Across Asia

Focolare president Maria Voce began 2010 by visiting the Focolare communities in South Korea, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines, strengthening interreligious efforts. She returned to Rome to a special audience with Pope Benedict

Soon after being elected in 2008, Maria Voce was asked about the direction she would give to her presidency. She answered, “My intention is to give priority to building and strengthening relationships.” In the tradition of dialogue started by Chiara Lubich, she has done just that.

In the past two years, she has addressed the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, participated in a bishops synod on the Word of God at the Vatican, visited Evangelical and Lutheran communities in Germany, and visited Focolare communities in many countries of Europe and Africa.

This year, with Focolare co-president Giancarlo Faletti, she embarked on an extended trip to Asia, including Focolare communities in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand.

Land of the morning calm
South Korea, like many nations of East Asia, is experiencing a time of enormous and rapid transformation brought on by extraordinary technological progress. In this context, without forgetting the still-open wound of the separation of the two Koreas, politics and religion must take into consideration the country’s changing situation.

Maria Voce met with dignitaries of the Korean parliament and engaged in a dialogue with a number of its members from different parties. All belong to the Focolare-related Political Movement for Unity and work together on initiatives to bring about more harmony and unity in Korean political life.

Mokcheon, South Korea: 1,500 people of all ages and backgrounds welcomed Maria Voce. The Focolare community in Korea has its roots in the late 1960s.

Voce encouraged the group to banish prejudice and to work for the common good under the banner of unity, “keeping in mind that something good can also come from adversarial relationships. Certainly, each one thinks that his or her system is the best, but there is no need to consider it as an absolute. One’s own system is always relative and can be improved. A proposal from the other side can also be discovered as positive and acceptable through open-minded listening.”

She continued, “This is the contribution of the Political Movement for Unity: to offer this capacity of listening in order to discover the positive that is present in the other’s position.”

Meeting with several Bishops of the Korean Conference of Catholic Bishops was another highlight. “I thank God for this spirituality that has members living it even in parliament,” shared Bishop Joseph Lee Han-Taek of Euijung Bu. “They are lay people who fulfill their real Christian vocation.”

A two-day meeting with 1,500 members of the Focolare in Korea concluded with a celebration of traditional songs and dances that gave a glimpse of the history of their country and the richness of their culture. Maria Voce encouraged the Focolare community there to keep their hearts open to the entire world.

Land of the rising sun
Tokyo: Maria Voce and co-president Giancarlo Faletti with the Focolare community of Japan, whose roots go back to the 1950s.

Japan was the journey’s next stop. “Entering Tokyo, the interplay begins with elevated roads that seem to slice the city in pieces passing by houses and high-rises, intersecting themselves, almost touching. The traffic signals are clear; everyone knows where to go; each person seems to have his or her right place at the right moment,”
wrote Roberto Catalano, co-director of the Focolare Center for Interreligious Dialogue. “As a global economic leader during the second half of the 20th century, to the credit of its people, Japan astonished the world with its business creativity and production capacities. But like the rest of the world, today this country finds a new and heavy challenge in the global economic crisis.”

At the same time, globalization has led sons and daughters of this rich culture to join persons from different countries around the world in bringing ahead the “adventure of unity” in Japan.

This exciting adventure of unity in Japan is strongly interreligious. The Focolare and the lay Buddhist movement Rissho Kosei-kai began a journey of dialogue and collaboration 30 years ago built on the relationship between Chiara Lubich and the RKK founder, Nikkyo Niwano.
This was proof that “the Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions and considers with sincere respect those ways of acting and of life” (Vatican Council declaration Nostra Aetate).

While in Japan, Maria Voce met with 80 Rissho Kosei-kai leaders as well as youth members. She was also invited by RKK President Nichiko Niwano to address a large representation of its members in the Great Sacred Hall where Chiara herself spoke in 1981. “It is with great emotion that I find myself here,” Maria Voce said, “I feel as if I am enveloped by the spirit of our two founders, who strongly desired a fraternal bond between our two organizations.”

Maria Voce confirmed with her presence and words the continuity of this relationship as she retraced the years of profound friendship, collaboration and reciprocal discoveries that led the members of the two movements to recognize one another in all parts of the world as true brothers and sisters.

She quoted Chiara: “We are of different religions, different nationalities and different cultures, yet there are common ties. They are not the effect of an effort or of a human project, but are the supernatural work of God, for a purpose that God conceived and that to us is not completely known.”

“We have entered a new phase in dialogue,” Nichiko Niwano commented. And his daughter Kosho Niwano, who will be the future president, said, “What we have between us now is much more than dialogue. It is deep communion.”

At a meeting with the Focolare community in Japan, the experiences shared illustrated the fact that “happiness is being certain that God loves us.” Maria Voce counseled the group there saying, “Don’t be concerned because your numbers are small. What is important is to know that you have received a gift from God (the spirituality of unity) that is for each one of us and also for others.

Pearl of Asia
Then on to the Philippines, where Maria Voce met the Focolare community, which has grown during these past 40 years. More than 3,000 members gathered in Manila from the northern part of the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

The trip included a visit to the Focolare little city of Tagaytay, to Bukas Palad (the project serves the needy in the slums of Manila) and then on to Cebu in the south. It was amazing to see what has happened over the past years, from the dictatorship through a peaceful revolution to the reintroduction of democracy, with unquestionable economic growth in the country.

Manila: The Focolare president spoke to 5,000 Catholic priests at their National Conference on “The Call to Holiness.”

Over the years the Gospel-based Focolare spirituality has penetrated deeply and become part of both the social and religious life of the country. One of the members with her husband opened a bank as part of the Economy of Communion in Freedom, and in collaboration with other banking institutions, it has had a decisive effect on the preservation of industries in their area. It has shown that even in the financial field it is possible to work together with competitors for the common good.

Maria Voce pointed out that even in the face of inequalities and the many social problems, one cannot be passive. “We need to find real answers to these problems,” she affirmed, “but our actions have to have one characteristic — unity. This is the specific contribution the Focolare is asked to make. This means that if we are united, Jesus is present in the community and guides it as he promised. So he is the one to guide us, even in social projects. God asks us to be united in giving witness so that the world may believe.”

While in Manila, Maria Voce was invited to address 5,000 priests at their national congress on the theme “the call to holiness.” She sketched her own experience in meeting the spirituality of unity and her discovery of the most powerful help we have on our path toward holiness.

“Jesus himself,” she said, “establishes his spiritual home with us if we are united. More than just searching for holiness, let’s walk with the Holy One in our midst.”

Land of the free

University of Chiang Mai: Maria Voce took questions from university students, all Buddhist monks. After her meetings in Chiang Mai, she met in Bangkok with 850 Focolare members from Thailand and other Asian countries.

The journey then took Maria Voce to Thailand where the Fourth Buddhist-Christian Symposium was held in Chiang Mai on “Dharma, Compassion and Agape: What Answer can Religions give to the Challenge of Globalization?”

Sponsored by a Thai Buddhist University, the Focolare and the Rissho Kosei-kai, the symposium was attended by 150 participants from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, England and Italy, including religious leaders such as the Papal Nunzio in Thailand, a representative of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, other Catholic bishops, the president of the Rissho Kosei-kai, the highest authority of Thailand’s Theravada Buddhists and a director of the World Council of Churches.

The institution of the family, under attack in the world with the collapse of values, was one of the topics discussed. A contribution to the dialogue was offered by American Judith Povilus and Hungarian Palko Toth, lecturers at Sophia University Institute in Italy, who spoke about the educational approach that is evolving at Sophia based on openness to cultural differences, full-time interaction between lecturers and students, and an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the whole person.

Maria Voce spoke to the symposium’s participants about Chiara’s understanding of the meaning of suffering. “It’s not by chance that the charism of unity was born on the devastation and death disseminated by World War II,” she began. “Right in that paradoxical context of hatred, when all relationships seemed to be destroyed, God showed himself to Chiara for what he is — love — a love that finds its maximum expression in Jesus. Jesus showed his love for us throughout his life, but above all in the sacrifice of the cross and his abandonment.”

“This approach in itself is capable of generating new relationships,” she continued, “not only on a personal level, but also on a communitarian level; it is capable of renewing society from within and of building fraternal relationships between nations, while taking one’s identity into account. It can heal the wounds that torment the modern world in which God is noticeable by his absence.”

Before concluding her trip to Asia, Maria Voce met with a group of 30 bishops, and with representatives of the Focolare communities from 15 countries of South East Asia. Among them were Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

“What did you find during your visit?” Maria Voce was asked in an interview upon her return to Italy.

“It is difficult to say,” she answered. “What did strike me most was a strong sense of the sacred and a great sensitivity to the divine. Perhaps this is the greatest value found in the Asian culture. But that’s not all. It is a rich culture, whose precious pearls include respect for one’s elders, obedience, hard work, tolerance, patience and a capacity to endure difficult situations. In western culture such values may appear outdated.

“While there, faced with this richness, I thought, ‘If we don’t bring higher values, what are we coming here to do?’ What is our greatest value? The value of Christian love appeared enormous to me because it is the only superior value which does not crush other values but rather emphasizes them, puts them into light; these values are welcomed and not put down. I experienced this with the Buddhists with whom we established a profound dialogue for years, and not only this. We discover each other as brothers and sisters, called to respond together to the great challenges of today’s world.”

At the heart of the Church

Vatican City: During her audience with Pope Benedict XVI, Maria Voce shared with him the fruits and experiences of her trip to Asia.

In April Maria Voce had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. “It was a very special and intense moment that has left a profound joy in our hearts,” she said immediately after the meeting.

She had embarked on the journey to Asia with the Pope’s blessing “in the hope of numerous graces.” Pope Benedict’s blessing extended “to all the communities in the countries that she will be visiting, which are especially close to the Pope’s heart,” wrote Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State.

Now she had returned, and at the audience Maria Voce told the Pope everything that had happened in contact with the many different cultures and religions she encountered in Asia.

During the audience, they touched on many topics regarding the life of the Movement, including the forthcoming beatification of Chiara Luce Badano (September 25, 2010).

At the conclusion, the Pope gave his blessing, with the invitation to extend it to the entire Focolare Movement with his greetings.





— with Clare Zanzucchi

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