How has Maria Voce lived her role as the first President of the Focolare Movement after Chiara Lubich? In a recent interview with Vatican Radio on 27 January, she speaks of the current situation of the Movement and how it relates to the message of Pope Francis. We publish some of the main areas covered. It’s certainly no small undertaking to preside over such a vast and complex reality as the Focolare Movement, with over 2 million people adhering to its message in 182 countries. The outgoing president is Maria Voce, born in Cosenza Province in southern Italy, a lawyer by profession, with further studies in theology and canon law. In this interview for Vatican Radio, she recounts her experience of 12 years at the helm of the Movement. Joys and sufferings, even failures here and there, limitations and opportunities: the life of the Movement has surely always been made of these, and in recent years too.  If you had to describe in just a few words what the reality of the Focolare is today, what would you say? I could describe it as a tree, a tree which may have shed some of its blossom and leaves, perhaps becoming more autumnal as an image, but a tree all the same with very strong roots still intact. These roots are capable of containing and maintaining the lymph and warmth necessary for nourishing the seeds of this tree, which have already spread throughout every continent across the world. Therefore it still has the possibility of continuing to nourish them and make them germinate, as they are in fact germinating in many places. Just now, maybe we see them in a winter setting, with winter temperatures, but it’s actually in winter that the seeds mature below ground in order to be able to flower in spring. And I think it’s a tree that’s preparing a new spring time in the Movement. Pope Francis and the Focolare Movement: you are obviously in great accord from the perspective of openness to dialogue and the need to build a different kind of world. In particular, the Pope’s appeal for fraternity in the human family finds the Movement in the front line in terms of dialogue with members of other religions and with those of non-religious beliefs. How do you see the Movement’s contribution in this? I think it’s essential. Because it was always essential to Chiara from the very beginning. Undoubtedly through the grace of the charism of unity received from the Holy Spirit, from the start she felt drawn to approach every person in the spirit of fraternity. And she did this all the time, whoever she met. Catholics in the early days, from the Monsignors who were interrogating her, as we saw in the new film about Chiara, to the poor people living in Trento. The same when she met members of other Churches, of other religions or people without a religious faith. Chiara met brothers and sisters in everyone, and she treated them as such. Chiara taught us this approach and it remains in the Movement, and we see this as an extraordinary source of power. We’ve also recognized it in these days leading up to our Assembly. Members of the Movement who belong to different Churches and religions, or who are of good will without a specific religious affiliation, have been active in the preparations, testifying in particular to the power of love which is capable of creating relationships at all levels, capable of overcoming conflicts, capable of enabling you to meet together with people from a different religion to your own, even if up to yesterday you were sworn enemies. But now, we discover one another as persons, who can pray together, who can together seek the meaning of life, the significance of the pandemic, what it means to live for others, to act in solidarity with others. We’ve seen it in their words of wisdom, in their interest in what the Movement is preparing, in their active participation in the Assembly preparations, with their suggestions, with their life, because obviously inspired by the same Holy Spirit who moves beyond all borders and all barriers. So I have the impression that it’s this contribution which the Pope feels he can count on. But not only the Pope, the whole Church and all humanity. Because there’s a dire need for this fraternity and the Movement has a special grace to build it precisely because of the charism of unity which comes from Chiara. Talking about relationships, you recently made some strong comments about the need for the Movement to take a new step in understanding that God is not only Love, but also Trinity … God is Trinity, which means God in himself is relationship. This means that all who seek God, must build relationships in order to find him. And I don’t believe there’s anyone who is not searching for God. They might search for the truth, and God is truth. They might seek beauty, and God is beauty too. They might search for goodness in the world, and God is also goodness.  God is everything any human being can search for and can be found if we build relationships. And I believe everyone is capable of this, because we’re all created in the image of God, in the image of God Trinity. According to your Statutes, the President of the Work of Mary will always be a woman. I believe the Movement is one of the few places in which you could say being a woman is actually an advantage. But it’s also sending a good message to civil society and the Church … I must admit to be somewhat perplexed by the use of the word “advantage”. Because to tell you the truth, being at the head of a Movement like ours actually means being the first to serve, the first to increase your acts of love, the first to accept any kind of challenge, anything and overcome it with the help of God and of your brothers and sisters. So, while in one sense, it might be an advantage to be considered capable of being elected, I don’t really think this is the spirit in which we live it. And I don’t think the Focolarine women, who are the only ones who can ‘aspire’ to this, if you must put it this way, I don’t they live it like that. It’s much more with a spirit of love and service for Chiara’s Work which everyone wishes to continue to serve with the same love as Chiara loved and guided and served the Movement. And then, I do also think it can be a testimony to the kind of equality, of profound fraternity, of equal dignity, that goes beyond the differences of gender, which God brought to the world when he created humankind in his image and created male and female. So united in this complementarity, which respects diversity and enables each one to emerge in their own capacity to give, which will of course be different because God made two different beings, different but made to be together and to build humanity together in his image and likeness. In this sense, I think it can be seen as a sign of progress, of something emerging more and more in the Church and in society. But I think it’s nothing other than a manifestation of the Marian profile of the Church, the profile which says that Mary is woman, mother, but queen too, also with her Son on Calvary founder of the Church, ‘coredemptrix’ of humanity, principle of unity for all. In this sense, then, I think yes it’s a privilege the Movement can be proud of and can offer to the Church and the world as an example and forerunner, in some way. Maria Voce, today what do you wish for the Work of Mary of the future? For the Movement, I would wish, like Chiara, for the greatest fidelity to the Gospel, faithfulness that can reach a heroic level, because it’s fidelity to living the Gospel concretely. And I would say, for this Work to continue it’s journey, faithfulness to that word of the Gospel which God wished to pronounce by sending this charism, namely the word “unity”. So, faithfulness to this unity, which must be total. It must be capable of living relationships as they’re lived in the Trinity, in order to testify to the world that God exists, that through the Movement he can bring fraternity more widely in the Church and in the world, to contribute to fulfilling the prayer of Jesus, “Father, that they may all be one”.

Adriana Masotti

Click here for the full interview (in Italian)