Worldwide Linkup on Saturday, 18th November
Promo video su Facebook – Collegamento CH
Study-Seminar of Migration and Trafficking
See program of seminar to be held at LUMSA University, Borgo Sant’Angelo,13, Rome on 28 November 2017 Official Website Seminar brochure
Profit as a means
Halfway through two international days, namely the UN’s one dedicated to the eradication of poverty on October 17 and that of Pope Francis on November 19, aimed at global solidarity with the poor, the question which arose was insistent: Is it possible to reduce and totally eliminate inequalities? Economists, NGOs, associations, national and international institutions discussed and sought ways to reduce pockets of poverty and their consequences. A debate which was organized in Brussels in October by the European Intergroup Fighting against poverty, in defence of Human rights, and ATD Fourth World, hosted the contributions of several organizations that attempt alternative methods to help people in difficulty overcome their situation. Their method consists not so much in lowering subsidies, but in activating network paths. Among the contributions was that of Florencia Locascio from Argentina, a representative for the Economy of Communion project (EoC). “The Economy of Communion,” explains Locascio, “is a movement of people, entrepreneurs, workers, consumers, scholars and citizens committed to responding to reducing poverty, to fostering an economic and civic culture that puts at the centre the person and the value of relationships. The EoC conceives profit as a means of growth which is sustainable, inclusive and in solidarity with human beings and society as a whole. ” 
After 26 years since it started (it was 1991, during her visit to São Paulo in Brazil, when Chiara Lubich had an insight of a new economic model) the EoC promotes companies that adhere to the spirit of working with three goals as an objective: reducing poverty and exclusion, train new business men and women in the culture of communion and in developing companies, creating new jobs. Some examples, among many, are these: At Banko Kabayan bank in the Philippines, 85% of clients are micro-entrepreneurs, mostly women, who offer loans, savings, micro insurance, as well as business management courses to promote their business. The “LIA” startup project in the United States aims to reintegrate older persons into the work force by re-using old furniture. DIMACO is an Argentinean company that distributes building materials. Together with other local entrepreneurs and in coordination with public institutions, the group has managed to make the work of over a thousand small producers in the region sustainable. “We are convinced, through our experience,” says Locascio, “that we cannot allow poverty to exist without involving disadvantaged people living in our communities, and wherever possible at workplaces. It is not enough to distribute wealth differently. We need to involve the poor in the creation of wealth.” In order to monitor and disseminate the effects of the EoC in the fight against poverty and inequality, the OPLA observatory on poverty, an international research centre named after Leo Andringa, a Dutch economist who was a pioneer of the Economy of Communion, was born in 2017. OPLA’s research aims to investigate, in particular, the production of “relational goods” linked to EoC activities. “But since we want to deal with the reduction of poverty not only today, but also in the future,” continues the young Argentinean, “the most recent project of the Economy of Communion, called EoC-IIN (Economy of Communion International Incubating Network), contributes to the emergence of new companies with a positive social impact. These are just some inspirational examples that carry a seed of an inclusive economic proposition. We are aware that in order to eradicate poverty, it is necessary to change the rules of a system that generates ever more inequality. It is a challenge that we want, and must, take up with all the other components of society, starting with politicians.”
