The preferential option for the poor, the painful journey of liberation theology, the current religious crisis, “do-it-yourself” faith and the lack of meaning. But also inequality is a lack of relationship. These were only a few of the topics discussed by a group of university professors and graduate students in search of a new cultural perspective for Latin America during the three-day meeting in Brazil at Mariapolis Ginetta (October 31-November 2, 2014). Examples joined with questions of witnesses and spiritual thirst, the promotion of native cultures and African descendents. Days during which the typically pluralistic and social calling of the country continued to surface.

Among the presenters, Dr Piero Coda, theologian and president of Sophia University Institute, Loppiano, Italy, who has seen many Latin American students, including Brazilians, studying at Sophia. He affirmed: “During this monumental turning point of epochal change, of the vision of man and of the world, there is an historic urgency to present the contribution of the charism that has matured over decades, the charism of unity that was given to Chiara Lubich.”

During the 50 years that the Focolare Movement has been in Brazil and Latin America, many projects have begun at several universities. Fraternity was often proposed as a category that brings renewal to the different disciplines, from politics to economy to pedagogy.

Through the intense exchange of experiences, proposals and reflections that characterized the three-day meeting, a new perspective was opened, a step to be taken: that a university centre under the same inspiration as Sophia should begin in Latin America. It would begin small, with specifically Latin American qualities.

Also participating was Maria Clara Bingemer, from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC), and Argentinian political scientist Juan Esteban Belderrain who put his finger on some of the deep wounds of the continent and their causes, such as the lack of social cohesian.

The cultural proposal offered by Sophia has a specific feature, which is in harmony with the leanings of the Latin American Church and with its roots in the original inspiration and methodology presented by Chiara Lubich in 2001. In recent years Sophia has been an experimental laboratory, as ex-students testify: “here students and teachers strive to link theory and life, focusing on relationships at every level and aiming for transdisciplinarity in answer to the fragmentation among the disciplines.” “For Chiara thought and life were never in opposition to one another,” remarked Focolare co-president Jesus Moran during a recent interview. Chiara was “devoted to the mind of Jesus” as the founder of the Abba School and Sophia University Institute. Like all the great founders, she was fully aware that a charism that didn’t become culture had no future. Culture is always life.”

Currently the students body at Sophia University Institute is comprised of people from 30 countries. Such an international community provides a further opportunity to be formed into world citizens, where the specific culture of each opens itself to more universal dimensions. This project has turned out to be in tune with the recent trio of Pope Francis which he presented in his videomessaggio on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Loppiano Mariapolis. He recalled Sophia precisely as a place in which new men and new women can be formed “who, aside from being opportunely prepared in the academic disciplines, are at the same time steeped in the wisdom which flows from the love of God.”