“Hope is a certainty about the future based on a present reality.” Today, can anyone say something so solid without being considered naive or shameless? Read one by one, these words of Fr. Giussani’s are a ray of light in a dense fog. They greet us at the...
A line of Fr. Giussani’s has been recurring often in our conversations and work together in recent weeks, a sign of how much it struck those who heard it at the CL Beginning Day (see the most recent issue of Traces), and also a sign of how we recognize it...
He described today’s world in six words. But he did it 150 years ago, when certain self-evident principles still held up and uncertainty had not seeped into the root of everything. Even so, Friedrich Nietzsche’s line captures today’s dramatic situation:...
There is nothing more wondrous than seeing the flowering of a person’s humanity. Certainly, it almost always happens in a subtle and hidden way, growing a bit at a time, step by step, and one hardly even realizes that it is happening. With only a few...
If one says “school,” other words immediately come to mind. For example, “future,” because the "tomorrow” of any society, at every time in its history, is shaped there, in the classrooms. Or we might think of “hope,” a close cousin of the expectation for...
It will not be the usual summer–that is for certain. In the age of the pandemic, habits have been uprooted all over the place, one after another. These months, too, will be a strange patchwork of commitments to catch up on and forced pauses, time for...
The name for this time has been chosen: “Phase 2.” That’s fine, although the line between “before” and “after” is not nearly so clear as a date on the calendar, which leaves us still holding our breath. The beginning of this shift following the peak of...
It was a historic moment, one that was immediately stamped into our memory and will remain fixed there forever. The darkness falling over the empty square. The rain that fell harder and harder. And a man dressed in white who, standing before the...
This issue’s editorial is the letter that Fr. Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, sent to the whole Movement. Milan, March 12, 2020 Dear friends, Though the authorities have still not given any instructions...
The state of our universities may seem to be a topic for specialists, something of interest only to those who study, teach, or have 20-something children. Actually, though, a combination of factors makes the university a point of observation that is...
It is difficult to find a theme more urgent, one that concerns everyone at every latitude, touching each person, from the elderly, who are increasingly isolated, to youth, described as being “alone together,” to use the expression of Sherry Turkle, a...
Words and gestures, together. Each gives flesh to the other, showing the full depth of both and making them the object of experience. This is how Pope Francis is broadening hearts and reason, even in those who are far from Christ, in those who have never...
In recent issues of Traces we took up a critical theme from the CL Beginning Day, the meeting at the beginning of the social and academic year that marks out the movement’s educational proposal and lays a path for the year’s work. The articles described...
There is a word that pops up more and more often now in the news and discussions on TV. One that, if it does not make it into conversations among friends or into chats over lunch, it is only because people have not realized how concisely it describes...
Why is this issue of Traces titled “Come and See”? It refers to an invitation to those who may have found this magazine in their hands for the first time, having received it from a colleague, a friend, or a person they met on the street. It is also the...
This year the Meeting of Rimini turned 40, and it has remained faithful to its effective formula of dialogues, exhibits, and performances. It remains something truly out of the ordinary, because of what happens; that is, because it continues to be a...
This time the prompt comes from a document published by the Vatican on April 29, “Religious Liberty for the Good of All,” the fruit of over four years of work by the International Theological Commission. This is not just a text for experts, but a great...
It would be hard to pose questions that are more urgent, more intricately interwoven with the fabric of our days and our relationships, with what happens to us and what we do hour by hour, and which call out to our need to leave a mark so that we can...
"Seeking a Path Forward" was the title of the tour through America to present the biography of Fr. Giussani, which concluded a little over a month ago. If you think about it, this title presents the main question facing all of us no matter our...
In the beginning it was an ideal. Then, a kind of miracle. Now it just seems to be a problem. In the eyes of many, the European Union, that unthinkable puzzle of languages and cultures assembled piece by piece, a gift of expectation and hope for 500...
It takes courage to talk about “something to start from.” The world seems so confused, so “liquid” around us, that even thinking we can find firm ground to start from to face the problems surrounding us–both great and small–seems impossible, seems like...