This humble website exists
to offer you information about the Focolare movement,
information that you cannot find on the official website.
As long as the people who have had problems with the
Focolare are not heard and do not have a voice on the
official website, this website will provide a platform.
Here people can share their experiences, ask questions and
give their opinions freely.
September 21th,
2024
It has been more than 20
years ago when we started to ask questions about
everything that is going on behind the scenes of the
focolare movement. Now, finally, it seems some questions
are being answered. And some things seem to start to
change. However it is too early to jump to conclusions.
But we like to take a look at a report about abuse in
the focolare movement that has been written by the
movement itself recently. Shortly we will also write our
own reaction to this report. You can read the report
from March 2023 if you follow this link.
To see the first report by GCPS from 2022 about abuse
please follow this link.
After sometime of quiet
growth, we are glad to announce that are many new and
interesting initiatives. As always, we have been looking
in the mirror and asked ourselves: Why are we doing this
and will we keep going another year? And we found
answers. We are going on for all those who left the
focolare movement and for those who are still in it.
This year specially for our friends who are still part
of the movement.
New websites and interviews:
The
stumblings of a turtle...
(L' inciampo del carapace. Degli errori di Chiara
Lubich o di chi l’ha mal consigliata.)
A website in Italian writing about everything you ever
wanted to know about the focolare movement but never
dared to ask.
Oref
(Organizzazione Ex Focolari)
Oref (Former Focolari Organization) is an international
organization that brings together women and men who have
distanced themselves from the spiritual path of Chiara
Lubich's Focolare Movement after having been part of it,
having recognized its limits and abuses and rejected its
practices.
Pulling
back the curtain on the Focolare Movement
Exclusive interview with the Italian author of a new
look inside one of the Catholic Church's most
influential -- and problematic -- ecclesial movements of
our times
"In the years I spent as a member of the Movement, I
recall specific examples when 'books' were dismissed out
of hand. While I was doing a degree in English and
Italian Literature, I mentioned to Jean-Marie Wallet,
the head of the London Focolare, that, since meeting the
movement, I was having increasing difficulty reading the
books on my syllabus. 'Yes,' he nodded sagely:
'once you have read the writings of Chiara Lubich, the
great works of world literature fade into
insignificance.' " (By Gordon Urquhart)
Here is an interesting question we have recieved:
Dear website team,
I regularly check your site (and recently also the OREF
Facebook page) and questions keep popping up in my mind:
I have been a volunteer of the Focolare movement for
many years and have donated large sums of money within
the framework of the community of goods donated. There
was always an action, a charity or some reason to give.
And many did with me! After reading La Setta Divina
(particularly chapter 32) I understand all the more that
the movement, with all movable and immovable property,
has an enormous capital. But… who is actually in charge
of all that money? The president?? Those responsible for
the 'red'?? You are not telling me that 'Jesus in the
middle' does the bookkeeping and has the last word in
financial decisions.
People often talk about spiritual things, brotherhood,
charism, living in unity…but isn't this a kind of 'smoke
screen' to fool everyone?
What POWER is actually behind the movement?
By now I have the necessary distance from the movement,
so now dare to ask this open question in all honesty.
I'm very curious how you think about this.
Thanks in advance for any response,
Pierre F. (France)
Here are some experiences we have collected:
C. worked in a Mariapolis
Center as a cleaner, in the kitchen, in the distribution
of meals, at the reception in exchange only for room and
board. There was no INAIl coverage for accidents or INPS
for social security.
The working hours exceeded 48 hours of work per week,
which theoretically would be the maximum allowed by the
legislation.
On holidays or during breaks, housework had to be done
in the Focolare, so in fact you never felt you had
moments of rest or privacy to do something relaxing.
During the holidays there was no possibility to choose
the place to go, because everything was already
established, the only possible choice was between sea
and mountains. Visits to families were also established
by the head of the Focolare.
M. worked in a public office. The salary arrived in his
current account and the next day was transferred to the
Movement for the needs of the Opera. Therefore, once he
left the focolare he could not benefit from all the
money he had earned during his working period.
