At the Vatican, it's the hour of the focolarini. Even the writing of the meditations that accompany the papal Via Crucis on Good Friday at the Colosseum has been entrusted, this year, to an historic couple of the movement founded by Chiara Lubich.
They are the spouses Anna Maria and Danilo Zanzucchi, according to the movement's website "among the first married couples to follow the spirituality of unity promoted by Chiara Lubich."
Former consultants for the pontifical council for the family, the two were "directors of the New Families Movement for about 40 years and still actively continue to give their precious contribution to this branch of the Focolare Movement."
"It’s the first time that the Holy Father has entrusted this task to a married couple," the site notes, not without a certain sense of pride.
But the assignment of writing the meditations for the Via Crucis of 2012 is, for the focolarini, just the crowning of a series of much more important appointments that have accumulated to their advantage during the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
One focolarino, in fact, is Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, who in 2008 was called to head the pontifical council for the family, joining another focolarino in the curia at the time, Monsignor Vincenzo Zani, since 2002 the undersecretary of the congregation for Catholic education.
Another focolarino is the new Brazilian cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, who in 2011 was appointed prefect of the congregation for religious, where he brought about a change of course with respect to the conservative leadership of his predecessor, the Slovenian Franc Rodè.
They are the spouses Anna Maria and Danilo Zanzucchi, according to the movement's website "among the first married couples to follow the spirituality of unity promoted by Chiara Lubich."
Former consultants for the pontifical council for the family, the two were "directors of the New Families Movement for about 40 years and still actively continue to give their precious contribution to this branch of the Focolare Movement."
"It’s the first time that the Holy Father has entrusted this task to a married couple," the site notes, not without a certain sense of pride.
But the assignment of writing the meditations for the Via Crucis of 2012 is, for the focolarini, just the crowning of a series of much more important appointments that have accumulated to their advantage during the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
One focolarino, in fact, is Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, who in 2008 was called to head the pontifical council for the family, joining another focolarino in the curia at the time, Monsignor Vincenzo Zani, since 2002 the undersecretary of the congregation for Catholic education.
Another focolarino is the new Brazilian cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, who in 2011 was appointed prefect of the congregation for religious, where he brought about a change of course with respect to the conservative leadership of his predecessor, the Slovenian Franc Rodè.
(The author of a doctoral thesis on liberation theology, Braz de Aviz supported the selection as undersecretary of his dicastery of Sister Nicla Spezzati, who unlike her predecessor, Sister Enrica Rosanna, does not usually wear the religious habit.)
Also a focolarino is Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who in 2011 was selected as the new substitute of the secretariat of state, a key role in the central government of the Catholic Church, across whose desk pass all the most important practices of the Roman curia.
Becciu belongs to the pontifical diplomatic corps, and was the nuncio in Cuba. But he is not the only focolarino who is part of the Holy See's diplomatic corps. There are many Vatican ambassadors from the times of John Paul II who can be counted among the members and sympathizers of Focolare.
These are the current nuncios in Poland (Celestino Migliore, the former Vatican deputy foreign minister and representative at the UN), Lithuania (Luigi Bonazzi), Malta (Tommaso Caputo, former head of protocol in the secretariat of state), Jordan (Giorgio Lingua), Brazil (Giovanni d'Aniello), as well as the permanent observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Monsignor Aldo Giordano.
Yet another focolarino, in the secretariat of state, is Archbishop Luciano Suriani, delegate for pontifical representations: a sort of personnel chief not only for Vatican diplomats, but for the whole Roman curia.
Then must be added the fact that not a few focolarine work in various offices of the curia. If the pope has in his secretariat a consecrated laywoman of the Schoenstatt Institute, Birgit Wansing, cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone numbers among his personal secretaries the focolarina Eurosia Bertolassi, his collaborator since he was second in command of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
The relationship between Bertone and the focolarini goes back a long way. It was to them, in fact, when he was secretary of the Holy Office, that he entrusted in 2000 the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring back to the straight and narrow the bizarre African archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.
And it was with one of the children of the Zanzucchi couple, Michele, that Cardinal Bertone wrote a book-length interview on pope Karol Wojtyla: "Un cuore grande."
Also a focolarino is Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who in 2011 was selected as the new substitute of the secretariat of state, a key role in the central government of the Catholic Church, across whose desk pass all the most important practices of the Roman curia.
Becciu belongs to the pontifical diplomatic corps, and was the nuncio in Cuba. But he is not the only focolarino who is part of the Holy See's diplomatic corps. There are many Vatican ambassadors from the times of John Paul II who can be counted among the members and sympathizers of Focolare.
These are the current nuncios in Poland (Celestino Migliore, the former Vatican deputy foreign minister and representative at the UN), Lithuania (Luigi Bonazzi), Malta (Tommaso Caputo, former head of protocol in the secretariat of state), Jordan (Giorgio Lingua), Brazil (Giovanni d'Aniello), as well as the permanent observer to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Monsignor Aldo Giordano.
Yet another focolarino, in the secretariat of state, is Archbishop Luciano Suriani, delegate for pontifical representations: a sort of personnel chief not only for Vatican diplomats, but for the whole Roman curia.
Then must be added the fact that not a few focolarine work in various offices of the curia. If the pope has in his secretariat a consecrated laywoman of the Schoenstatt Institute, Birgit Wansing, cardinal secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone numbers among his personal secretaries the focolarina Eurosia Bertolassi, his collaborator since he was second in command of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
The relationship between Bertone and the focolarini goes back a long way. It was to them, in fact, when he was secretary of the Holy Office, that he entrusted in 2000 the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring back to the straight and narrow the bizarre African archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.
And it was with one of the children of the Zanzucchi couple, Michele, that Cardinal Bertone wrote a book-length interview on pope Karol Wojtyla: "Un cuore grande."