What makes us happy? What can truly fill the human heart, deep down? This may seem like a hackneyed or even insignificant question compared to other issues that at first sight would seem much bigger, such as politics or the economy. And yet it is a...
What newness does faith bring to the world, to this world? We may take this question for granted, ready with answers that risk becoming formulaic based on distinctive values, different life choices, and an understanding of the human person that is...
Dear friend, what you have in your hands is the new Traces. The changes are substantial, as you can see. We thought this was the right moment to go from the periodical to which you–and we–were accustomed, to a “news magazine” style. The nature of the...
We have our ideas, sometimes even correct ones, perhaps forged over years of observation and in-depth study of things that, at a certain point, in one way or another, we think we “know.” And then we have the facts, those things that continually happen...
Five years have passed since that evening. Just two days into the Conclave, on the heels of the major shock of the previous month when Pope Benedict XVI stepped down, came another exciting event: Francis, the first Pope from Latin America, whom the...
Dear friends, As you know, I had the joy of being received in a private audience with Pope Francis on Friday, February 2nd. My desire was to share with him, the guide of our Christian people, the steps we have taken since our momentous meeting with him...
Realities are more important than ideas” (Evangelii Gaudium, 231). There is no greater challenge to our reason, to our human logic, than a fact, a real event. Let us think of the Jewish people in exile, of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke. When everything...
What makes it possible for 145,000 people (Italians and others, in other parts of the world) to give freely of their time on a Saturday to ask others to donate something to the poor, encountering over and over, millions of times, a very concrete “yes”?...
During the recent tour presenting Disarming Beauty in the United States and Canada, something happened that is worth looking at. In those seven events in eight days, with three thousand miles of flights, in which many different worlds entered into...
This month, you could read the entire message of Traces in just one sidebar. You can find it on page 14 with the story of Catalonia preparing to face the post-referendum chaos. The vote took place before this issue went to press, but we don’t know what...
There was a moment in this year’s Meeting of Rimini that gave form to everything, and thanks be to God, it came right away, at the beginning. It was the message from Pope Francis, sent by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, who also...
The words of Fr. Giussani that follow are always new, even if we have already heard them, because they get you where it hurts, a provocation that appears when summer comes and our lives ease up a bit from fixed commitments, obligations, and work. “The...
The first chapter of Disarming Beauty, Julián Carrón’s new book (which has just been released in English, following after the Italian, the Spanish, and Portuguese versions), concludes with words that were said three years ago in reference to the situation...
It has just arrived in bookstores in Italy, with the curious title Una strana compagnia [A Strange Companionship], and a heading that identifies it the first volume in a series with a similarly unusual name: “Christianity Put to the Test.” It is the...
There’s a simple way to understand what it is that the Church brings to the world: just look at what happened when Pope Francis visited Milan. Crowds everywhere, all day long. A million people, according to the counts. And it was a joyful crowd, happy,...
This month’s editorial is a letter written by Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, for the upcoming visit to Milan of Pope Francis. The text was published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, on March 1,...
There is a place in life where we cannot cheat, not even with ourselves: work. This is not just because we spend most of our time there. As Fr. Giussani always reminded us, our true “I” is seen only as we discover ourselves “in action.” It emerges from an...
If there is one word we hear often these days, it is beginning, a lovely word in and of itself, but at times also a difficult, if not even wearisome one to hear and use, because it concerns not just the year that is starting, but also all the unknowns...
There’s a strong tie between the cover of this issue of Traces–the announcement of the coming of Christmas, in the form of the flyer that CL produces every year to tell the world how decisive that fact is for our lives–and the closing of the Holy Door,...
The day is approaching. In little more than a month, on November 20th, Pope Francis will close the Holy Door. The Year of Mercy will be over, at least in form. But there is nothing greater and truer, nothing that speaks to us better about God, than...
September has come, and almost without realizing it, we come to a fork in the road. We get back to normal life as we return to work, school, and university. Everyday life starts again. If vacations are “the time of freedom,” as Fr. Giussani reminded us,...