According to the various 'responses' of the leaders of the Focolare Movement to Pope Francis' speech to them on 6 Febraury 2021, it seems they have not understood the full extent of the very serious problems he was referring to. For example, the final document of the General Assembly of the Movement, which presented itself as a reply to that speech contained the words 'charism' or 'charism of unity' 15 times in nine pages. Rather than responding to his charges of self-referentiality or that 'the charism is not a statue in a museum' (and elsewhere - to the members of Communion and Liberation - he even said, 'the centre is not the charism, there is only one centre - Jesus, Jesus Christ!'), it seems that either they are unable to grasp what they are being told - or even a kind of defiance. Even weirder is an interview that the Co-president of the Movement, Jesus Moran gave to the Italian magazine of the Dehonian religious order, Settimana News.
http://www.settimananews.it/ministeri-carismi/focolari-dopo-assemblea-gen, Jesus erale/
In a response to a question refering to 'some critical responses to the mystical experiences [of Chiara Lubich] - especially the early ones from the end of the forties, the so-called 'Paradise of 1949', Moran responds without the slightest caution: 'It has to be said that Chiara always thought and passed on to us...that this mystical experience is the essence of the mentality of anyone who wants to be a source of unity today in the Church and in society [my emphasis] - and also those who accept the charism of the Movement. Therefore the experience of Chiara is not private or particular.' I may not be a qualified theologian, but I feel confident to affirm that the experience of Chiara Lubich is without the slightest doubt what the Catholic Church defines as a 'private revelation'.
According to the Apostolic Exhortation of Benedict XVI 30 September 2010, after the Synod on the Word of God, it is necessary for the Church to 'help the faithful to distinguish the word of God from private revelations, whose task is not to 'complete the definitive revealtion of Christ...the value of private revelations is essentially different from the one public revelation.' This document states clearly that 'the use [of a private revelation] is not obbligatory'. It appears to me that Moran says something quite different about the revelations of the 'Paradise of 1949' - that 'it is not...private'. There is a danger here of creating a new church. To me this is a clear example of the 'Contemporary Gnosticism' that Pope Francis has identified many times - especially in the document Gaudete et Exultate of 2018. In my book The Pope's Armada, dating back to 1995 (UK hardback edition) there was an entire long chapter in which I analysed gnosticism (I used that very term) in the 'new Catholic movements' - and especially Focolare and its 'Paradise of 1949'.
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