{"id":307378,"date":"2020-06-05T01:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T23:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/believers-and-non-believers-in-dialogue-part-2\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:40:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:40:57","slug":"believers-and-non-believers-in-dialogue-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/believers-and-non-believers-in-dialogue-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Believers and non-believers in dialogue – PART 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Focolare\u2019s Movement\u2019s \u2018universal vocation\u2019 to build universal fraternity without distinction of race, religion, social or economic status.<\/em> Part two of our interview with self-declared \u2018non-believer\u2019, Luciana Scalacci<\/strong>, member of the International and Italian Commissions of the Focolare\u2019s Center of Dialogue with people of non-religious convictions. As a non-believer, how did you come across the Focolare? What impact did it have on you?<\/strong> One day our daughter wrote that she\u2019d found a place where she could put into practice the values we had passed on to her. She had met the Focolare community in Arezzo. We\u2019d never heard of the Movement and were naturally rather concerned. So we went along to see what it was all about. Immediately we had the impression of being in a place where other people\u2019s ideas were treated with respect. We found a rare kind of openness among the people there. Meeting the Focolare Movement was like a light which allowed me to hope again in the possibility of building a better world. You met Chiara Lubich several times. How important has this personal relationship been for you?<\/strong> In an open meeting in 2000, Chiara answered one of my questions saying, \u201cfor us too, humanity has the solution for humanity. But precisely who in humanity? For us, it\u2019s Jesus, the man Jesus. So take him for yourselves too, because he\u2019s one of you, he\u2019s a man\u201d. That\u2019s when I understood the Focolare Movement was a place where I could be active. I also understood why, even as a non-believer, I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As this dialogue has progressed over the years, how have you moved from a \u201cthem\u201d and \u201cus\u201d to feeling united together in \u201cus\u201d?<\/strong> Our initial scepticism is the first thing to overcome. On our side, as non-believers, there\u2019s the fear that it\u2019s all aimed at proselytizing us. On the side of the believers, I think there may be a concern that we\u2019ll try to shake their certainties and their faith. The only one who never had any kind of worry about it was Chiara herself! We\u2019ve increasingly experienced that the one great resource for advancing towards the goal of universal fraternity is dialogue. Gradually we\u2019ve established trust between both \u201csides\u201d, until we no longer feel \u201cthem and us\u201d but \u201cunited in us\u201d. How do you find young people responding to this option of dialogue?<\/strong> Not all young people are well informed about such openness towards those who don\u2019t adhere to any religious faith. But those who\u2019ve had the opportunity of getting to know about it show a real interest in this reality. After meeting us recently, one girl wrote, \u201cI see this dialogue like a face in a precious diamond, entrusted to us by Chiara … let\u2019s be sure to keep it shining!\u201d Click here to read Part 1 of the interview<\/em><\/a> <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Claudia Di Lorenzi<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Focolare\u2019s Movement\u2019s \u2018universal vocation\u2019 to build universal fraternity without distinction of race, religion, social or economic status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307378","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}