“We cannot become starched Christians, those over-educated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea. No! We must become courageous Christians and go in search of the people who are the very flesh of Christ, those who are...
This is one of those questions that causes you to start, not in a manner of speaking, but literally, because it shifts you all of a sudden, opening a different horizon in a space that seemed fenced in and closed by other questions. At least, this is what...
First of all, there is what happens, the words and gestures–that are worth more than a thousand hypotheses on the Church that will be or that should be–and that show Christianity for what it is: a surprising event, which cannot be reduced to our...
This issue's editorial is the article by Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, published by the Italian daily Avvenire on March 16, 2013. It's common knowledge in the information age that news wears out; it cannot keep...
This issue’s editorial is the commentary by Fr. Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, published by the Italian daily la Repubblica on February 15, 2013. Dear Editor, Your editorial about Benedict XVI’s announcement...
This issue’s editorial is an article by Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, published by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on December 23, 2012. Dear Editor, The difficulties that we find ourselves facing, from...
He was a presence, right from the start, from the first cry in that grotto in Bethlehem, where those who looked in saw something that appeared so ephemeral it might have seemed insignificant–a baby, a newborn, a puff of smoke, in the eyes of the world....
The editorial of this issue is the letter for the whole Movement written by Julián Carrón, President of the Communion and Liberation Fraternity, after the Synod on New Evangelization. Dear Friends, Having just returned from the Synod of Bishops, I...
The Meeting, with its final press release, takes stock of 2012 edition, presenting the theme and the title of the next one. It is always exhilarating to begin a new work, but even more so when this work coincides with the decisive issue of life. And...
The figure of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini was too impressive not to imagine that his passing on August 31st would have a vast echo; not only in “his” city , but in all the world. But it’s one thing to imagine or predict, and another to see the thousands...
We have often repeated (with Fr. Giussani) that our vacation is “the time of freedom,” because our free time reveals what we really care about most. But now we can substitute one expression with another–again from Fr. Giussani–that is becoming familiar:...
There are days when flipping through the newspapers seems like saying a rosary of Sorrowful Mysteries: the drama in Greece, Europe in a tailspin, the tragedy of the earthquake in Italy, and then the bitter sting of those headlines about "whistleblowers in...
This month’s editorial is the letter that Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, submitted to the prominent daily newspaper la Repubblica, published on May 1st. The letter was written after months of a relentless press...
It was expected to be a historic journey. One does not often see a Pope land in Cuba, one of the last outposts of Communism; the only precedent, with John Paul II, was in 1998. There was great expectation in Mexico, as well, for many reasons, beginning...
Anyone who has been reading Traces for awhile knows that, as Easter (or Christmas) approaches, the cover is dedicated to what Communion and Liberation calls “the poster,” composed of an image with phrases that the Movement propagates everywhere, to tell...
There are 2,000 people in the theater, almost all of them under the age of 25. Another 50,000 are linked by video in the rest of Italy and here and there in the world. Ninety tense, dense minutes pass, from Mozart’s Et incarnatus est, sung live by a...
Certainly, the wave started far away, long before the recession; we have been seeing changes underway for years, increasingly pressing. But if there is a sphere in which the current situation bears heavily, to the point of changing its features and...
At first glance, it takes a lot of courage to say that reality is positive, above all these days, when a wind of serious crisis is blowing strongly and shaking the whole world. This crisis is not limited to finance and economics, as you can read in this...
It’s hard to find a more concrete image: “a bunker with no windows, in which we ourselves provide lighting and atmospheric conditions.” A bunker, with no openings, no contact with the outside world. Just to think of it is stifling. Yet this is the way...
This year, the Rimini Meeting was impressive, because of the visit of Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Italian Republic, and his hard-hitting speech; because of John Elkann, young President of Fiat, speaking about himself openly with his Chief...
Who knows if we will be available to face the challenge, to avoid filing the words that we so often hear at the beginning of summer under "already heard speeches"–clean, correct, and to be quoted by heart but, still, just words. Father Giussani always...