to help those who had lost everything in the bombing. Lubich's band had little, but what they had they shared. Her guiding principle was that "love conquers all".
With Europe in ruins, few had much in the way of material belongings. So it was with surprise that Lubich realised that those who appreciated her work were prepared to help her out: gifts of food, clothing and medicines began arriving at her home, and she was able to distribute ever-greater relief to those in her city who needed it.
By the end of the 1940s, the movement was spreading, and from 1949 onwards the Dolomite mountains in northern Italy became the site of regular summer meetings of members and adherents from all over the world. These open-air encampments were temporary "cities" based, Lubich said, on the law of mutual love.
In 1964, the first permanent "mini city" was set up in Loppiano near Florence. There, more than 700 people from 50 different nations now live. Most are young adults who participate in a two-year "school of life" before returning to their own countries to live out the Gospel principles.
More than 20 other "mini cities" have since been set up in countries as diverse as Germany and Australia, Argentina, Slovenia, as well as in New York, a testimony to Lubich's belief that it is possible for people of all faiths and nations to live together in harmony.
In 1977 Lubich was awarded the Templeton Prize for progress in religion, and her acceptance speech in London before an audience of leaders from all religions sparked a period of intense ecumenical and inter-faith work. In 1980 she addressed 10 000 lay Buddhists in Japan.
She travelled to New York, at the invitation of the Imam W D Mohammed, leader of two million black Muslims, and spoke to a gathering of 3000 Muslims. In May 1998 she met 150 Jews of the B'nai B'rith in Buenos Aires, and established a "pact of unity" between the Jewish and Christian participants.
The Templeton prize was followed by a host of other accolades for the woman whose flowing vestments and thick glasses became her trademarks.
Lubich won many other awards - the Gold Cross of St Augustine of Canterbury from George Carey, then archbishop of Canterbury (November 1996); the Byzantine Cross from the Ecumenical Patriarchs Bartholomeos I (Istanbul 1995) and Dimitrios I (1984).
In 1997 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bangkok in Thailand, and in 1996 the Civilisation of Love prize in Reiti, Italy, for her "prophetic commitment in promoting interreligious dialogue".
The developing world was always close to Lubich's heart, and her movement is present in many impoverished areas, including the Philippines, where Focolare runs schools for thousands of children, and Brazil, where it has helped establish farming co-operatives.
The world's trouble spots, too, came in for her personal attention: in Northern Ireland she helped organise peace conferences, and in Croatia, Focolare opened a school for 70 children from different ethnic backgrounds.
In 1991, during a trip to Brazil, she coined the phrase "the economy of sharing", which she sought to put into action as a direct challenge to the consumer economy. The scheme, which has attracted about 750 companies around the world, invites participants to use their profits to support the disadvantaged, and to train more people in "the culture of giving".
Lubich was a keynote speaker in 1997 at the Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz, in Austria, which gathered thousands of people from Europe's main Christian traditions.
Five years later, she visited the World Council of Churches in Geneva, where, in a joint statement with the then WCC general secretary, Konrad Raiser, she urged churches to practise "genuine penitence" in their search for unity. "As churches come together to manifest a sincerely sought unity, attitudes towards God and to each other must be changed," they said.
As well as bringing people together to apply the Focolare principles in their daily lives, Lubich wanted to spread the word far beyond. She set up 27 publishing houses, which publish about 300 titles each year.
Although the Focolare movement became international, its adherents felt in touch with their founder through her monthly "word of life" columns, a personally-chosen Gospel phrase and commentary spread in 80 languages via radio, television, and the organisation's website.
- Chiara Lubich: Born 22 January 1920 in Trento, died March 14, 2008 near Rome.
By Peter Stanford, Ecumenical News International