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 lot of deception. 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. There is
a lot of deception in the way that focolare works to increase the number
of their members 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 honor 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.
