{"id":291404,"date":"2006-10-30T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-30T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-industrial-estate-lionello-bonfanti\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:39:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:39:03","slug":"the-industrial-estate-lionello-bonfanti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-industrial-estate-lionello-bonfanti\/","title":{"rendered":"The Industrial Estate Lionello Bonfanti"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"PoloLionelloBonfanti\"<\/a>Card. Antonelli:\u00a0 \u201cThe Economy of Communion is definitely not utopian\u201d <\/strong>The Archbishop of Florence, Card Antonelli gave\u00a0 a speech during the opening ceremony of the first European Industrial Estate, that houses the businesses of the Economy of Communion and is situated\u00a0 near\u00a0 Loppiano<\/a>, the small international town of the Focolari<\/a>, that stands on the Tuscan hills near Florence.\u00a0 He quoted the pope and said, \u201cBenedict XVI has said several times that history is guided by creative minorities\u201d.\u00a0 He highlighted the roots of this: the love of the Gospel, a love that \u201cdoes not only involve individuals, charity and voluntary work, but one that involves the culture, the structures and the dynamics of society.\u00a0 This is what is needed to change the world\u201d as\u00a0 Vatican Council II affirms.\u00a0 He continued saying, \u201c I think that tonight we are understanding better what all this means\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And he defined the idea of the Economy of Communion as certianly \u201cnot being utopian\u201d but \u201cit needs\u00a0 great spiritual energy and a lot of motivation. Yet it is so fascinating that it may be contagious and attract many other businesses\u201d. President Prodi:\u00a0 \u201cThe estate that is being inaugurated is a model for society\u201d. <\/strong>\u201cIn every society we need models that help us to keep on developping\u201d. This is what the President of the Italian Parliament said in his surprise visit to the opening ceremony.. He said he was grateful\u00a0 for such a realisation , for the commitment taken to achieve \u201ctransparency in balance sheets, respect for\u00a0 laws and\u00a0 for freely sharing profits to create a net of solidarity\u201d.\u00a0 And he confirmed that, \u201cEvery society needs to have models to imitate,\u00a0 for otherwise it will become stale; everything becomes\u00a0 standard repitition.\u00a0 Here we have an example. Here we have something which is even more and not everyone is called for it, but it is a sign of progress.\u201d The Estate is a visible sign of a road that can be followed in the business world<\/strong> to bridge the gap between rich and poor. As soon as one arrives at the Industrial Estate, one is struck by the original way it is built.\u00a0\u00a0 It stands on 9600 square metres of land but it does not look like an industrial shed. There are 5621 shareholders; and pensioners, housewives and\u00a0 students are also involved. Being shareholders in the Economy of Communion Company,\u00a0 they feel\u00a0 protagonists of a project that embraces the\u00a0 world. From the experiences shared by the businessmen here, one could see that it has not been\u00a0easy to transfer their businesses<\/strong> or to set up new subsidiary branches.\u00a0 But as they themselves said, they were fascinated by\u00a0 the idea of coming over here to be a community of businessmen that renders\u00a0 visible its share towards\u00a0 business ethics\u00a0 and towards the dream of\u00a0 bridging the gap between rich and poor. Prof. Zamagni: \u201cTo make the business flourish, man has to be placed at the centre of everything\u201d. <\/strong>Cecilia Manzo, president of the E of C Company, that runs and promotes the Estate said that \u201cthe aim of these businesses\u00a0 is make the employees participate in the running of the business\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 And this aspect was highlighted by Prof. Zamagni, lecturer of Political Economy at the Bologna University.\u00a0\u00a0 He said, \u201cToday, in this post-industrial era, the strategic factor is no more the machine or the capital,\u00a0 but it is the human person.\u00a0 If we want our businesses to flourish, we have to place man at the centre of everything.\u00a0 It is more important to act on the motivations of those who work than on giving them incentives.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 And this is what happens in the businesses of the Economy of Communion: the employees know why the business has been set up and\u00a0 give their share towards its aim. \u201cA\u00a0 brilliant idea, that has played its part in advance\u201d. Chiara Lubich<\/a> \u2013\u00a0 The motto given: \u201cGod always works\u201d<\/strong> <\/strong><\/a>In the message sent by the foundress of the Focolare Movement, who\u00a0 launched the Economy of Communion<\/a> 15 years ago,\u00a0 she expressed her hope\u00a0 that the Industrial Estate will be \u201can answer to today\u2019s economical problems.\u201d\u00a0 And she gave a motto to the Industrial Estate: \u201cGod always works\u201d.\u00a0 The ceramic plate on which this motto is written and made by the sculptor Benedetto Pietrogrande, was uncovered during the opening ceremony.\u00a0 \u201cAnd this is to remind us of the value that God gives to work, of the creative ability of man\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0She also spoke of another aspect of this project:\u00a0 it is actually part of the small towns of the Moviment that are called to be \u201ca model of a new society founded on the Gospel\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These words were said by Romano Prodi, the President of the Italian Parliament and by Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, on Saturday 28th October during the official opening ceremony of the estate, which is near the small town of Loppiano.<\/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":[896],"class_list":["post-291404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2","tag-focolare-towns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291404","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=291404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}