Communion and Liberation: Community of Faith based upon an Encounter With Christ

Fr. Giussani died on February 22, 2005, in his home in Milan; yet his desire to instill in others a love for Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church continues on in CL members across the world over. To this day CL's task unfolds as "an ecclesial movement whose purpose is the education to Christian maturity of its adherents and collaboration in the mission of the Church in all the spheres of contemporary life." Catholic Online interviews Christopher Bacich, member of the Movement for 24 years and responsible for CL in the United States.

PHOENIX, AZ (Catholic Online) - In Pope Benedict XVI's address to the members of the Communion and Liberation (CL) movement, he noted that CL "is a community experience of faith, born in the Church not by the will of an organized hierarchy but originating from a renewed encounter with Christ and thus, we can say, by an impulse derived ultimately from the Holy Spirit. Still today, it offers a profound way of life and it actualizes the Christian faith, both in a total fidelity and communion with the Successor of Peter and with the Pastors who assure the governing of the Church and through spontaneity and freedom that permit new and prophetic, apostolic and missionary achievements." CL is therefore an ecclesial movement whose point of origin can be traced to an impulse of the Holy Spirit, and, as Pope Benedict observed, "is thus inserted into that vast flowering of associations, movements and new ecclesial realities providentially raised up by the Holy Spirit in the Church after the Second Vatican Council." The founder of CL is Fr. Luigi Giussani, who was born in 1922 in Desio, a small town near Milan. His mother, Angela, gave him his earliest introduction to the faith, and his father was a carver and restorer of wood who taught Luigi always to ask "why," and to seek the reason for things. Pope Benedict spoke of the "impulse" of the Holy Spirit; it was such a divine prompting that planted a seed of inspiration in the mind and heart of Fr. Luigi Giussani. As that seed began to take root, Fr. Giussani established in 1954 a Christian presence in Berchet high school in Milan with a group called "Gioventu Studentesca." Fr. Giussani recalls that "from the first hour of class at the Berchet high school in Milan, I tried to show the students what moved me: not the wish to convince them that I was right, but the desire to show them the reasonableness of faith; that is, that their free adhesion to the Christian proclamation was demanded by their discovery of the correspondence of what I was saying with the needs of their hearts, as implied by the definition of reasonableness." Therefore Fr. Giussani sought to nourish a correct understanding of the Christian faith, promoting a "dynamic" of sound recognition in which individuals became firmly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion. "Only this dynamic of recognition," writes Fr. Giussani, "makes whoever adheres to our movement creative and a protagonist, and not simply one who repeats formulas and things they have heard. For this reason, it seems to me, a charism generates a social phenomenon not as something planned, but as a movement of persons who have been changed by an encounter, who tentatively make the world, the environment, and the circumstances that they encounter more human. The memory of Christ when it is lived tends inevitably to generate a presence in society, above and beyond any planned result." As a result of Fr. Giussani's moving teaching and his desire to rebuild a Christian presence in schools, a group of committed students formed around him, which began to flourish and therefore spread to other schools and other cities. This new movement was known as Gioventu Studentesca (GS), and was encouraged by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini. In 1964 Fr. Giussani taught introductory theology at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan; and in 1966, at the request of the Archbishop, he left GS, devoting himself to theological studies. In 1969 he returned from his studies to guide the movement of GS which had been reborn in a more mature form under the new name of Communion and Liberation. The movement now brought in not only high school students, but university students and adults as well. And in the 1970's "Fraternity" groups arose which were initiated by former university students who adhered to CL, and who wanted to broaden and deepen their relationship to the Church in the situation of adult life. In 1975, during a youth pilgrimage to Rome for Palm Sunday, Pope Paul VI encouraged Fr. Giussani in a private conversation with these words: "This is the path, go on like this." As CL continued to expand, episodes of aggression and violence began against its members. In 1977  this persecution reached its peak with 120 attacks on persons and offices in use by CL throughout Italy. Nevertheless, as the hand of the Holy Spirit was at work, members continued to flock to CL. On February 11, 1982, with a decree by the President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the "Fraternitŕ di Comunione e Liberazione" was recognized to be a "juridical entity for the universal Church" and declared an "Association of Pontifical Right." And in 1984 Pope John Paul II received 10,000 CL members in an audience, giving them this challenging mandate: "Go into all the world to bring the truth, beauty, and peace that are encountered in Christ the Redeemer. This is the task that I leave with you today." As the CL website attests, a "new impulse was thus given to the missionary spread of the Movement, which is today present in some seventy countries."

