![Dominican Republic: “Café con leche” social project]()
16 Apr 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
We know that the Dominican Republic is the “Switzerland of the Caribbean”. The central districts of the capital, Santo Domingo, resemble Miami or Houston, but they remain unable to conceal the serious social inequalities that affect Dominican society as a whole. It is nothing like the plight of their Haitian neighbors who are struggling to survive, even though a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, doing the toughest jobs as construction workers, longshoremen, and banana plantation workers. And you cannot talk about “pockets” of poverty, because here there are entire neighborhoods where it is difficult to lead a decent life.
One such place is Herrera in the El Café area, where Maria Voce went to visit one of the social projects being developed by the Focolare Movement, a school named “Café con leche” – “Coffee with milk – which calls to mind the mulattoes – neither coffee nor milk – the majority of the population in the Dominican Republic. The school has over 500 students who attend morning and afternoon classes in a building that has gradually been growing larger and larger since 1990 when the project was begun.
Everything began with Marisol Jiménez. Seeing the state of extreme poverty in the district and the children in their state of semi-abandonment, she began by organizing a choir in the local parish. Then she organized a summer camp for children, which was repeated for two years and involved 500 children. It soon became clear to her that something had to be done to raise the educational level of the children, many of whom were unable to read or write. Gradually, she was able to engage her friends in the project until, in 1995, the school was opened with three teachers and around ten students.
In an atmosphere of joyful anticipation, with children sitting everywhere, and neighboring families coming to join in the festivities, Maria Voce was able to appreciate the progress that the project has shown, how it has gone ahead with the help of the “adoption at a distance” program of the New Families Movement and the generosity of the Igino Giordani-Foco Foundation, which is now directed by Margarita Rodriguez de Cano.
An incredible series of heroic acts, miracles, spiritual and material growth of the students, have permitted the school to equip hundreds of children to be earning members of the work force. The school is an example of a “holistic education” which is able to involve, support, and appreciate the family, offering hope for human development. The school is also supported by the wood crafts produced by the boys, the clothes and dresses produced by the girls, and other handcrafts that are sold locally and in the United States. The Domincan government and the President of the Republic himself have contributed to the project.
“Even if it all seems small,” said Maria Voce as she stood in the school’s courtyard, “you can feel that love has built something great here. And this remains; love always remains”.
By Michele Zanzucchi
![Dominican Republic: “Café con leche” social project]()
16 Apr 2011 | Non categorizzato
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, amidst cheering and waving of palms, has political significance: not only because the crowd instinctively recognises him as the head of their people but also because, in this circumstance, he himself, the peaceful leader, offers a message of political worth.
On that day, therefore, whilst the multitudes (today we would say ‘crowds’) proclaim him King of Israel, Jesus Christ comes down from the Mount of Olives and – before the whole of Jerusalem, with its white houses and its people gathered around the splendid Temple, in the midst of everyone’s joy – he bursts into tears and cries out: “‘If you too had only recognised on this day the way to peace! But in fact it is hidden from your eyes!
Yes, a time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications all round you, when they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone standing on another within you, because you did not recognise the moment of your visitation.”
That same day however, the heads of the nation, contrary to the sentiments of the people, rejected his program of peace and confirmed their program of war. That same day they decided definitively to rid themselves of the peaceful Messiah who arrived to Jerusalem on a donkey because this scarlet hero put them face to face with their belligerent messianism.
The entrance into Jerusalem was therefore the celebration of pacific messianism, that is, of a sui generis politics which is crushed by the old sort of politics; an old politics which believed (and which perhaps would believe again) in God and his law but trusted (and would trust again) more in the sword that in the squires; more in army tanks than in the Sinai announcement. This decrepit, lunatic politics sows war even in peace treaties, transforms a nation into an army and turns farmer’s fields into battle grounds.
Jesus’ messianic politics can be summarised under the heading ‘Kingdom of God’: a regime whose constitution is God’s law, a regime that upholds God as its purpose and principle. The nation is organised therein: God’s nation, guided on the tracks of peace. This kingdom of God also translates into a social constitution: it’s law is the Gospel and it entails unity, solidarity, equality, paternity, social service, justice, rationality, truth; it fights against war, tyranny, enmity, error, stupidity…
To search for the Kingdom of God therefore is to search for the happiest conditions for the life of the individual and of society. And this is easy to understand: where God reigns, man is God’s son, a being of infinite worth, who treats other men as brothers, who is treated as a brother by other men, who does unto others as he would have done unto him. In God’s kingdom the world’s goods are fraternally put in common and love circulates with forgiveness; frontiers are worthless, senseless because of the universality of love. Putting the Kingdom of God before all else therefore means raising life’s goal. In this sense we too can say that Christ has “overcome the world”.
Beyond this meaning, Jesus doesn’t deal with politics, nor do the apostles. But their teaching contains principles that, if not of a practical, immediate, biased political nature, they are of soaring and guiding wisdom which supports the great and universal art of governance in every age. Jesus doesn’t touch existing institutions, he transforms their spirit by transforming sentiments of men. He doesn’t tell the soldiers to desert their duties, nor does he tell the tax-collectors to abandon office or the members of the Sanhedrin to step down from the Supreme Court: he simply tells them to carry out their work with a new spirit. He doesn’t create commotion, he brings about revolution. He does this by transforming the spirit there where it needs to be transformed.
(Igino Giordani, Le Feste, SEI, Torino, 1954, pp. 104-110).
