The international ensemble Gen Verde has launched a new album which includes previously unreleased songs, new musical pieces, re-arranged tracks and some of the songs that have been released in recent years.
“Everything Speaks about You – Prayer in Music” is the title of the new album by the band born from the Charism of Unity of the Focolare Movement.
“Everything speaks to us about God: the beauty of nature that surrounds us, the that air we breathe, the people passing by, the joys and the difficulties, the moments of great happiness but also those of darkness and pain which Jesus took upon himself on the cross. This album is the result of a deep experience for Gen Verde. Every note, every word and every silence intends to express their relationship with God, the heart of all that Gen Verde is and does”, these are the words that describe the album and summarise the motive and soul of the work.
Nancy Uelmen (United States), singer, pianist and composer of Gen Verde says: “As Chiara Lubich, the founder of Focolare, says: ‘Prayer: it is the breath of the soul, the oxygen of our whole spiritual life, the expression of our love for God, the fuel for everything we do’ (Chiara Lubich, Seeking the things above). So we would like to invite everyone to take an inner journey together, guided by each track on the album, hoping that it can be an instrument of prayer in music, as it is for us.”
How did the idea for this album come about?
“For us, more than an album, it is a very special experience – Nancy emphasizes – because we wanted to go to the heart of what Gen Verde is does. It’s what inspires our music: our relationship with God. We therefore wanted to create an album about prayer and music, through songs and some instrumental pieces, to express our heart and everything that we are and do. The idea is to go on an inner journey: each track expresses an aspect of the relationship that can be lived with God and with each other. As the title states, we can find God anywhere – in nature, in our neighbours, in our own hearts – so this album is like a journey that can help us discover this presence. It is the result of an experience which is central for us”.
Gen Verde is based in Loppiano, the little town of the Focolare near Florence (Italy) and is made up of twenty focolarine from 14 different countries. They are a mix of internationality, a constant training ground in loving the culture, traditions and diverse types of music that characterise team members. For over 50 years the band has travelled around the world to give witness that peace, fraternity, dialogue and unity are possible. Now, with this new project, the journey is within each one of us to rediscover ourselves, God and others.
The album was released on 6th June on all digital platforms (Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon music, Deezer, Tidal). The physical album, which contains a booklet with the words of the songs and also meditations to help with prayer, isavailable on theMade in Loppiano website.
A man, a husband, a father; a tireless professional, a Christian: these are just some of the qualities that describe Giulio Ciarrocchi, a married focolarino who, after years of illness, recently passed away. He was a shining example of great trust in that plan that God had in mind for him and his family.
Giulio was born in Brooklyn (USA) to father Andrea and mother Romilda. His sister Maria Teresa was already part of the family. A year later, the family returned to Petritoli, a picturesque town in the Marche region of central Italy. Giulio later studied in Fermo, a nearby city. His father, passed on his love for singing, to Giulio, which led him to compose songs as a young man. He was involved in both the choir and other activities in the village, and had many friends. This was in 1968.69, the height of the student protests. Giulio recounted: “Inside me, everything was questioned. I openly contested everything and everyone, nothing satisfied me”. At the age of 22, he met Chiara Lubich’s spirituality of unity: “It was a very strong light that opened my eyes to evangelical love,” he said. I started with the seemingly simple things, like greeting people: the other was no longer a stranger: Jesus lived in them. Previously I only related to people who had the same interests as me. Now I realized that there were also the poor and the marginalized. For example, I remember a very poor elderly woman, avoided by everyone because she always said the same things and never washed herself. Now when I’d meet her, I’d give her a lift in the car and take her where she needed to go. When she became sick I went to see her in the hospital every day until she died. Then there was a boy with a disability, rejected by his family, who had been recently hospitalized after attempting suicide. I approached him in friendship. Little by little, I helped him to have confidence in life, to reconnect with family members and to find a job. I felt such a great joy and freedom that everything else seemed to fade away”.
In the years that followed, Giulio became deeply involved in the Gen Movement, the youth reality of the Focolare Movement, which led him to make the Gospel his way of life. He was drawn to the values in which he believed and to which he dedicated himself with other young people: justice, equality and friendship.
