A Sober View of the Late Focolare Ex-President Maria Voce

Maria Voce Ex-President of the Focolare Movement

Before singing the praises, Focolare-style, of the late former president of the movement, let us meditate on some excerpts from articles in Pope's Armada 25 (soon to be 30):

Focolare President Blasts Women Priests (complete) (15 March 2021)

In a 2017 interview for La Stampa, the major Italian daily (see link below for complete interview - available in Italian and English), Maria Voce, then President of the Focolare Movement, made an extraordinary statement. When asked about Catholic women who feel a vocation to the priesthood, Voce replied, ‘It becomes obsessive. According to me, it’s a psychological sickness to demand to become a priest when you’re a woman.’ (‘Diventa ossessivo. Secondo me è una malattia psicologica voler per forza diventare prete quando sei donna!’) One can understand that, like her predecessor, Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement, she may find the idea of women priests abhorrent. But many qualified Catholic theologians and members of the Catholic hierarchy, take the possibility of women priests very seriously and it’s been removed from the ‘Index’ on which it was placed by 'Saint' John Paul II. To hear the leader of a major Catholic organisation using such extreme ad hominem arguments to put down ‘opponents’ is disturbing. Is this an acceptable form of expression from a person holding great responsibility in the Church#?

Looking back at Church history, two of the four women doctors of the Church - Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Therese of Lisieux - both felt a vocation to the priesthood. Were they suffering from a ‘psychological sickness’? Are the many women priests (and even bishops) in the Anglican Communion - and women ministers in other Christian denominations - also driven by a "psychological illness"? Or Anglican Bishop Jo Bailey Wells, for example, whom Pope Francis invited to collaborate with his cardinal advisers on the role of women in the Church - does she too suffer from "a psychological illness". The impression is rather that women's ministry in other churches has been an immense success. In any case, the way Voce expresses herself gives the impression of stupidity - and extreme rudeness.

The Focolare Movement, perhaps the largest and most powerful of the Catholic 'ecclesial movements' founded in the 20th century, which includes priests, religious, bishops and cardinals among its members, was founded by a woman and according to its statutes, approved by 'Saint' John Paul II, must always have a woman as its leader.  This fact is often quoted as an example of the progress of women in the Church, even of a kind of feminism. Given the virulent antipathy for women priests expressed by Maria Voce while President of Focolare, careful study must be made of exactly what the Movement's real concept is of sexuality, gender and the role of women in the Church. Is it truly forward-looking or is it an example of the 'backtracking' (indietrismo) that Pope Francis condemned?

A German woman who had spent many years as the secretary of one Focolare's top leaders and had often been present at Chiara Lubich's official visits to Germany, once pointed out to me that Lubich ensured  that there were no other women in offcial photographs of her surrounded by men - priests, bishops and cardinals.  What does this suggest about Focolare's view on the role of women in the Church? It perfectly reflects, however, the myth endemic in the movement that Chiara Lubich was the Madonna incarnate ('Vicar of Mary') in the Catholic Church today who even had the authority to command bishops and cardinals to 'make unity' with the Pope. I saw it with my own eyes in the cases of Cardinal Suenens and Archbishop Helder Camara, two giants of the Second Vatican Council, at the mercy of Lubich in Loppiano and Centro Mariapoli in Rocca di Papa in front of audiences of hundreds of Focolare members.

https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/it/2017/12/27/news/bergoglio-papa-una-scossa-di-ritorno-alla-chiesa-delle-origini-1.34085406

From: The Cult of Chiara (13 January 2021)

In an end-of-year... programme made by Focolare in December 2020 available on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/focolareorg/review/489323145/43acbadbc6 - 43 mins 30 secs), Maria Voce, Chiara's successor as President of the Movement, mentions the three highlights of her twelve year presidency, now drawing to a close: 1) the funeral of Chiara (see previous post Jesus Wept) at which a visiting stranger discovered the Movement, thus proving that Chiara lives on; 2) seeing Chiara alive in all the members of the Movement doing good to others all over the world over the past twelve years; 3) the sight of Pope Francis signing the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which, according to Voce signified 'the ultimate Chiara could desire: that a Pope should promulgate to the whole world her [Chiara's] dream.'  Apparently Focolare is now more Chiaracentric than ever. 

From: FOCOLARE - HOMOPHOBIC CATHOLIC MOVEMENT, INCLUDING FOUNDER CHIARA LUBICH - SETS UP LGBTQ BRANCH (3 March 2023)

Recently, former LGBTQ members - excluded because of their sexual orientation - tried to establish relations with the focolarini. One received an apparently sympathetic reaction from former president Maria Voce (president 2008-2021). She advised him to get in touch with a certain focolarino. To the dismay of this young gay man, the person indicated by Maria Voce wanted to put him through conversion therapy (illegal in many countries).

Historical documents should focus on facts rather than myths, something the Focolare movement still cannot get to grips with.