L. lived in a Focolare, but due to her probably too
determined and not very docile character she was invited
to live outside the Focolare alone in an apartment, even
if she had to always be accountable to the Focolare for
all aspects of her life and her own work.
Six and a half months after La setta divina....
It seems that the strategy of ignoring and stalling is still the favorite choice of the movement.
Meanwhile, more and more people are
reaching out to us and to the new organization called
OREF, Organization Ex Focolari. For more information
on OREF, please look at their Facebook page.
Why and how did OREF start?
After the publication in Italy of
Ferruccio Pinotti's investigative book “The divine
sect", OREF - ORganizzazione Ex Focolari was born,
with the aim of investigating and recording cases of
abuse of all kinds by the Focolare Movement, which
seem to be a systematic problem, and to pursuing
justice for the victims. Many people contacted OREF to
share their experience of difficulties within the
Focolare Movement.
The main objective of OREF is to
offer, to those who have moved away from the Movement
or to those who, despite being still inside, are
experiencing a situation of pain or crisis, a space
for listening and sharing, to face objectively, and
with the support of those who have lived the same
experience, the problems related to spiritual or
property abuse.
OREF is an international organization that gathers members from various countries of Europe and America, who found in meeting and sharing the possibility of reworking the experience of totalitarian dedication to the Movement, which had led to psychological trauma and spiritual, difficult to overcome. In this meeting space we want to affirm the value of the dignity of the person, in the possibility of living the freedom of conscience and thought in a full and authentic path of realization.
Five and a half months after the
release of the book La setta divina....
When I was young, a few
times I went along to GEN-congresses in Rome and I still
remember well how special it was when Chiara gave a
speech. I was in a kind of hypnosis and could only look
up to her as someone who knew the answer to all my
problems.
Did I need to cling to someone “beyond myself” in hopes
of getting clarity in myself?? A strange confusing
experience that has bothered me for years.
In the book La Setta Divina I read an interesting quote
from the psychologist Miguel Perlado: “... movements
like Focolare can become a psychological movement that
should support and improve the health of the leader
[...] The dynamics are very complex: there is a kind of
deep exchange, a mutual transference between the
foundress and the followers, one becomes important to
the other and vice versa. A mutual dependence is created
which is necessary on the one hand for the mental
balance of the leader and on the other hand important
for the follower because otherwise he does not know what
to do with his life…”
Perlado's words make a lot clear to me, a confirmation
of what I have dealt with in the past.
Rosa P. (Argentina)
Four and a half months after the
release of the book La setta divina....
The Focolare movement still has to
come up with an answer, but one of the contributors to
the book has written to our website and she has also
released a very interesting video on Youtube.
We are happy to share this news with all our readers.
My name is Monique van Heynsbergen, I am an ex
focolarina from the Netherlands.
I would like to say a few things about the book LA
SETTA DIVINA (The Divine Sect). The author and
research journalist Ferruccio Pinotti has done an
extraordinary job. He described the dark aspects of
the Focolare Movement and explained the sectarian
drifts. And I would say, he revealed the mysteries of
the Movement.
In the book you also can read 18 testimonies
(inclusive mine) of former members: very painful
stories of different people from different parts of
the world, victims who have suffered abuse on various
levels, former members who tell what they experienced
within the Movement and explain why they left. I read
everything and I noticed that all these testimonies
have similarities. It means that there is something
general in the structure of the Movement, in the
so-called "system of unity", that does not work, that
does not fit!
I got to know that there were much more testimonies,
but the book already counted 500 pages.... Well,
I cannot speak for other people, I can only say
something about my own personal experience: I
got to know the Focolare Movement in 1965. One of
Chiara Lubich's first companions, Graziella De Luca,
was traveling to the Netherlands for her apostolic
work and in that occasion my father met the
Focolarini. A few weeks later, my father suddenly died
of a heart attack. Some Focolarine, having our
address, came to our house and my family, mother and
four children, were invited to come to the Mariapolis.
