{"id":291354,"date":"2006-09-15T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-15T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/our-answer-to-todays-cultural-and-collective-darkness\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:38:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:38:57","slug":"our-answer-to-todays-cultural-and-collective-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/our-answer-to-todays-cultural-and-collective-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOur answer to today\u2019s cultural and collective darkness\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

  \u201cIn a world marked by dramatic tensions, even through this initiative, the Focolare Movement intends to propose fraternity as a way that leads to peace<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 The opening of this great gathering held at the SportArena of Budapest, packed to full capacity by 11,000 participants, who came from 92 countries from all over the world, consisted of the address of Pope Benedict XVI, read by Cardinal Peter Erdo, the Archbishop of Budapest and the Primate of Hungary.\u00a0\u00a0 The ideas, experiences and concrete initiatives offered during the gathering, proposed universal fraternity as an answer to the many challenges of today. The Pope encouraged those participating \u201cto continue the fruitful work brought ahead up till now, incarnating the Gospel of love in the affairs of each day\u201d. Among those present in the ultra modern Hungarian sports stadium, there were followers of other religions, among whom a good number of Muslims from Algeria, Christians of various denominations, and members belonging to 13 other Catholic Movements and New Communities.\u00a0 There were also civil and religious personalities, among them Peter Harrach, the Vice-president of the Hungarian Parliament.\u00a0 This event followed the two day meeting which was held in the Hungarian capital city and in which more than 9000 \u201cvolunteers of God\u201d took part. The \u201cvolunteers of God\u201d, a branch of the Focolare Movement committed to contribute towards the renewal of society,\u00a0 was commemorating the 50th anniversary of its birth, as an answer\u00a0 to the tragic \u201cevents of\u00a0 Budapest\u201d. 50 years after those tragic events, the founder of the Focolare Movement spoke about the situation of the world today:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 she spoke about the signs of a humanity engulfed by \u201ca collective and cultural darkness\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 In her address, read by Valeria Ronchetti, one of her first companions, Chiara Lubich spoke of \u201cthe collective darkness of our times, which has progressively fallen over humanity, especially in the West\u201d, where relativism predominates and where ethics can no longer keep up with the scientific and technological advancements taking place at a frenetic pace.\u00a0 The West is searching \u201cfor incisive ideas, an ideal that opens the way and provides answers to the many tormenting questions, and that sheds a light to follow\u201d. While repeating the words of John Paul II, Chiara indicated the way in the \u201ctragedy of a God, who cries out: \u2018My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u2019\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cThis was his inner passion, his darkest night, the climax of his suffering\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a tragedy that sheds light on our paths: \u201cIf we are able to encounter Him in every suffering, if we love Him, by saying to the Father as Jesus did on the cross: \u2018Father, into your hands I commend my spirit\u2019 (Lk 23:46), then with Him the night will pass away and the light will illumine us\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 She also said that \u201cthe Movement has acquired an extremely rich experience\u201d, one that has seen new developments during these last years. \"\" Chiara spoke of \u201cinundations of light\u201d<\/strong> – borrowing a term from John Chrysostom, a great Father of the Church \u2013 which illuminates today\u2019s culture in its various aspects.\u00a0 These inundations are a result of a \u201cdialogue, which the Focolare Movement began some years ago. It is a dialogue between the wisdom which the charisma of unity has to offer and the various fields of human knowledge and endeavour\u201d: from politics to ecology; from communication to health, law and economy. This development is the work of the Holy Spirit, that \u201cprecisely in our times has been generous, forcefully penetrating the human family with various charismas, which then gave birth to movements, spiritual currents, new communities and works<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 It is not a novelty that \u201ccivic and economic experiences originate from spiritual currents born from charismas.\u00a0\u00a0The story of humanity is studded with them<\/em>\u201d. This was how Luigino Bruni, professor of political economics at\u00a0 the\u00a0 University of Milan \u2013 Bicocca (Italy), introduced the first of the four round table talks held to face the challenges\u00a0 encountered in the fields of economics, law, communications and politics. \u201cThe inspiring spark of that, which was immediately called Economy of Communion<\/em>\u201d occurred in 1991, during Chiara Lubich\u2019s trip to San Paolo, Brazil, in the face of the \u201cscandal posed by a world of luxurious skyscrapers and inhumane shacks<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0\u201cMany modern firms, efficient in their running, which operate within the market economy<\/em>\u201d have become the protagonists of this project, giving also rise to industrial estates.\u00a0 The novelty of this project is that the profits produced are used to help the growth of the firm, thus creating employment opportunities,\u00a0\u00a0 to form \u201cnew people<\/em>\u201d who are ready to live this new culture, and to help those who have immediate needs. \u201cIt is not just a novelty of life, but also a novelty of thought, it is a doctrinal novelty<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 Kelen Leite, a young Brazilian researcher, spoke about this.\u00a0 She is one of about 200 young university students who published their thesis on the Economy of Communion.\u00a0 She confirmed that \u201csome universities were now teaching this theory along with other theories in economics courses<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Facts give evidence:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0During the massive economic crisis that hit Asia in 1997, a rural bank in the Philippines, set up to help farmers and operating in line with the Economy of Communion, not only managed to overcome the crisis, but it bravely managed to set up a project of micro-finance, lending out money to the poor without collateral.\u00a0A new credit agency was born and presently this is still doing quite well.\u00a0 This is the experience of Tess and Francis Ganzon, of the board of directors of Bangko Kabayan. Launching of the \u201cBrotherhood with Africa<\/em>\u201d project –<\/strong> A chance open to everyone to contribute to a new economy. This project, presented at the end of the morning session, aims at increasing human and professional resources in Africa, so that the Africans themselves will contribute towards the social and cultural development of their country.\u00a0\u00a0 Young and adult Africans, who lack financial means, will be given support in the form of scholarships for university or post-university professional courses. Those who will benefit from this project will be asked to work in their country, at least for some time, after they finish their studies.\u00a0 The three other challenges in the fields of law, communication and politics were tackled in the afternoon session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chiara Lubich\u2019s address during the great event held at Budapest. The Pope\u2019s encouragement to the \u201cvolunteers\u201d to continue incarnating the Gospel of Love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}