15 Apr 2011 | Non categorizzato
![Dominican Republic: “Café con leche” social project]()
14 Apr 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
From the 1st- 3rd April the School for Oriental Religions (SOR) organised a course in the Focolare’s little-town called ‘Peace’ in Tagaytay (Philippines). There were 250 participants from all around Asia: Pakistan, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. The majority of those who took part were from various islands in the Philippines especially Manila and Cebu.
SOR was founded in 1982 by Chiara Lubich on her first trip to Asia when dialogue between members of the Focolare Movement and the mahayana Buddhists from the Rissho Kosei kai began. SOR runs biennial courses that aim at giving formation to Christians from around Asia for dialogue with members of the continent’s religious traditions. Both in 2009 and in this year’s course, opportunities for an exchange of experiences accompanied the formation.
Visiting SOR one can not help but think of the Ancient Greece’s ‘Agora’: a place to openly discus challenges and problems that arise in the various cultural contexts such as Pakistan. It also provides an occasion to share prophetic experiences such as the dialogue that takes place with the monastic Theravada Buddhism in Thailand. We can’t leave out the recent events in Japan: following the earthquake and nuclear crisis members of the Focolare and of the Rissho Kosei kai managed to face the tragedy together in a true spirit of friendship and reciprocal support thanks to the relationships already built. Dialogue at an academic and social level in India with various Gandhian organisations and academic institutes also shows great promise.
Despite many common spiritual characteristics that can be seen throughout Asia, each country and cultural area has its specific traditions. Differences can also be seen in the relationships between Christians and members of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and cultures such as Confucianism and Taoism. The Focolare Movement experiences the challenges that the Catholic Church faces in these worlds at first hand.
During the presentations given by the working groups at SOR’s course, dialogue and evangelisation clearly emerged as two different aspects of the Church’s sole mission; a mission that must place personal and, above all, communitarian witness at top importance so as to guarantee a constructive and credible presence for announcing Jesus Christ. On the other hand Asian cultures often gather and intuit aspects of faith that Western Christianity have not yet valued nor deeply understood.
This year the School for Oriental Religions focused on the aspect of love in the different cultural and faith traditions. The presence of Archbishop Mons. Francis Xavier Kriegesak, the school’s dean was much appreciated as well as the contributions given by the monk prof. Phramaha Sanga Chaiwong, abbot of an important temple near Chang Mai in the North of Thailand, and by Julkipli Wadi, a Muslim professor of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines.
Three days of dialogue and exchange that will produce “suitable antidotes for fundamentalism and intemperance”, not only in the long run but straight away.
Roberto Catalano
Source: Città Nuova
![Dominican Republic: “Café con leche” social project]()
13 Apr 2011 | Focolare Worldwide
“I will show you the way of wisdom” is DePaul University’s motto and it shows up here and there on its campus. The university was founded at the end of the 19th century by the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul, with the goal of providing proper education to the children of Catholic immigrants to Chicago. Today it has 25 thousand students and it has been ranked among the “top tier” universities in the United States.
The motto, taken from the Book of Proverbs, acquired a special meaning during World Catholicism Week organized by the university, the first day of which was dedicated to the theme “Catholic spirituality: a global communion”. Various personalities spoke during the week. On that first day, April 11, a number of roundtable discussions took place, some simultaneously, and some scholars from the Focolare Movement were called to present various aspects of the communal dimension of the spirituality of Chiara Lubich. Dr Judith Povilus presented the interdisciplinary, multi-ethnic and intercultural experience of the University Sophia in Loppiano. Dr Donald Mitchell discussed the connection between environmentalism and interreligious dialogue; and Dr Paul O’Hara discussed the Marian dimension of the Church.
Maria Voce, finally, gave a talk with the title “Spirituality and Trinitarian Theology in the Life and Thought of Chiara Lubich”. In a room full of academic personalities and representatives of the Catholic world, the Focolare’s president underlined four aspects of the spirituality of communion: God-love, love for our neighbour, mutual love, and Jesus Forsaken as key to the achievement of unity. She dwelled in particular on the mystery of Jesus Forsaken viewed as a secret way to heal all wounds caused by division and fragmentation.
Maria Voce used Chiara Lubich’s experience of light in the summer of 1949 and her intuitions about the spirituality of communion as mirror of the life of the Trinity as a reference point for some passages of Chiara’s she read to the audience. At the end she underlined the deep agreement between the spirituality of communion and the ideas expressed in John Paul II’s apostolic letter Novo Millennio Inuente, and presented the challenge of Sophia University, which aims at “providing foundations and perspectives of global learning, of a culture that springs from the charism of unity and that is the fruit of communitarian spirituality lived deeply as a mirror of the life of the Trinity.”
Two theologians, Dr Tom Norris of the International Theological Commission and Dr David Schindler, director of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Catholic University of America responded to Maria Voce. Both emphasized, albeit from different perspectives, the contemporary relevance of Chiara Lubich’s Trinitarian thought and the courage contained in her proposal to the Church and to today’s theological thinking. Norris mentioned that a theologian recently claimed that the Trinity is the grammar of every theology. Schindler highlighted the Marian dimension of Chiara’s communitarian spirituality and her capacity to respond in a positive manner to the Enlightenment.
It was impossible at that end of that day not to think of the connection between the “way of wisdom” proposed by DePaul University to its students and Chiara Lubich’s charism of communion, a gift from God to walk better on the way to wisdom.
Roberto Catalano
In an atmosphere of joyful anticipation, with children sitting everywhere, and neighboring families coming to join in the festivities, Maria Voce was able to appreciate the progress that the project has shown, how it has gone ahead with the help of the “adoption at a distance” program of the New Families Movement and the generosity of the Igino Giordani-Foco Foundation, which is now directed by Margarita Rodriguez de Cano.