This was the start of a new chapter. I was 10 years
old and I was very sad about the death of my father,
all of us in the family were shocked. Near my school
there was a house where Focolarine were living in a
commune and I often went there after school. The
Focolarine were so kind to me and gave me attention;
because of the emptiness and the sad atmosphere at
home, I wanted to stay more and more there in the
Focolare, as a new family. I participated in the
meetings of the Gen and I wanted to follow Chiara, to
choose God in the first place in my life. Me too - as
a Gen – I wanted to commit myself to unity. I did not
realize that I was slipping into another world, into a
"parallel reality".
One day, I was 13 years old, I received a note from
Eli Folonari, Chiara's secretary. The note says:
(September 5, 1969) “Dearest Monique, Chiara has
chosen for you the same name as hers: CHIARA. Are you
happy? I wish you to be really a little Chiara. In
unity, Eli.”
I really thought I had the vocation to be a
Focolarina. Then, at the age of 19, I officially
entered in the Focolare commune, but I didn't realize
that I had joined a cult. I wanted to live for unity,
but I did not realize that to reach such a lofty ideal
I had to give up the most authentic of my being. How
many times I have heard those famous words of Chiara,
I still know them by heart. Some quotes: "Every soul
of the Focolare has to be my expression and nothing
else ...To live the Life that God has given them, they
must be nourished by the God who lives in my soul ...
They must therefore let themselves be generated by me
"....(end quotes)
Yes indeed, we had to live "the Soul"....the soul of
Chiara. How many times I have been told: "Monique must
not exist"..."Monique must be dead". This was my
"education" in the years of growth, in adolescence.
And even if there were things I didn't understand,
people said to me "It doesn't matter if you don't
understand, as long as Chiara understands!" In
addition, I grew up in a female system. This created
confusion in me in juvenile development and
adolescence, because the person responsible for me was
a woman and in the life of unity the only point of
reference. In a very subtle manner I was more and more
in her power, as if she entered inside of me on an
emotional, psychological and spiritual level. Even
later, growing up, somebody else was still thinking
for me. This created a deep dependence on my capo who
represented Chiara. I was - so to speak -, "in love"
with the person who kept me in prison and I did not
know how to get out of this strong dependence. Outside
of unity, outside of the Movement, who am I ???
At the age of 33 I felt so crushed, under pressure,
that I wanted to end my days. I had the feeling of
being two people: on the one hand I was the external
Monique, the good Focolarina in the national center,
the pseudo-personality. On the other side I was the
inner Monique, the real one, the hidden one and... so
lonely. I had to leave Focolare for not getting crazy.
Some time ago I have read a metaphor who says: being
in a sect is the same as a fetus that is inside the
mother's uterus. The mother feeds, and the fetus is
very well, in a warm place and safe. But then, to
become a real person you must get out of that uterus
and learn to stand on your own feet.
Well, in 1988 I went out and in fact I had to learn
many things in life… After a long road of ‘healing’ I
can say that I am well, I have rebuilt a life, I am
serene and happy. Even if I still live with
consequences, underneath I am always living with a
wound inside of me, that is part of my life, that made
me the person I am now today. I speak of a wound
because I see all those years in the Focolare as a
great rape! Violence on my being, violence in my soul.
I do not know how to say it differently ..... It was a
painful road to be able to regain my autonomy,
my dignity. It was a painful road to rediscover the
strength of my soul. It was a painful road to finally
discover my personal connection with the Creator ....
and this no one can take away from me!
Details of my story are in the book of Ferruccio
Pinotti, but believe me, to be able to write one
single chapter, it took so many years. Every
word has been suffered. The only job left for now is
to forgive myself: I forgive myself, again and again,
because I thought that in distant past I had made a
sincere choice. I thought that life in the Focolare
system was the real one. I forgive myself that in
those years I made the wrong choice, because as a girl
and as a young adult I did not have the human
capacity, I did not have the mature discernment to do
otherwise.
