Today, Saturday, November 20, 2021, the Central Diaconia of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation held a meeting in Milan to acknowledge the irrevocable resignation of their President, Fr. Julián Carrón, and to deal with some issues related to the life of the Fraternity, including a first sharing of a draft revision of the Statute according to the guidelines of the Vatican decree that regulates the government of the international associations of the faithful.
The Vice-President, Davide Prosperi, informed the members of the Diaconia he was called by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life for an interview in the next few days, which is why the deliberation on the post of President has been postponed to a new meeting of the Diaconia–to be held immediately after the interview–during which the draft revision of the Statute will also continue.

Here follows the letter that was sent to all members of the Fraternity of CL after the Diaconia:

Milan, November 20, 2021

Dear friends,

in the face of the irrevocable resignation of Fr. Julián Carrón, the central Diaconia of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, which met today, November 20, 2021, in Milan, wishes to thank him wholeheartedly for all that he has represented in these years, since Fr. Giussani called him to share with him the leadership of the Movement. And we are grateful to him in advance for the contributions of his testimony he will continue to give.

As President of the Fraternity, he has led us to identify ourselves with the living experience of Fr. Giussani and with his method of education to faith–that the Church has recognized as a road to holiness–, by experiencing “an obedience of the heart to that form of teaching to which we have been entrusted.” (J. Ratzinger).

Therefore, we feel the urgency to let these words by Fr. Giussani into our hearts, so as not to waste the gift we have received: “The charism is an intervention of the Spirit of Christ in order to increase belonging to Christ in the world: it is a fact of the history in which we are born, in which the Spirit takes us by surprise, that history in which the Father has placed us. The plan of the originating Mystery, of the Father, has placed us on a given path, on a given road within the Church; it has immersed us in the fact of Christ, it has made us participate by making us His, in terms of our awareness and affection.” (To Give One’s Life for the Work of Another, forthcoming).

On the journey of these years, we have experienced that “the charism is like a window through which you see space in its entirety. The proof of a true charism is that it opens you to everything, it doesn’t close you in.” (Generating Traces in the History of the World, p. 80).

In this regard, we wish to fully welcome what Fr. Carrón’s letter suggests: to experience this circumstance as an opportunity for the growth of our ecclesial self-awareness.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to renew in ourselves the grace of the charism that has struck us and drawn us to Christ, inside the life of the Church, our mother, and by following Peter, in order to be active contributors of the will of our Father at work in the today of history.

The members of the Central Diaconia of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation