A Clear (Chiara) Voice

by Alberto Ferrucci
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture " n.28 - december 2008

“In 2001 the city of Genoa gave Chiara an honorary citizenship right in the year of the G8 meeting, a moment when the distance among human beings appeared very big. Today 2008 seems to us again an emblematic year, in which the strength of the Economy can do nothing, if it is not united with other idealities like those advocated by the Founder of the  Focolare Movement”.

These words expressed by Claudio Burlando, the President of the Ligurian Region, resounded in the very crowded hall of the Major Council of the Ducal Palace, where the Genovese Authorities chose to remember the honor they gave Chiara 7 years before.

Greetings to Chiara

from "Economy of Communion - a new culture " n.28 - december  2008

Rome, Saint Paul’s Cathedral

Chiara Lubich’s Funeral Services

March 18th 2008

Benedict XVI remembers Chiara Lubich in a letter to Cardinal Bertone.

“. . . There are many reasons for thanking the Lord for the gift given to the Church of this woman of intrepid faith, humble messenger of hope and peace, founder of a vast spiritual family that embraces many fields of evangelization....The thought of the Pope was her source of direction and guidance. Moreover, looking at the initiatives that she gave rise to, one could affirm that she had an almost prophetic capacity to intuit and anticipate the thought of the Pope in her actions. Her legacy now passes onto her spiritual family: the Virgin Mary, a constant model and reference point for Chiara, help. . . contributing to make the Church. . . to always be more home and school of communion.”

Card. Tarcisio Bertone

"The XX century is the century in which God gave life to countless heroic men and women. . . Chiara Lubich found her place in this constellation with a silent and humble style,. . . gave life to people who would themselves be love. . . In Brazil, in order to meet the needs of the many who lived in poverty on the outskirts of cities, she launched the project for an “economy of communion in freedom,” giving rise to a new economic theory and praxis based on fraternity, for a sustainable development in favor of all. May the Lord grant that many scholars and economic experts take on the economy of communion as a viable resource to shape a new shared world order!”

My encounter with Chiara

by Stefano Zamagni
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture "  n.28 - december  2008

It was through a meeting of the Economy of Communion that I met Chiara almost 15 years ago. That meeting laid the foundation for a deep and fruitful friendship. Much has already been said and written about Chiara, her Charism, her thought and her work. Although I’m in a deeply emotional state, I would like to add a few lines to the already ample literature around this human figure, truly extraordinary. It is truly a privilege to speak, very briefly, about those characteristic traits of her personality, that were out of the ordinary and that struck me the most and stayed with me.

The first is her sensitivity that was like a declaration of trust in life. A person who is sensitive pays attention to and reveres others, is ready to see, is interested in new discoveries. Chiara chose to elevate sensitivity to an operational principle for the Movement she founded. An eloquent sign of this concept’s importance to all the Focolarini is the very special attention they give to caring for everything that is beautiful as a way to regain truth and goodness. You may recall the famous sentence by Hans von Balthasar: “in a world without beauty also goodness loses its attraction...  In a world that believes it is incapable of affirming beauty, the arguments in favor of the truth also lose their strength”.

The Chiaraful Economy

by Luigino Bruni
from  "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - decemebr 2008

The EoC is an economic project born from a Charism, from a gift for today’s humanity. We mentioned it several times in this Newsletter, including this issue, when we said that every economic experience (and not only economic, born from a Charism, has some specific points of its own, which make it different from other experiences born instead from interests and the pursuit of profits.

The guiding premise of a charismatic economy is specifically the principle of gratuitousness; we act, we work, we produce, but we do use or make an instrument of people, things and ourselves. We rather respect and love them as good in themselves.

Now let us ask ourselves: is there a specific aspect of the Charism of Unity from which the EoC is born, inside the great charismatic history of yesterday and today?

The Distribution of the EoC profits

by Leo Andringa
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

To the indigents
For quite some time the Economy of Communion Central Commission, responsible to manage both the enterprises’s EoC profits and the “extraordinary contributions”, feels the strong need to make the utilization of the available funds more transparent. The “extraordinary help” was began in 1994 because of the need to integrate the revenues from the businesses, still insufficient to cover all the needs of our poor.

By doing this we want to increase the “communion” among everyone, keeping in mind that in our enterprises operate people of all convictions and most diverse cultures. We feel it is important therefore that we pass on the economic, cultural and human values of the EoC project. It was for this reason that in 2008 the enterprises were asked to send half of the shared profits, the ones assigned to the poor, to Action for a United World (AMU), the NGO of the Focolare Movement, born to finance development projects in the world areas with most difficulties.

Projects to create new jobs

by Francesco Tortorella
from  "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

Since the early times of the Focolare Movement in Trento, during the II World War, the Charism of Unity had made clear the imperative to act so that “no needy were among them”, as it was in the early times of Christianity. In the eighties the Movement had faced systematically the world of economy and of work with all the social problems connected to it and what emerged was the need for an entity dedicated to the support and development of the social activities that were inspired by the Charism all over the world.

This is how AMU (Action for a United World) was started; today it is a agency recognized by the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs for international cooperation. In the nineties AMU began to collaborate with the EoC in distributing funds for emergency situations, for the necessary help to elderly and ill people and beyond and to help to reach the poor’s ransom from indigence through professional training and the creation of independent jobs.

These interventions were carried out by means of small productive projects financed with sunk capitals or through small unsecured loans or loans with a very low interest rate. The commitment for the EoC and AMU is growing and demanding and we are working so that these projects will increase both in number and in quality.

Year  Project  Amount (€)    Beneficiaries     Country

2006     1         12.121,76                 20     Brazil
2007    11        24.443,10                 75     Brazil, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia
2008     5         12.864,72                 30     Bulgaria, Chile, Indonesia
2009    15        52.518,78               120     Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Cameron, Mexico, Cote d’Ivoire
and Indonesia

The EoC Culture and Sophia

by Giampietro Parolin
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

The joyous and solemn anthem sung by the choir of the students in the auditorium of Loppiano on the first of December 2008, has well sealed the historical moment we lived on that day. The birth of the University Institute Sophia is an event whose importance we can’t even fathom. Chiara’s dream became real. A university where the spirituality of unity becomes culture in a project whose master’s title expresses the novelty: “Foundations and perspectives of a culture of unity”.

The Dean, Piero Coda, explained very well what Sophia wants to be: “a laboratory of spiritual education and research in which the profound bonds between life and thinking, between studying and experience, are reconnected. It is a University Institution looking at the future, attentive to the requests offered by our time so that the human beings of today and of tomorrow may become more and more world-human beings (people with a heart and mind open onto the whole world): uomo-mondo, as Chiara used to repeat”. Sophia is a location for dialogue in several dimensions.

The New EoC Web Site

www.edc-online.org

by Antonella Ferrucci
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

Since last August 2008 the new EoC web site is on line at the Hurl: www.edc-online.org.   
The site aspires to be a updated, captivating instrument for those who are interested in the Economy of Communion, offering news about upcoming events and new publications, giving a 360 degree overview of the project. In addition the new site aims to be more and more of a “container” of topics relating to the EoC that can be read, printed, copied or sent to whomever we desire. There are articles, essays, talks at conventions, experiences of our businesses, accounts about how the funds are distributed for example. There are also letters from our poor; it is hence an instrument of “announcement” of the EoC.

Help to the indigents in 2008

by Francesco Tortorella
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

Since its beginning in 1991, the EoC has always had a main objective: to contribute to realize a community without any needy people. This reality was present right away as a natural development from the spontaneous experience of the communion of goods that the Focolare Movement lived since the forties, first in Trento, and then slowly all over the world. For this reason the sharing of the profits of the EoC enterprises was lived from the early times in a spontaneous manner, in the spirit of a family, where, those who have more, simply put in common with those who have less.

If our spontaneity has contributed over the years to make the spirit of family and mutual trust grow among all the people involved in the EoC, as the number of the businesses and of the people involved increased, the need for transparency about the management of the help has grown at the same pace, as an additional contribution to communion and reciprocity.

The Forum of Solidar-One in Monte Carlo

Pedagogy of communion

By Bernadette Esmenjaud
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova"  n.28 - December 2008

On the 30 of November the weather was terrible and the Flower Highway that makes us think of sun filled vacations at the sea, was instead immersed in snow and hail. Although no one was a tourist or a car racer, almost a thousand people arrived from Italy and for the South of France for the convention of Solidar-One. It was held at the Auditorium Ranieri of Monte Carlo. The idea was Carlo Pigino’s who animated it with his friend Fabio Vitale and was supported by the members of the Focolare Communities in the South of France.

The experience of Teresa Ganzon, a Philippine Banker and member of the International Commission of the Economy of communion

A New Way to Be a Bank

by Teresa Ganzon
from "Economy of Communion - a new culture"  n.28 - december 2008

On 2 February 2008 I was invited with my husband Francis to present in Paris our experiences with our rural bank, the Bangko Kabayan, to the UNESCO forum  “Economy of Communion and organised Micro finance”, in
front of  approximately 500 participants. This trip allowed us to hear the testimony of a group of French EoC entrepreneurs from two faith-based communities: Focolari and Emmanuel.

It was new for us, since we had always associated the Economy of Communion to the Focolare Movement. To have become acquainted with this model has reinforced in us the possibility of expanding our economic proposals to those with whom we feel close to in the spirit of the Economy of Communion, even if they are coming from different communities of faith.

News from Latin America

By Alberto Ferrucci 
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova"  n.28 - December 2008

Recife: Ginetta Industrial park
"“Finally all permits arrived. My son Gabriel went with Marco to finalize all the last details for the starting of the activity in January”: Armando Tortelli wrote. He, with Marcos Gugel from Recife, is opening in the Ginetta Industrial Park a Branch of the Prodiet Farmaceutica (the business that Armando manages with Roseli and three of their five children, in the Spartaco Industrial Park and in Curitiba, near San Paulo).
Armando went on to say: “it is a matter of giving everything. The economic crisis increased the cost of money and this is not the right time to make new investments. I feel however that our businesses within the EoC must not follow the world´s present indicators. It is the time to be reborn, to be childlike, to give everything and to believe. We had this confirmed by the “Banco do Nord Este” (Bank of the North-East), that, despite the financial turbulence, believed in our project and granted us an important line of credit at a lower rate interest than that of commercial Banks. A great sign from God."

 

The EoC “Mini-Synod”

By Benedetto Gui
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova"  n.28 - December 2008

The Economy of Communion is at a turning point. After 17 years the early enthusiasm is no longer enough. We need a more mature participation, not to discourage us because of unsuccessful events and delays, but to help us persevere in establishing the foundation of an economy marked by fraternity and is, at the same time, sustainable and vital, of which Chiara’s prophecy gave us a glimpse.

This idea seems to be the best interpretative key for giving you a report on the annual meeting of those responsible for the EoC held in Castelgandolfo from the 23rd to the 26th of October 2008. Someone spoke of a “mini-synod” to characterize the purpose of the dialogue that took place and the re-launching of the EoC that occurred there. All together, there were about 150 among members of the European local commissions and a significant present of representatives from other continents, all there in the capacity of "fathers and mothers” of this synod.

To speak of dialogue is very appropriate. The working program revolved around the discussion of the rough-draft for the EoC regulations and an updated version of the “Guidelines on how to run an EoC business”, that we are planning to vote on at the 20th anniversary of the EoC that will be celebrated in Brazil in 2011 (a rough draft of the Guidelines which were further elaborated at the November meeting of 2007, can be found right after this). What emerged was, besides the diversity of ideas, the richness of the experience lived so far, and which will always remain as the most precious and vital thing to communicate and share.

We present here an updated proposal of the guidelines that the businesses adhering to the EoC have committed to follow since 1997. The guidelines have been elaborated so that each aspect of the business life may be faithful to the inspiration from which the project was born, and, at the same time, may make visible the effects of the logic of communion in the structures of economic life.

In this version, fruit of the revision work initiated  during the EoC International Convention of November 2007, have been re-touched above all in the first two sections, to make clearer the identity of the project and the following organizational principles.

The Economy of Communion Project (EoC) intends to promote a vision of economic action committed to the integral promotion of people and society, by means of actions and behaviours inspired by brotherhood.

20 New Dissertations

By Antonella Ferrucci
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova"  n.28 - December 2008

Being part of the EoC brings many concrete consequences at an organizational level of a business. It is interesting to notice that it also changes the sensitivity for interpersonal relationships and for environment issues as well as issues with the point of view of constructing a more just society, where no one is excluded.

The 20 new dissertations you will find below analyze many of these issues and compare them with other realities already sensitive to the same issues, such as the Social Responsibility of Businesses or the Workplace Democracy. These new categories were ignored until a short time ago by economic science. They are now analyzed and evaluated also by new tools such as the Rainbow Score. What comes to the front is the human and relational capital. The vision of communion is translated into innovations of the governance at the managerial, control and coordination levels. Citing finally the student Stefano Norcia: “The fuel for the EoC project is the strategic orientation, so rooted in everyone, that it points to the correct course to pursue”.

 

Readers´ Mail

Alberto Ferrucci
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova" n.28 - December 2008

Fruits of a dissertation
I’m 25 years old and I have a degree in Accounting. I had always doubted that I could dedicate myself to work for my desire for a more just and fraternal society, studying the discipline I chose. Once I finished all the exams, I wanted to write my dissertation on “EoC – new paradigm in result management” and since no one of my professors knew the EoC project I convinced my future dissertation chair to participate in the EoC convention at the Focolare small city of Santa Maria. In that occasion there was also going to be the inauguration of the Industrial Park Ginetta.

Appreciation for the EoC and its protagonists

By Antonella Ferrucci
from "Economia di Comunione - una cultura nuova"  n.28 - December 2008

The Argentinean Government confers an honor to Cristina Calvo
On the 25th of November 2008, on the occasion of the anniversary of the “Universal Declaration on the elimination of intolerance and discrimination because of personal convictions”, the Argentinean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Ambassador Guillermo Olivieri, conferred honors to renown V.I.P.s, among whom Cristina Calvo a focolarina, member of the International EoC Commission, director of the Caritas for Latin America and of the Latin-American committee of the World Conference on religion and peace, “for her commitment, both in the country as well as internationally, for her promotion of a pluralistic and inclusive society and for her work in building peace, dialogue and in the promotion of the inviolable rights of people”.