He graduated in Economics and worked in a Bank. At the age of 26 he met Pina. They married in 1976 and set up home in Ancona (Marche). After three years, they were invited to move to Grottaferrata (Rome) to help out in the International Secretariat of New Families. Giulio applied for a job in a bank in Rome and, as soon as he was successful, Pina and he and the little Francesca and Chiara (Sara was born later) moved to Grottaferrata. It was September 1979.
Giulio presenta il Familifest 1993Giulio con Chiara LubichGiulio e Pina con la famigliaUn incontro del centro internazionale Familgie Nuove con Chiara Lubichcon alcuni focolarini del focolare di GiulioGiulio con amici e focolariniCon alcune focolarine del focolare di PInaGiulio e Pina nel giorno del matrimonioGiulio con alcuni gen, giovani dei FocolariCon le figlie
While Pina, also a married focolarina, worked full-time at the Secretariat of New Families, Giulio, depending on his work, made himself available for various activities: offering assistance at international meetings; sharing, together with Pina, their life experiences and God’s work in them, not only with engaged couples and young couples, but also during Focolare Movement formation meetings for children and young people and conferences with representatives of various Churches. They often opened the doors of their home to welcome families from around the world who were visiting the Focolare’s international centre, an experience that was enriching for the whole family.
In 1993, the FN Secretariat unanimously asked Giulio, with his warm empathy and charming presence, to host Familyfest, the global event held at the Palaeur in Rome.
Pina and he were among the founding members of AMU (Action for a United World) and AFN (Action for New Families). They served on the National Office for Family Pastoral Care of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) for two years.
Suddenly, in May 1995, everything changed. Giulio suffered a stroke. He survived thanks to the timely care he received and his extraordinary determination, facing long hospital stays and exhausting physiotherapy. A few months later, he sent this message to friends:
“The day I entered this clinic, the Mass reading spoke of Abraham being invited by God to leave his land to go where He would lead him. I felt that call was for me. In all these years I had worked hard to find a sense of balance. This illness shattered that balance. I had to find a new one and I asked God where he wanted to lead me. Having to start all over again scared me. But Jesus gave me the answer and the strength to go on.”
His illness became a journey of rediscovering a relationship with the Father: “I am living a beautiful experience of relationship with God and with the community even if amid physical pain, which, however, I assure you, is truly secondary to the great gifts I have received”.
Giulio never recovered, indeed his condition gradually worsened. His life and that of his family was put to the test, but their unity, especially that as a couple, was so real and inscrutable, so joyful and fruitful that Chiara Lubich herself wanted to affirm it with the words of the Psalm: “In him our hearts rejoice” (33:21).
For seven years, Giulio struggled to continue working at the bank to reach the minimum retirement requirement, deeply grateful to his colleagues for their help and support. Then, finally, a break from work, but not from his commitment, together with Pina, to families around the world, working as long as he was able and then offering and praying until the end, certain that Pina was an expression of the unity between them.
In 2007 another challenge came. Giulio wrote: “I have received the biopsy result: it’s a carcinoma, and I’ll need radiotherapy. I repeat my ‘yes’ to Jesus. Some might say that God has targeted me, since I’ve already lived through 12 difficult post-stroke years. I, on the other hand, believe I am very much loved and I thank him for the privilege of participating in his mystery of love for the good of humanity.”
In May 2025, Giulio and Pina celebrated 30 years of illness. That’s right, celebrated. And not because everything was over now, but because as Giulio commented, “They have been years of grace”. Though his memory had begun to fade, his spiritual dimension remained vibrant. “I live in the present”, he said on 2nd February, 2025, “and I look upward. Jesus tells me, don’t worry, I’m here, right behind you”. And on 25th June, Pina’s birthday, in a moment of clarity, he said to her: “You’ve always managed so well, I hope you will continue to do so even more!” On Giulio’s final day, while waiting for the ambulance after praying three Hail Marys together, he said: “Mary most pure, help us.”
Giulio was a gift for all those who met him. Many messages of gratitude have been received from relatives, colleagues and friends from all over the world.
