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| Copyright Gordon Urquhart/Kalamos.org 2023, from Man4Man1 production, 1993 |
One of the most homophobic movements in the Catholic Church and indeed within the Christian Right as a whole, the Focolare Movement, has made a startling U-turn and 14-16 October 2022 held its first conference at its Centro Mariapoli outside Rome, purportedly ‘in support’ of the parents of LGBTQ people and even LGBTQ people themselves. They have called this new ‘branch’ ‘No One Alone’.
Gordon Urquhart left the Focolare Movement, of which he had been a fulltime internal member for nine years, because of the brutal tactics they tried to impose upon him as a young gay man. Seventeen years later he wrote the best-selling The Pope’s Armada (Bantam Books, London, 1995, Prometheus Books, USA, 1999 - also editions in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Brazil), the first book to denounce the Focolare Movement and other Catholic groups as cult-like,
‘I first came out to the leaders of the Movement when I was eighteen,’ says Urquhart. ‘Eventually they tried to force on me three ‘solutions’: conversion therapy, an arranged marriage and chemical castration. There was no choice. They had sent me to a well-known Catholic psychiatrist in the UK who orchestrated ‘conversions’ and had even started preparations for the arranged marriage - carried out at arm’s length by the leaders themselves. The Movement imposes blind obedience - although they describe it as ‘unity’ - on internal members. I knew that if I did not leave, I would be destroyed.’
The Focolare Movement considers itself to be the largest single movement in the Catholic Church, present in over 180 countries with a claimed total membership of 2 million, including lay people, priests, bishops and cardinals. The founder, Chiara Lubich (1920-2008), an Italian primary school teacher, was idolised by Pope John Paul II who praised her ‘female genius’. Focolare’s status as an approved Catholic movement has given it great influence in politics and international institutions such as the UN, the EU and the Council of Europe, as well as in the Church.
In view of the Focolare Movement’s decades of extreme and ever-worsening abuse of gay members, their apparent change of policy is inexplicable and deeply worrying. ‘How can proven homophobes claim to offer genuine help and support to LGBTQ people,’ asks Urquhart, pointing out that the Focolare Movement has longer been a practitioner of Historical Negationism, obliterating or even falsifying negative aspects of its past, so that the public is presented with a wholly hagiographic account of its history. A typical example of this was a dramatised bio-pic of Focolare founder Chiara Lubich Love Conquers All produced by the leading Italian TV station RAI UNO last year, with Lubich played by glamorous Italian actress Cristiana Capotondi, who can currently be seen in The Ignorant Angels on the Disney Channel, ironically on the subject of a woman who discovers that her dead husband was bisexual.
Lubich herself who has just cleared the first stage of the Catholic Church’s canonisation process and is now officially a ‘Servant of God’, was rabidly anti-gay.
‘A close friend of mine - let’s call him Valentin - who was an internal member of the Focolare Movement with vows, once told Chiara Lubich in a private conversation that he was gay,’ says Gordon Urquhart,’ “That’s fine as long as you resist the temptation,” she told him: “but I would prefer you to be knocked down by a truck than ever perform a homosexual act.” In other words, here was a woman who thought that it was better to be dead than be a homosexual.’
Later Valentin was subjected to an experimental ‘sleep’ conversion ‘cure’ whereby he would take sleeping pills at night, wake up in the morning and take more pills to sleep all day. Needless to say, the ‘cure’ didn’t work, but induced more distress and confusion. Valentin left the movement but stayed in therapy for thirty years. In the mid-eighties, a leading priest-member of Focolare told him that promiscuous sex could be forgiven, but if he formed a relationship with another man, this would make his sin ‘permanent’. Shortly after, Valentin tested as HIV positive.
‘Valentin’s experiences helped me decide to leave Focolare,’ says Urquhart, ‘because I didn’t want to go down the same path. Nevertheless, even after I left the Movement, I was still pretty brain-washed and I did follow their suggestion and marry. Ir was not until almost ten years later that I started to live openly as a gay man.’