However, read LA SETTA DIVINA. Finally, with all my
heart I would like to thank Ferruccio Pinotti, because
his book function as a loudspeaker for so many cries
in the desert.
In my opinion his work has a great importance!
Find the video
of Monique in Italian here!
February 1rst, 2022
Two and a half months after the book La setta divina was published, there still has not come a serious answer from the Focolare movement to the people who have told their stories in this book. We are somewhat surprised about this, but we will continue to wait somewhat more...
In the past few days we received a lot
of letters and mails about the new book La setta
divina. It is not possible to put all the reactions
here on these websites of www.focolare.net
and www.focolari.info
but we will do our best to give our readers a general
idea of what is written to us.
Marian from Naples wrote: "I bought the book and I am
now reading the first chapters. I am impressed by the
introduction of Mr. Vignon. He writes about the way that
Chiara formulates her vision of Unity in a letter dated
November 1950: "Unity is therefore unity and only one
soul must live: mine, that is, that of Jesus in our
midst, who it is in me ». I heard this before and when I
asked the focolarini about the meaning, they indeed used
the magic word: "mystical".
The "Paradise '49" would be a text of such high
mysticism that one would have to cover one's eyes and
bury one's head in the sand to begin to reveal its
intuitions. Pierre Vignon writes that an authority of
the Vatican, in the 1950s, made it known that if these
texts by Chiara Lubich had not been destroyed, the
movement would not have been approved. Suddenly the text
disappeared, only to reappear a few years after the end
of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)".
Reading this and more in the introduction of this book
makes me curious of what to expect in the other
chapters. I will be happy to write again after I have
read more of the book."
Some days ago we, the
people responsible for www.focolare.net
and www.focolari.info
received the book of Ferruccio Pinotti, 'La
setta divina', (The divine cult). We are
currently reading the book with great interest and care.
And even tough we are tempted to place a quick and
general reaction about the book on this website, we will
only do this after we have read the book completely. We
have seen many reactions to the book on the internet
already and we can't help but wonder how people are able
to jump to conclusions so fast, without giving the
appearance of having read the entire book....
Twenty odd years ago
someone posed the question on this website if the
focolare movement could be considered a sect. We have
asked ourselves this question for the past two decades
and now finally, November 2021, this book of mr. Pinotti
seems to give, after a hard and thorough investigation,
an answer that is bringing new life to this discussion.
Whatever one may think of the book, we believe that it
must have taken a lot of courage, both for mr. Pinotti
and for those who contributed to the book, to come
forward and speak their minds.
So, while accepting the
inevitable risk of leaving out some people, we are happy
to thank Ferruccio Pinotti, Pierre Vignon, Maria
Iarlori, Martina Castagna, Guido Licastro, Gordon
Urquhart, D.M. Fabbroni, Claudia Benvenuti, Matteo
Ricci, C. Sgaravatto, G. Rahoy, Lucia Zanier, Ursula R.,
Silvia Martinez, L. Palmier, Monique
Goudsmit, M. Collin, D. Lai and many others for
their contributions to this book about the focolare
movement.
(You can order this book from Amazon.com
or Bol.com)
Please visit our Guestbook or write to info@focolare.net
This week (9th of
November) we will see the publication of a new book
about the Focolare movement. The title of the book will
be 'La
setta divina' (The divine cult) and it is written
by Ferruccio Pinotti. This website will provide more
information about this book and the reactions from
different people who share their views about the book.
"In fact, the
intermingling of the sphere of governance and the
sphere of conscience gives rise to abuses of power and
the other abuses we have witnessed, once the cauldron
of these unpleasant problems has been uncovered."
(Pope Francis, 2021)
On Saturday the 6th of February, Pope Francis gave a very useful and clear advice to the General Assembly of the Focolare movement. We are hopeful that this will help the movement to deal with the abuses of power that have happened in the past.
Soon we will publish on
this website the stories of some people who have
experienced a certain level of abuse.
Margaret Karram (58) is
the new president of the Focolare movement.
