The Pope's Letter: The Path to Follow

Notes from the Communion and Liberation leaders’ meeting with Davide Prosperi and Francesco Cassese on Pope Francis’ letter to the whole movement. Milan and via video connection from Italy and around the world, February 20, 2024

Traces, February 2024

Artificial intelligence is at the center of the world, the protagonist of debates in every sphere. Even for the pope, who dedicated his Message for Peace to it, it is among the priorities for reflection.
Photo: Bethany Beck via Unsplash
Stories

An Act of Forgiveness

Sometimes an answer to prayer comes through unexpected channels, in the course of everyday charitable work.

It was Tuesday and day five of tension at home. The kids were fighting again, this time over a missing hairbrush – or was it who ate the last of the cereal? My husband and I were needling at each other over who filled the dishwasher wrong. I prayed, ask...

Tara Isabella Burton, Fr. Patrick Gilger, and Stephen Adubato's panel at the Encounter (Ana Emilia Hernandez)
Stories

The Totality of the Question

An interview with Tara Isabella Burton, a panelist at the New York Encounter’s “Can the Soul Remain Open When Life Settles In?” in conversation with Fr. Patrick Gilger and Stephen Adubato

Tara Isabella Burton is the author of three novels—Social Creature (2019), The World Cannot Give (2023), and her most recent work, Here in Avalon (2024). She holds a doctorate in theology from Oxford University, and her nonfiction works of cultural commen...

Easter 2024. The CL Poster

This year, the words of Pope Francis and Fr. Giussani are accompanied by Duccio di Buoninsegna's "The Appearance of Christ behind closed doors".
Luca Fiammenghi / Fraternità di CL
Stories

The Voice of a History

Pippo Molino, musician and composer, describes in a recent book the place of singing in the movement: “It is born in a living community. It is one with the experience we have. And a choir is pure charity.” From the January issue of Tracce.

One thing is certain: in the movement of CL we sing. At the Spiritual Exercises, during the liturgy, before a meeting. But also on a hike or an evening among friends. It is maybe one of the most characteristic expressions of the movement. “It is a sensibi...

Stories

A New School of Community in Los Angeles

"It has shown me the power of living in communion with others and, most importantly, with myself."

In Los Angeles, where the pace of life is fast — where there’s barely a moment to genuinely answer a person’s inquiry “How are you?” and a latent skepticism that it could ever be a genuine question — a little flock of people are meeting near LAX (Los Ange...

"Morning Sun" by Edward Hopper
Stories

A True Realist

This month’s “Book of the Month” is The End of the Affair, published in 1951 by the twentieth-century English novelist Graham Greene.

Greene’s novel is narrated by Maurice Bendrix, a novelist by profession who has been praised, he tells us, for his “technical abilities.” Bendrix is a writer of “realist” fiction; that is, he writes fiction that tries to stay close in its descriptions, ch...

Stories

Education and the Road to Destiny

The Tampa Bay Community hosted a panel to discuss the content of The Risk of Education and saw firsthand the grace of the charism given by the Holy Spirit to Fr. Giussani

In his letter addressed to the Movement in which he announced that he would be stepping down as President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Fr. Julian Carron wrote, “I wish you to live this circumstance as an occasion of growth of your eccles...

Stories

A Unique Lens

The friends that organized the Leonard Cohen exhibit at the 2024 New York Encounter share their judgment on the work.

The Leonard Cohen exhibit that we prepared for the Encounter bore many unexpected fruits. A few days after the Encounter, our team had a conversation that made this clear. Here is a recounting of our conversation: My wife and I, who both worked on this...

Stories

Living the Liturgy

A book including Fr. Giussani’s meditations on the liturgy is now available in English through Slant Books

Slant Books recently published Living the Liturgy: A Witness by Fr. Giussani. The insights in Living the Liturgy were taken from conversations that Fr. Giussani had with members of Communion and Liberation, and this is the first time this text is availabl...

Stories

A Friendship Full of Wonder

Friends in Houston, TX host a cultural event discussing the role of wonder in the dynamics of knowing.

Last semester, I met with Rob Phillips – a biophysics professor from Caltech – and he told me: “When I bring my students on our field trip the Galapagos Islands, I ask them to sit for twenty minutes twice a day, every day, in silence, to look at the ocean...