Communione e Liberazione

Communione e Liberazione (CL; “Communion and Liberation”) is one of the new religious movements that appeared within Italian Catholicism during the second half of the 20th century. Like most movements born in the same period, CL does not follow a particular Italian Church strategy and has developed at the margins of the ecclesiastical system.

The origins of the movement may be traced to the work of Luigi Giussani, a priest born in the province of Milan in 1922. His education was particularly influenced by the spirit of pastoral Catholicism, which was an active force in Brianza during the 1930s, and the tradition of spiritual renewal that came from social Catholicism and from the moderate modernist tradition that developed in the early 20th century.

During the 1950s, Don Giussani was professor of religion in the lycées of Milan. He was also in charge of the ministry to youth within the diocese. The main issue he faced concerned the confrontation with secularized lay culture. According to Don Giussani and his assertion about the reasonableness of believing, the whole religious dimension of life is rooted in one's experience and offers a definitive view of reality. For that reason, it does not have to do only with one's innner life but involves the wholeness of being and of all its social expressions. Thus, Catholics can not only [Page 238]introduce themselves as being religious when approaching the dialectic debate with lay culture, but they can also qualify themselves as religious in every sphere of social and institutional life.

A movement developed in the lycées and the Catholic University that aimed to assert an operative and visible presence of Catholics outside parishes and inside civil society. Because of the importance its founder gave to educational commitment, the movement is characterized not only for its aid and work activities but also, and perhaps chiefly, for a remarkable presence within scholastic structures. From the 1970s to the 1990s, CL introduced itself in several fields of the cultural, political, and economic live of Italy. Don Giussani also gave birth to a real structure of ecclesiastic life, which was recognized in 1982 by the Pontifical Council for Lays: the Communion and Liberation Fraternity. This association aims to activate a real “education to faith” through the network of “schools of community,” spiritual retreats, and the realization of deeply spiritual moments on the occasion of the most important festivals of the liturgical year.

During John Paul II's pontificate, the CL movement began to spread to other Catholic countries. The constant connection between initiatives concerning the active presence in civil and institutional life and the strong activity of spiritual animation has made the CL movement one of the most important presences of Catholic spirituality within Italian civil society as well as an untiring producer of associative commitment and communitarian sharing.