We sincerely wish her
wisdom and strength in the challenges that are in front
of her and the movement. The people of this website
would be happy to start a fresh new dialogue with the
new president about the process of healing and respect
for all the people who have been hurt in any way by the
Focolare movement or by individuals in the movement.
For the first time in history, the Focolare movement has
offered its apologies for victims of abuse. " we would
like to take this opportunity of a worldwide link to ask
for forgiveness wholeheartedly, sincerely, of all the
people who have been victims of any form of abuse" . (Jesus
Moran).
This is only the first
step. People with complaints need to address a Central
Commission and follow a set of complicated
guidelines (19 pages). We hope that this will not
build another barrier for those who want to file a complaint. Please let
us know if we can be of any help.
If you speak Italian,
please look at this website:
Focolari
e abusi for more information about the Focolare
movement and Chiara Lubich.
Please visit our Guestbook,
to read what our visitors wrote and to leave your own
reaction. Thank you!
One of the letters we received in our guestbook recently:
My family was very active in the Focolare
movement. Finally all the members of my family
except me, who was rather hostile to it. It made
me feel very isolated and marginal, and sometimes even
judged, in my own family. I've been through a lot.
My parents became acquainted with the Focolare
movement the year I was born and took me to the
meetings of the movement as a child. I didn't like
it, but I had no choice. After a few years,
we settled close to a focolare and,
from that moment on, the movement invaded our
entire family-life. Everything, absolutely
everything, revolved around religion, the Church, the
pope, and above all the Focolaremovement, Chiara
and its ideal. Members of the movement passed by almost
every day. Meetings of the movement were sometimes held
in our house. Chiara was completely adored. But above
all, my father did not tolerate any thought that did not
correspond to Catholic thought,the precepts of the pope
or the ideology of Chiara. When we dared to evoke
another opinion or any doubt, he reacted violently, with
loud indignant cries and a sanctimonious speech imposing
on us what to believe. As he was regarded as a good and
respectable man on the outside, he became a true despot
in our family. No dialogue was possible. Finally, the
fear of expressing something he didn't like created a
permanent tension. We couldn't, we didn't
dare to express ourselves freely.
My parents had little contact with the outside world
outside of their professional life. They were almost
just people of the movement. The outside world was
presented as evil, especially by my father who saw evil
and temptation everywhere. As a teenager, all my
contacts with the outside world were controlled and,
very often, forbidden. We didn't have television. I was
not allowed to listen to music in my room. There were
only Catholic newspapers entering the house. My
readings, music, film outings or other
cultural, sports and leisure outings with classmates
were severely controlled, censored and, more often than
not, banned. The reasons for the refusals were not
always clear to me: the organization was not Catholic;
the activity, book or film was immoral; I could meet
boys; the host was a man... Finally, it took courage to
ask for an exit permit, as conflict and refusal were
almost systematic. I remember, among other things, and
for example, the virulent oppositions I encountered
when, at the age of 16, I wanted to go to a concert by
Alain Souchon and, at 22, enroll in an art school where
I was going to draw nudes. In both cases, the attitude
of my parents caused me such an internal conflict that I
was sick of it.
Sexuality was taboo. My parents didn't talk about it at
all, except in negative and reproachful
terms tinged with a lot of mystery. I
couldn't date boys. Love between man and
woman was not addressed, only the love of neighbor and
God. No flirtation allowed, pace boyfriend before
graduation, no pre-marriage sex, no contraception. For
my father, it was the woman who led the man into carnal
sin. Men, on the other hand, were presented as
poor being victims of their instincts and can
hardly control them. All female coquettishness was
therefore forbidden: no miniskirt, no bikini, no
clothing that could be considered suggestive or
provocative. Everything about the body was suspicious,
its pleasures doomed. You couldn't hang out in the
bathroom or in bed. In our family, physical
contact was avoided. We didn't touch each other, we
didn't kiss, we didn't hug each other. There was no
physical display of affection.
There was little or no room for joy, lightness,
laughter, humor, spontaneity, self-deprecation.