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Fr. Giussani died on February 22, 2005, in his home in Milan; yet his desire to instill in others a love for Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church continues on in CL members across the world over. To this day CL's task unfolds as "an ecclesial movement whose purpose is the education to Christian maturity of its adherents and collaboration in the mission of the Church in all the spheres of contemporary life," as the member website states. Catholic Online had the opportunity to interview Christopher Bacich who has been a member of the Movement for 24 years and is Responsible for CL in the United States. COL: Mr. Bacich, what attracted you to CL? "As I was growing up Catholic in America in the 1970's and 80's, most people presented Catholicism as dogma, morality, piety or, occasionally, as sentimentality.  CL offered me an experience of the Catholic faith filled with beauty, love and truth.  It offered an encounter with the person of Jesus as the key to my fulfillment and the fulfillment of the world.  And it offered me all of these novelties as a possibility in the present, not in the afterlife alone." COL: What do you think draws most members to CL? "Most members of CL have an experience similar to mine: one of human fulfillment that can be tasted now, because of Christ's risen presence among us. Fr. Giussani always pointed us back to this experience promised by Jesus himself, the experience of the 'hundredfold.'" COL: What do you see as CL's most important focal point in the US? "Our focal point is one: the proposal of Christ's presence within the Church as the key to human fulfillment.  This focal point puts us at odds with the dominant culture that proposes a reductive egoism as fulfillment and it removes us from the culture wars (politically inspired) that have deeply wounded the Catholic Church in America since the 1960's." Fr. Giussani often labored to show the reasonableness of the Christian faith, which helped to equip people with the knowledge necessary to more fruitfully embrace a life deeply committed to Christ. What are a few things CL is presently doing in the world to promote an understanding of the reasonableness of the Christian faith? "The key proposal CL offers to deepen one's reasonable embrace of the Christian faith is a life lived in communion with the risen Christ. Within this life, a number of proposals exist. The fundamental proposal is of a weekly catechetical meeting called 'school of community.'"  COL: And, Mr. Bacich, what would you say to Christians who might be interested in CL? "Come and see." Yes, come and see. Come and see and perhaps embrace the joy and excitement CL members across the globe experience as they engage that ecclesial movement which is, as Pope Benedict observed, "derived ultimately from the Holy Spirit." Come and see and perhaps journey along with those CL members who go out into communities, the workplace, schools and organizations, in order to bring the joyous riches of the Christian Faith to the world, which allows Love to enter into our interpretation of reality, clearing away obscurity, and bringing forth the light of Truth. "The life of CL has always been marked by fervent cultural activity. CL's cultural liveliness arises from the passion to verify the capacity of the Christian faith to offer a more fertile and all-encompassing criterion for interpreting reality and events" (Communion and Liberation Web Site, clonline.org). In his letter addressed to Fr. Giussani for the twentieth anniversary of the fraternity of CL, Pope John Paul II wrote: "As I go back in memory over the life and works of the Fraternity and the Movement, the first aspect that strikes me is the commitment you have put into listening to the needs of today's man. Man never stops seeking. The Movement, therefore, has chosen and chooses to indicate not a road, but the road toward a solution to this existential drama. The road, as you have affirmed so many times, is Christ." -----
F. K. Bartels is a Catholic who knows his Catholic Faith is one of the greatest treasures a man could ever have. He is managing editor of catholicpathways.com and a contributing writer for Catholic Online.

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