Focolare Movement

International Children’s Rights Day

Nov 19, 2018

On 20 November 1959 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and approved in 1989, the International Convention on the rights of infants and adolescents.  Based on the harmonization of different cultural and juridical experiences, the Convention enunciated for the first time, and in a coherent way, the fundamental […]

On 20 November 1959 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and approved in 1989, the International Convention on the rights of infants and adolescents.  Based on the harmonization of different cultural and juridical experiences, the Convention enunciated for the first time, and in a coherent way, the fundamental rights to be recognized and guaranteed for all the children of the world. The document stated the four key issues: the lack of denunciation, greater interest, life and survival and development, and lastly, listening in all the decision-making processes. The Convention also provides for a control mechanism on the work of the States that have to present a periodic report on its implementation in their territories. According to UNICEF, every year millions of children continue to be victims of violence, abuse, abandonment, exploitation, wars and discrimination. A lot has been done, but still more must be done to achieve a concrete application of these principles.

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Thought of the day

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

The first presentation of Chiara Lubich’s book ‘Paradise ’49’ took place on the 22nd of May 2026 in the Paul VI Hall at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The book is a collection of writings in which the Foundress of the Focolare Movement bears witness to and shares her mystical experience from the years 1949 to 1951.

Related post

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

The first presentation of Chiara Lubich’s book ‘Paradise ’49’ took place on the 22nd of May 2026 in the Paul VI Hall at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The book is a collection of writings in which the Foundress of the Focolare Movement bears witness to and shares her mystical experience from the years 1949 to 1951.

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

It is the 16th of July 1949. Chiara Lubich is in Tonadico, in the Dolomite Mountains in northern Italy, for a period of rest together with some of her first companions. They are joined there by the Honourable Igino Giordani, whom Chiara called Foco. On that day, Chiara and Foco sealed a Pact of unity, a prelude to the spiritual and mystical experience that Chiara would live between 1949 and 1951. This period is known as “Paradise ’49”, the writings from which have recently been published in a book (for now in Italian). In the introduction to the book, the theologian Piero Coda offers some insights “For a theological reading” of the text. Here is an extract, relating specifically to the Pact of the 16th of July, together with a short video of Chiara Lubich from 20 December 1999, in which she shares this experience of light with the Gen, the young people of the Focolare Movement.