This is the place on the web for people who are contemplating to become a member of the Focolare or Gen movement.

The main goal of this website is to help people. We try to do this in 3 ways:

1. Information and counselling for people who are part of the Focolare or Gen movement
2. Understanding and friendship for people who left the Focolare
3. Information for new members or people who think about joining focolare
    

This website does not repeat the information of the official Focolare website. We give our own thoughts and impressions, independent from the focolare organisation.

January 2004

All people to whom young people turn in their quest, should feel their deep responsibility to offer their best life experience, but *never* make the young ones dependent on themselves or on any ideology - instead youngsters should be encouraged to think by themselves and look for their own conclusions and deductions, even somehow "pushed" to walk by themselves.

It has been a few weeks ago that I came across this wonderful website. Really, you guys are doing an great job. You show another side of the focolare that has not been revealed by other sources, only by Gordon Urquhart’s excellent book. 

When I mailed my thoughts to the webmaster (Lionello) I got very good response and now I have contact with other people who have been involved in the movement. This is a great help. I’d like to thank everybody who has made this possible. If anybody is out there not knowing what to think of this website, I can only say, don’t hesitate but contact the webmaster. Share your ideas and you will see how life after focolare can also be good. 

We all have the love of God in our hearts, nothing can change that. But we are not made to be alone. For me, it has been good to find new friends here who respect me, trust me, without trying to influence or manipulate me. Special thanks to a unique person in the web team who went through a great deal of trouble to make me understand things better. 

October 2003

A few of my best friends are living in a focolare, some of them even because at one time I have introduced them to the movement. Now I feel very sorry for them because they have lost all their privacy in order to live their Ideal of God-Love. I know it is their own free choice to do so, but I cannot understand why everybody has to pay such a high price for wanting to live the Word of God. 

Chiara takes the Gospel very literally, which is a great strength, but not everyone is as strong as she is. Many people break down under the pressure of living in a glass cage. I appeal to Chiara and all the leaders to ease down a little, be more open minded and allow some privacy to the members of the Focolari. 

In the end this openness will help to keep the Ideal alive. Think about it and you will see it is the decent thing to do.   

June 2003

Is there a happy life after focolare?

It certainly is but  you have to find some solutions. If you know somebody from your region who has left try to spend time together and try to talk talk talk; you will be so amazed at  what the other says, that he struggled with exactly the same things as you did. 

I did the same I went for a walk with somebody I had know for a very long  time; now for the first time I met her as she was; she had struggled with the same things but never ever we would have talked about that in our focolare period because then you would be out of the supernatural.

My dear friends we consist of a natural and supernatural part and should take care of both. As you will have lost all of your former focolare friends why not go on holiday together. Try to remember what you liked as a hobby before you entered focolare and take it up again. If you hurt too much go and seek help with a psychiater you don't have money ask focolare if you have given your superfluous and insist on it that you need it. Be patient with yourself, in time you will find new friends, hobbies and a new aim in life.
Take courage 
 
 
 

Questions:

1. Why is there no democratic leadership in the focolare movement?

2. Why does the Focolare organization keep all their financial dealings as secretly as possible?

3. Why do many Focolare people have expensive cars and beautiful houses?

4. Is it true that Focolare recruits from people in vulnerable situations like young children and people who are having a difficult period in life?

 Legal actions

In a recent verdict the Dutch High Court has prevented a focolarino to receive a tax-reduction. The Court ruled that a member of the Focolare is bound to give all his belongings and money to the Movement. This makes it impossible for him to use the same money claiming it is a free gift and receive a tax-deduction.
In our opinion this case proves once again that money is a most important issue for the Focolare people. Fortunately there are some officials yet who can see clearly what is right and what is just too much. For those of you who want to know every detail we put in the link:
Focolare-verdict

Further news:
In our last count it turned out the international Focolare website has 800 web-pages now. They are overwhelming the net as well as the real world, with more drive than any international commercial company. It seems that those who run the organization these days have gone a long way from the humble beginning without a clear goal, like Chiara at the start of the movement, some 60 years ago.
 

 Question of the week by Lionello from Florence, Italy:

What is the deception you are talking about?

There is deception in very many ways. To clarify this, we can point at the book A woman's work written by Jimmy Gallager in 1997. Let us give you a few examples.

Even the title of Jimmy s book is deceptive, stating it is about a woman's work while suggesting this is Chiara Lubich. All through the book it is being stated that it is not Chiara s doing but the work of Mary and the finger of God. This contradiction makes the book confusing from the very start. The terminology of the focolare organization is also very deceptive. Everything is called new, New City, New Generation, New Families, while in fact the thoughts are as old and conservative as any other catholic organization. Chiara receives many letters from the Pope and visits him on a regular basis. She has also close ties to the Vatican and Italian establishment. She receives numerous doctorates of honour but all from conservative universities like Poland, Philippines and even Taiwan. There is as much new in this as there was democracy in the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

The other great deception is the fact that Chiara keeps telling us that she had no plan in mind for a movement, she only wanted to follow God. This makes life hard for those people who want to object to the movement or the methods that are being used because God himself has started the movement while Chiara only wanted to follow Jesus. This statement is greatly contradicted by other statements like Jimmy Gallagers remark that Anna Fratta spent 30 years of her life in countries of the Communist Bloc in order to implant the movement secretly there. Chiara also send her best friend Natalia to live in Berlin in 1960, just before the Wall was erected. In 1961 Enzo Fondi and Guisseppe Santache were also send to Leipzig, all in order to start the movement in the Communist Bloc.