Giulio had many gifts and many people were enriched by his life, as his daughters shared after the funeral:
“What we would like to share is his ability to recognize beauty. Not surface-level or aesthetic beauty, but the kind you discover by going deeper, when you overcome fear and embrace life with your heart. That invisible, but powerful beauty, which runs through life’s fabric, which is light in pain and joy in illness. This is the beauty to which our Dad introduced us, by involving us in his many passions such as art, photography, music, theatre, travel and the sea… passions that today are also ours and that allow us to have an open and confident approach to the world just like he did until the end. Dear Dad, we’ve often thought that life wasn’t kind to you, but the kindness you didn’t receive, you gave to your life and to ours.
In these last few years, your physical world has shrunk, yet your inner world has expanded, teaching us gratitude for every single day of life”.
La redazione con la collaborazione di Anna e Alberto Friso
This link is to a video-interview produced by the Santa Chiara Audiovisual Centre featuring Giulio and his wife Pina: Falling in love again, day by day.
The first General Assembly of the Focolare Movement without the foundress was held in July 2008. In fact, Chiara Lubich had died a few months earlier, on the 14th of March. An air of uncertainty hung over the already emotional and question-filled atmosphere as to who should succeed Chiara in leading the Movement. It seemed obvious to think of Chiara’s first companions, now elderly, but at least some of them were still capable of leading this first post-foundation phase.
During the first session of the Assembly, there was a talk from a legal perspective on a topic relevant to the Assembly given by Carlos Clariá, an Argentinian lawyer and general councillor, and Maria Voce, for many years secretary to the central delegate Gisella Cagliari. I remember that I was sitting next to the well-known theologian Piero Coda. When they concluded their talk, I told him rather boldly: “Here is our new president”. The truth was that the way she had explained things had impressed me greatly.
Maria Voce (Emmaus) was elected on the third ballot, not without a certain “suspense”. A new stage was beginning for the Work of Mary and I, too, was elected as a councillor.
One afternoon, after the elections, as we were leaving the Mariapolis Centre in Castelgandolfo, Emmaus approached me and said more or less these words: “I thought of entrusting you with the aspect of studies and culture in the new council. You are a man of thought, and I always liked the annual reports you wrote when you were responsible for a region in Latin America.” During the following six years, my relationship with her was very simple.
At the 2014 Assembly, Emmaus was re-elected, and the participants placed their trust in me as Co-President. Since then, our relationship has strengthened enormously, without losing its simplicity. I remember that in the beginning I felt a certain apprehension at the idea of having to work side by side with a president who belonged to the generation immediately following the first one, but this feeling was short-lived. I always perceived great respect and appreciation from her, which gave me a lot of freedom. I would arrive with a bunch of new ideas, and she would support me with her wisdom and experience. In our joint presentations we would prepare the essentials together and would complement each other in a simple way. I once told her, “As opposed to what you might think, I only feel confident in expressing some creative ideas when you are by my side.” We made long and important visits to India and China, where I witnessed her ability to penetrate the most intricate situations and relate to very different key personalities.
Maria Voce, Emmaus, will go down in the history of the Focolare Movement as the first president of the post-Chiara Lubich era. If we think that when she took up her role, many of Chiara’s first companions were still alive. We can understand the “spiritual resilience” with which she carried out her work in those early years; not because they were difficult people, but simply because they were the first ones, the arms of the foundress, people who in some way had been part of the founding charism.
Emmaus will go down in the history of the Focolare Movement for having been the president of the “new set-up”, the first innovative-organisational step of the Movement in the post-Chiara era, in creative faithfulness to the charism. In her first mandate, while Chiara’s absence was felt and could have caused discouragement, Emmaus travelled the world to strengthen the members and adherents of the Focolare communities in their commitment to a more fraternal and united world – in line with the charism of the foundress. In her second mandate, she began to prepare the Movement for the inevitable “crisis” phase appearing on the horizon, which Pope Francis identified as a great opportunity. And the Argentine Pope held her in great esteem. He pointed this out to her on every occasion. This demonstrates another of her characteristics: her ecclesial spirit.
I have always admired in Emmaus her simplicity, her inner freedom, her determination and her ability to discern, in which she was greatly aided by a legal background that she made her own.
