Looking through and beyond all that happened that night of the earthquake in Italy on April 6th gives room to the truest desire of the heart, that which opens up an instant after the great–and dramatic–question, “Why?”: the desire to start again, to get...
Faced with the arguments that have involved Benedict XVI over the question of the Lefebvrian schism and the AIDS question in Africa, and the Pope’s presumed isolation, we run the risk of becoming inured to the idea that, in the end, these are things we...
An editorial by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, that was recently published in Avvenire, the Italian Catholic daily newspaper, is well worth a careful reading, and we offer it here for you in this issue of Traces. Scola describes two...
There are moments when the impact of reality becomes more violent. Think of the barbarities surrounding the case of Eluana Englaro,* the thunder of war in the Middle East, the grip of the economic crisis. They seem to be placed there on purpose, all...
‘Whatever the crisis, the first question that arises is: ‘Who are you?’” Bernard Scholz, President of the Companionship of Works Association, recently wrote this in a letter to the directory of the association, made up of 34,000 companies (suffering like...
Eluana Englaro is a young woman in Northern Italy who, after a car accident on January 18, 1992, was left unconscious, and has remained so until today, cared for by nuns. Her father wishes to have her feeding tube removed and allow her to die, but up to...
Milan, November 3, 2008 Dear friends, Taking part in the Synod of Bishops, which, as you well know, had as its theme, “TheWord of God in the Life and Mission of the Church,” gave me a keener grasp of our responsibility in the Church and in the world....
Who of us hasn’t seen the bumper sticker by Senator Obama’s campaign with the title of this editorial? It appeals to something very deep in the human person. Who can live without hope? Indeed, Fr. Giussani notes in the Religious Sense that, “by the very...
Let’s admit it, the first time we came across this expression, our hearts leapt: “[I]f we don’t feel the urgent need to hear Him, if Christ, His name at a certain point didn’t have autonomy, if He didn’t have an ultimately singular face, marked by...
There is always something fascinating about vacations. Fr. Giussani often recalled it, with the formula that shattered schemes and pinned one down at once to an unimaginable responsibility: “It is the time of freedom.” In other words, it is the moment...
“What happened in Rimini?” It’s a question we have heard many people ask, after the two sessions of the CL Spiritual Exercises in Rimini, Italy–first, for the Fraternity, then, two weeks later, for the Workers. That question was circulating insistently...
What does it mean “to say You to Christ?” This was one of the most-circulated questions in the halls of the Rimini Trade Fair Complex, among the twenty-six thousand people Fr. Carrón had just accompanied on retreat in the discovery of “the victory that...
The following is a flyer distributed by CL friends in Italy on the occasion of Parliament elections, published here as a starting point to judge politics and the elections in the U.S. and around the world. “The immediate duty to act in the political...
First of all, there is the fact: fifty thousand people in the square and in the Cathedral of Sao Paolo, Brazil, where Cardinal Odilo Scherer had the doors opened to let those outside shelter from the rain. Fifty thousand faces, hearts, stories. A...
Here, we publish the letter that Fr. Julián Carrón wrote to the Movement after the participation of so many people in the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square–as a consequence of the canceled visit of Benedict XVI to La Sapienza University in Rome and on the...
Here are some excerpts from Ubaldo Casotto’s interview with Fr. Stefano Alberto, published in the Italian daily, Il Foglio, December 15, 2007. We believe it offers the best perspective on the encyclical Spe Salvi and on the work proposed in this month’s...
“O weary, weary were the world… O stern and cunning are the kings,” wrote G. K. Chesterton in his poem A Christmas Carol, published in 1900. More than a century has passed, but not much has changed. The world is still disoriented, as it was then, and the...
“Life is a web of circumstances.” In Moscow, it is a tepid Saturday, October 27th. In the hall of the Holy Spirit Library, Fr. Paolo Pezzi is addressing the Russian CL community, meeting a few hours before the ceremony during which he will be consecrated...
There is something odd about the fuss surrounding political vacillations. It is not the confusion–that has been a constant fact for some time. The strangeness lies elsewhere and, in order to address it, we need to dig down well below all the schemes and...
“September, let’s go. It’s time to migrate,” said the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, referring to the shepherds who left their land for the annual transhumance. Is returning to work, setting foot once again in school, perhaps a “migration” from yourself? From...
Man has always sought something that could fulfill the positive tension within him and counter the nothingness in which everything seems to end. From his earliest rock paintings to his evolved compositions in verse and music, he has striven to invent...