Who are the people making this site and why are you doing this? (from: Miguel, 18 years, Madrid)

We are a few people only, a handful of ex members of the focolare. We have been surprised by the fact that underneath the message of love that is transmitted by the focolare, there is also a kind of deception present. It seems that some focolare members believe that their goal can justify many different means.  It is our task to share this view with as many people as possible. Until now, most people who left the focolare have been on their own, alone with their past, but now we see a growing number of people united around a common belief that focolare is very much like other cults and sects in the world (Moon sect, Jehovah's Witnesses, New Age etc). We cannot keep quiet about this.

What goal do you aim for? (from Renata, 23 years, Rome)

Everybody should be free to join any group, sect or organization they like, but it is essential that a person knows what he or she agrees to when joining an organization. We have seen that many young people in a vulnerable period of their life join the focolare without really knowing what they stand for. The way that focolare uses to increase the number of their members is sometimes deceptive and we want to make people aware of this, before they make a decision whether or not to join this organization.

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.