Domenico Mangano
Domenico Mangano (1938-2001) answered God’s call “with readiness, loyalty, continuity, but above all, with an absolute freedom of conscience. He freely chose social commitment, which refined itself into a political commitment. When he met the Focolare Movement, he tried daily to improve his spiritual life by choosing to live “the holy journey” in unity with others. This experience rooted itself deeply in this active and resourceful citizen, committed and combative layman, fiery and pungent politician, true and faithful Christian, that was Domenico”. These words were said by the Hon.Tommaso Sorgi on the death of his “dear friend, a discreet and wise confidant, who was more than a brother”. For many years, Sorgi shared with him “the same yearning to unite heaven and earth and the same ardent passion to convey the provocative gospel message in a tough political situation. Above all, we lived together the birth of the Movement for Unity in Politics, that type of political experience which aims at building universal brotherhood and which was launched in parliament by Igino Giordani, a model for both of us” 
Domenico Mangano was born on February 22,1938 in Anzi, in the province of Potenza. In 1949 his family moved to Viterbo. In 1958, after finishing his high school studies, he managed to succeed in getting a job at the National Institute of Social Security in Pavia. He went to live there, and enrolled as a student-worker at the Faculty of Economics and Commerce. He met Maria Pia when he went back to Viterbo and they got married on August 24, 1966. They had three children: Paola (1968), Giuseppe (1970) and Maria Flora (1972). During these years, Domenico was fully committed to family life, work, university students, trade union, Catholic Action and studies. They were years in which he started his political activity as a public administrator in Viterbo. Domenico met the Focolare Movement in 1974 and together with Maria Pia adhered to its ideals. He was a Volunteer of God, a member of that branch of the Movement where lay people are radically committed to bring the light, that springs from Chiara Lubich’s charism, to all aspects of social life. He was determined “to walk in God‘s way” as indicated by Lubich, and he frequently wrote to her. Lubich remarked that he was a mystic. Domenico died at Viterbo on December 22, 2001. The year before when he was diagnosed with an incurable tumour, he knew it was time “to end the first long chapter of life by entrusting it to God’s merciful heart, and open another one that is completely new”. This was what he wrote to Chiara to share his situation. With the official Edict dated March 9, 2017, Mons. Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano accepted the petition to allow the initialization of the Cause for the Beatification and Canonization of Domenico Mangano, presented by the postulator Waldery Hilgeman, and invited the ecclesial community to pronounce itself on the fame of holiness and signs of the new Servant of God. See also: Domenico Mangano
The Works of Chiara Lubich
“I never wrote a book,” Chiara Lubich said in 1995 when she received the Author of the Year Award from the Catholic Publishers and Booksellers Union (UELCI), “even though many books bear my name.” There are many ways to write a book, and the way Chiara did it is truly a literary event. Her Italian biography lists 58 titles. Others appear only in non-Italian editions. Hundreds of articles and thousands of letters, along with documentary material have been collected by the Chiara Lubich Centre, which was established after her death to keep her memory alive. The writings scan her entire life, from 1920 in Trent where she was born, to Rocca di Papa where she died in 2008. Her first book, Meditations, has 27 Italian editions, 28 translations and a million printed copies. Meditations was the book that gave a start to Città Nuova Publishers in Rome, Italy (1959). The director of the Works of Chiara Lubich Series, Donato Falmi, commented: “In order to overcome the episodic manner in which Chiara’s writings were presented by Città nuova, a systematic publication project was begun in 2012,” which will not produce an opera omnia, but will classify the writings according to literary genres, which are organized in three blocks: the woman (the autobiographical element recovered not only in diaries and letters, but also in mystical writings); her spiritual path (found especially in texts of meditations, in the Words of Life, in texts where here spiritual, theological and cultural thought is developed); and the Work (the speeches in civil and ecclesiastical contexts, The Statutes and the Rules). Fourteen volumes are planned, each with its own large introduction that will provide a key to understanding the complexity of writings that the Focolare foundress left to us as her spiritual legacy. 
“It is quite a timely message,” commented Piero Coda, Rector of Sophia University Institute and member of the series’ scientific committee: There is no aspect of human life, or country where the leaven of this charism has not fermented. And yet,” he notes, “Chiara Lubich is still a widely unknown woman,” to discover and appreciate, even though her story and spirituality have anticipated many cultural paradigms that later materialized. “I was also in New York, with her, at the Malcolm X Mosque when she met with Imam W.D. Mohammed. There was a rabbi sitting beside me and it all seemed impossible to him. But she made it happen.” The literary production contained in the first volume is rather special. Compiled by Dr Fabio Ciardi, professor of Theology of Consecrated Life at the Claretianum Rome, her words are within the grasp of everyone, at times comments on sentences taken from the Gospels to be put into practice. These were first printed on handwritten leaflets, then mimeographed and, finally, printed in an ever growing number of copies. The Words of Life, with their simplicity and directness, have brought about a rediscovery of God’s Word in the twentieth century. In the experience of Chiara Lubich and her first companions, the Scriptures returned to being accessible to all, the humble and the simple, the educated and important, the children and the adults, the laity as well as to the consecrated. One can also discern prophetic signs in this of the universal call to holiness that was proclaimed many years later by the Second Vatican Council. The present edition, compiled by Fabio Ciardi, spans the period between 1943 and 2006. It is hoped that this monumental effort by Città Nuova and the Chiara Lubich Centre will be reflected in many other languages and cultural settings.
See video on Rome Reports (Vatican news agency) https://youtu.be/8RWX3ugmnh8