| A “GREAT LIGHT” of the present Christian generation, Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, died last Friday.
The 88-year-old Italian started her religious movement, which now has two million adherents in 182 countries, after the Second World War. It grew out of her work with those injured in the Allied bombing of her home town of Trento. It was officially called the Work of Mary, but was everywhere known by its Italian name, which means “hearth”.
From the late 1950s, it worked with Christians in Communist countries, and in the ’60s expanded to the Third World. It encountered some hostility from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, until the Second Vatican Council brought about an atmosphere more sympathetic to its commitment to social justice and ecumenism.
On Friday, the Archbishop of Canterbury lamented her death “with very deep feeling”. “Chiara Lubich was one of the great figures of the modern Church. She set a new tone and a new agenda for the community life of many Christians,” he said.
“I’ve had very fruitful contact over many years with the Focolare Movement. . . I think we have seen in her one of the great lights of the present Christian generation.”
The Pope spoke of her “constant commitment for communion in the Church, for ecumenical dialogue and brotherhood among all peoples”.
Obituary to follow
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