Maria Voce will go down in the history of the Movement as “Emmaus”, to evoke the centrality of Jesus in the midst of his people. This was an absolutely non-negotiable principle for her.
Thank you, Emmaus, for saying a solemn “yes” at the most difficult time in our still short history. Mary will have taken you into her arms, presented you to her Son and together they will have carried you to the bosom of the Father who was the perennial source of your inspiration.
Maria Voce, the first president of the Focolare Movement (Work of Mary) after the foundress, Chiara Lubich, died yesterday at the age of 87 at home, in Rocca di Papa (Italy), surrounded by the affection and prayers of many.
This was announced yesterday evening by Margaret Karram, the current President to all those who belong to the Focolare Movement in the world.
In a message, Margaret went on to express the immense suffering that Maria Voce’s departure has brought about. She also expressed the fraternal and filial bond that bound them both together. “As the first president of the Focolare Movement after our foundress, she was able to take ahead with intelligence, farsightedness and the necessary determination the difficult transition of our Movement from its foundation to the post-foundation phase. She was able to combine her inspiring faithfulness to the Charism of Unity with the courage to deal with the many challenges of a worldwide association like ours, which operates on so many levels of human, social and institutional life.
Maria Voce received the name “Emmaus” as a life programme from Chiara Lubich, and it also became the programme of her government: to journey together, in a synodal way – and regardless of the questions and uncertainties that may emerge along the way, trusting in the presence of God in the midst of his people.
When I succeeded her as president of the Focolare Movement in 2021, she always accompanied me with a discreet but ever-present closeness and with her advice so full of Wisdom. In addition to her spiritual, theological and juridical preparation, she was also blessed with a deep and welcoming humanity and an engaging humour that was always respectful. Her human and sapiential calibre has been acknowledged by the most varied religious and civil authorities: from Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis; from the leaders of the various Churches to representatives of other religions and cultures.
A few hours before her departure to the next life, Jesús Morán and I were able to visit her for one last time. She was serene. I am consoled by the thought that waiting for her in heaven is the Virgin Mary, to whom she was closely linked by a very deep, and I would say existential, relationship.”
Jesús Morán, who lived alongside Maria Voce during the first six years of his service as Co-President of the Focolare Movement, recognises that with her election a new stage has begun for the Focolare Movement. He writes: “Emmaus, will go down in the history of the Movement not only as the first president of the post-Chiara Lubich phase, but also as the one who took the first innovative-organisational step of the Movement in the post-foundation era, in perfect creative faithfulness to the charism. In her first mandate, while Chiara’s absence was felt and could have caused discouragement, Emmaus travelled the world to strengthen the members and adherents of the Focolare communities in their commitment to a more fraternal and united world – in line with the charism of the foundress. In her second mandate, she began to prepare the Movement for the inevitable “crisis” phase appearing on the horizon, which Pope Francis identified as a great opportunity. And the Argentine Pope held her in great esteem. He pointed this out to her on every occasion. This demonstrates another of her characteristics: her ecclesial spirit.
I have always admired in Emmaus her simplicity, her inner freedom, her determination and her ability to discern, in which she was greatly aided by a legal background that she made her own.
Thank you, Emmaus, for saying a solemn “yes” at the most difficult time in our still short history. Mary will have taken you into her arms, presented you to her Son and together they will have carried you to the bosom of the Father who was the perennial source of your inspiration.”
I funerali si terranno lunedì prossimo, 23 giugno 2025, alle ore 15.00 presso il Centro internazionale dei Focolari a Rocca di Papa (Roma), via di Frascati, 306 – Rocca di Papa (Roma).(*)
Stefania Tanesini
Biographical information
Maria Voce was born in Ajello Calabro (Cosenza – Italy) on the 16th of July 1937, the first of seven children. Her father was a doctor and her mother, a housewife. In her final year of university studies in law in Rome (1959), she met a group of young focolarini at university and began to follow their spirituality. After finishing her studies, she practised law in Cosenza, becoming the first woman lawyer in the city’s court. She later studied theology and canon law.