Everything was taken seriously. The suffering was
magnified, it allowed us to live 'Jesus
forsaken'. We were educated with, continuously, Chiara's
speeches that we must renounce ourselves, sacrifice
ourselves, deny ourselves, ignore ourselves. You had to
suppress your emotions, always smile, pretend everything
was fine. It was God's will to be nothing, to want
nothing, to live only in the service of God and others.
We were just talking about love. But what love when I
didn't get room to exist? I was a very happy
little girl but, from my teens,I felt more
and more crushed by the dark and heavy atmosphere that
prevailed within our family. I was withering.
In 1980, I was present in Rome at Genfest. Just as
the pope or Chiara (I don't know) shouted to the
cheering crowd of young people, "So you are all ready to
sacrifice for each other!" the crowd said yes, gloating.
And I thought, "No, I don't want to sacrifice myself! I
haven't experienced anything yet and I'm not allowed
anything. I have nothing to sacrifice: I have already
been sacrificed." Besides, who has the right to ask a
young person to sacrifice himself?
So I wasn't in favor of the movement and as a teenager I
went less and less to meetings. At the age of 14, I
didn't want to go to Mass anymore. I was considered by
my parents to be in a state of mortal sin, in perdition.
The pressure was terrible. I went back until I was 16,
stopped again, went back, and gave up for good when I
was 18. But I felt bad in my own family.
One day, at the age of 19, I made the 'effort' of making
pancakes on a Good Friday while my parents and sister
were at the service. I wanted to celebrate the first
night of the Easter holidays happily with my family. The
pancakes were categorically refused because they had to
fast. I found myself alone with my preparations in the
kitchen, my parents having retreated to the living room
in an accusatory silence and my sister having climbed
into her room. I was devastated. And I was wondering, is
this God's will? I dreamed of a Jesus knocking on
the door, coming in and saying, 'Are there pancakes
here?' and sitting down at my table to share them with
me. I felt rejected and sacrificed by my parents in the
name of their God, their religion and their ideal.
At the age when teenage girls discover the world, I
lived locked up, deprived of all freedom, of all
autonomy, of any possibility of expression, in
absolute solitude, with parents for whom religion came
first. I always felt them in judgment, repression and
reproach. I had no one to confide in. I didn't dare
talk about what was going on at home to my
classmates,I was ashamed. And then I always thought
maybe I was the problem. I thought I was mean and
bad. I was doing everything I could to 'look'
normal. I thought I would run away but I was too shy
and the outside world scared me. I became an
insomniac. I woke up at night with panic attacks
because I felt like I had no power over my life, that
I had no place to exist. I felt like 'life' and lots
of opportunities were passing through my fingers. I
became depressed. I begged God to take my life back. I
thought about suicide, but I was afraid to go to
hell. I was afraid of going crazy. I felt something
was wrong, but was it me where my parents? I was in
total confusion. Not so long ago, a psychotherapist
told me that it was psychological abuse, that my
parents had done everything to prevent me from being
myself and that I had been lucky not to have fallen
into psychosis.
When I finally left the family home, I was very bad in
my skin. I didn't know who I was. I lived cut
off from myself, my body, my emotions, my
desires,my needs. I didn't dare trust what I
felt, express my opinion or
make a decision. I felt uncomfortable in
society, did not know how to behave and take my
place. I had never felt satisfied my
parents and felt their love for who I really
was. The outside world,the others, the men and the
sexuality scared me. As for God's love, I thought
I no longer deserved it. I lived in
infinite solitude, locked in myself.
Furious with my parents, I stayed several months
without contacting them. I had to do a lot of therapy,
but there's still irreversible damage. How do you live
when your wings have been cut off at an age when they
are being deployed? Feelings of anger, sadness and
guilt still regularly overwhelm me. More than the
Focolare movement, I blame my parents for allowing
themselves to indulge in such extreme and
destructive behaviors. I would have wanted only one
thing: to be able to be myself and receive their love,
their listening, their benevolence, their trust and
their support to discover the world and to flourish
serenely.