Urquhart believes that Focolare’s treatment of homosexuals got worse over the years, following his departure. ‘One reader of The Pope’s Armada, Carlos, sent me the dossier of his successful application for asylum in the US around 2000, on the basis of ‘religious persecution’ by the Focolare Movement because of his gayness,’ he recalls. ‘Even though this young man was leading a celibate life, and he had been a trusted member of the Movement for many years, when he confided to his Focolare leader that he was gay, he was treated appallingly. He was packed off to the centre of the movement in Rome and he suddenly found himself before a kind of kangaroo court of ‘expert’ leaders of the movement who subjected him to an interrogation on his sexual feelings, even asking him, “Does Christ come into your sexual fantasies?” ’ As well as being a violation of human rights, this action is contrary to the canon law of the Catholic church because it represents ‘enforced manifestation of conscience’ - an 'enforced' confession, without the usual seal - and a confusion between the 'inner forum' and the 'outer forum', that is, between the leadership and those performing pastoral care, which must be confidential. This combining of the two is banned in the Catholic Church.
Once the committee had decided that Carlos was irredeemably gay, he was given a one-way ticket to his very homophobic central-American country and family - whom the movement had already informed about why Carlos was being expelled. He was ordered to tell his Focolare colleagues that he was leaving because his mother was sick, and had to endure the torture of being offered comfort and reassurance while knowing that he hed been booted out.
‘I would compare Focolare’s current pro-gay U-turn to a commandant from a Nazi death-camps, arriving in South America, setting up a synagogue and calling himself a Rabbi,’ says author Gordon Urquhart: ‘it’s that absurd. What we are really looking for are the Nuremberg Trials and Denazification. True repentance begins with admitting your past offences and making amends. On the subject of abuse, Pope Francis has recently said that, when it happens in the Church, “the Church must ask forgiveness is not enough.” But Focolare has not asked for forgiveness in the case of the many lives of LGBTQ people it has damaged or utterly destroyed. It has made no attempt to face its past history as leading homophobes and opponents of the human rights of LGBTQ people. Once again, Historical Negationism.’
‘I see this as a coverup and a cynical attempt to curry favour with the more open policies of Pope Francis,’ says Urquhart. ‘The name of the new ‘association’, ‘No One Alone’ is taken from the writings of Chiara Lubich who said “We should leave no one alone”. To me this is white-washing her actual homophobia. Besides, the way of thinking behind this approach is dated and out-of-touch: who says LGBTQ people are alone in this day and age? And the last place they should be looking for company is with Focolare. This is a method of not just ignoring their past but hiding it. I have evidence that they are deliberately contacting ex-LGBTQ members in order to shut them up. But Pope Francis says "The Church must not try to hide the tragedy of abuse of whatever kind".'
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. 'It is becoming clearer and clearer,' says Urquahrt, 'that the solution to the various types of abuse that have been practised in the church in recent years cannot be 'in house', that is, under the control of those the abusers represent. As Antoine Garapon, chosen by the Conference of Clergy and Religious of France to head a completely independent commission to bring justice to the sexually abused by the clergy, said, "The problem of the church has been the attempt to play all roles: to be close to the victims, to be the institution of the perpetrators and at the same time to do justice. It is necessary to involve an independent third party to do justice." In my opinion, this new 'Nobody is Alone' branch is an attempt by the focolarini to make themselves look good to Pope Francis who would no doubt be repulsed by their treatment of LGBTQ people so far, without accounting for the past. The focolarini would do anything to avoid Vatican-imposed control - like an Apostolic Visitor - despite countless abuses of members and their questionable teachings.'
What response would Urquhart like to see to Focolare’s homophobic past?
‘Certainly not running conferences to demonstrate their new found sympathy to the people they have persecuted for decades,’ Urquhart responds. ‘I see that as extremely dangerous and frankly fake. Focolare has been notoriously poor in responding to many other abuses in the movement such as sexual abuse of minors, also deliberately concealed, modern slavery, arranged marriages, hidden suicides. As a victim of Focolare’s devastating methods, and, even more, deeply anxious about others who have suffered worse than I have, I think that in this case, the only valid action that president Margaret Karram and co-president Jesus Moran can take is to get down on their knees before their many LGBTQ victims and beg forgiveness and in some cases offer financial compensation. But anything more than that would be absurd. Focolare is the last organisation that gay people should approach for genuine support or understanding.’
Email: congregavit@gmail.com
Gordon Uquhart:
00 44 7873 592 585
popesarmada25.blogspot.com
OREF - ORganization Ex Focolare:
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=oref_organizzazione%20ex%20focolari
FOCOLARE MOVEMENT PRESS OFFICE
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