In 1963, she was called by God to follow Chiara Lubich’s path, to which she responded with immediacy. In the Movement, Maria Voce is known as “Emmaus”, a name that refers to the well-known episode of the two disciples walking with Jesus after the resurrection. She herself describes how Chiara proposed it to her: “Chiara, confirmed an intuition that I had strongly felt within: that my life was to be spent so that those who had the opportunity to meet me would experience Jesus in the midst.” From that moment on, her commitment was to build bridges of unity, to the point of deserving God’s presence among people.
From 1964 to 1972 she was in the Focolare communities in Sicily (Italy) in Syracuse and Catania and from 1972 to 1978 she was part of Chiara Lubich’s personal secretariat.
In 1977 Chiara Lubich made an important visit to Istanbul (Turkey) where for years she had cultivated a special relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. During those years, Maria Voce was in the focolare in that city, and she recalls: “It was a strong experience, both for the precious contacts with the various Churches, with Islam, and also because we felt that only Jesus among us made us strong when faced with the many problems of that land.”
In Istanbul, she established ecumenical relationships with the then Patriarch of Constantinople Demetrius I and numerous Metropolitans, including the current Patriarch Bartholomew I, as well as representatives of the various Churches.
In 1988 Chiara asked Emmaus to return to Italy to work at the International Centre in Rocca di Papa and for the Abbà school, the Interdisciplinary Study Centre of the Focolare Movement, of which she became a member in 1995 as an expert in Law. Since the year 2000 she has also been co-responsible for the International Commission of “Communion and Law”, a network of professionals and scholars involved in the field of Justice. From 2002 to 2007 she collaborated directly with Chiara in updating the General Statutes of the Movement.
On the 7th of July 2008, a few months after Chiara Lubich’s death, she was elected president of the Focolare Movement, reappointed for a second term on the 12th of September 2014. The style of her presidency has always been to “prioritise relationships” and to work towards the goal for which the Movement was born: to seek unity at all levels, in all fields, by following the path of dialogue. She has repeatedly emphasised how important dialogue is. “If there is an extremism of Violence,” she said in 2015 at the United Nations, in New York, “now we are responding in the same radical way, but structured differently, that is, with the extremism of dialogue.”
Numerous visits were made to all the continents to meet with the Movement’s communities spread around the world and to maintain contacts with civil and ecclesiastical, cultural and political, ecumenical and interreligious leaders. These were important steps to strengthen the bonds of friendship and collaboration established by the Focolare Movement and to encourage developments on the path of fraternity between peoples.
During her presidency, both with Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, Maria Voce had meetings and audiences where expressions of esteem and fraternal affection emerged on both sides. On the 23rd of April 2010, Pope Benedict XVI received her in private audience. Referring to the spirituality of the Focolare Movement, the Pope spoke of a “charism that builds bridges, that creates unity” and invited the Focolare Movement to continue in its activities with ever deeper love and in striving for holiness. In October 2008, she participated and spoke at the Synod of Bishops on “The Word of God in the life and mission of the Church”. On the 24th of November 2009 Pope Benedict appointed her as Consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and on the 7th of December 2011 as Consultor of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation.
On the 13th of September 2013, Pope Francis received her in audience together with the then Co-President Giancarlo Faletti. About that moment, Emmaus remembers, “He immediately received us with a great welcome. He made me feel at home. I felt a great joy, as if I were standing in front of a father, but first and foremost he was a brother. I felt like his sister, and this sense has always remained.”
And on another occasion, she said, “Pope Francis has always encouraged us to go ahead, to welcome the signs of the times in order to make the charism relevant today, received for the good of many people and giving joyful witness to it”. One of these occasions was the Pope’s visit to the international little town of Loppiano (Florence, Italy) in 2018. Maria Voce was there to welcome him: “Holy Father, we have a very high goal, we want to “aim high”. We would like to make mutual love the law of coexistence, which means experiencing the joy of the Gospel and feeling that we are protagonists of a new page of history.”
With Pope Benedict XVIWith Pope FrancisWith Pope Francis in LoppianoWith the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew IWith Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian RepublicDuring his speech at the UNWith Nikkio Niwano, Rissho Kosei-kaiAt an interreligious meetingMaria Voce with Chiara Lubich
