Communion and Liberation

A recurring activity in Communion and Liberation is catechesis though School of Community (SoC), typically focusing on a text by Giussani or the Magisterium, organized by individual communities and open to the public.[16]

Since the early stages of GS, Giussani had established his primary goals to be education to Christian maturity and collaboration in the mission of the Church in every aspect of life. The School of Community aims to be a method to verify the presence of Christ in one's life, delving into the relationship between faith and reason and, more specifically, how human reason can approach the mystery of God and of the Incarnation. Participants help each other grow in awareness of how communion with Christ can give birth to a new humanity.

Giussani always followed the Catholic Church's prayer and liturgy. He recommended the Liturgy of the Hours, which Communion and Liberation prays in recto tono. In the early Seventies, a condensed version of the Ambrosian breviary was compiled; this version follows a weekly cycle, rather than a four-week one, and is still used today in Communion and Liberation communities. The consecrated religious within the movement, however, use the official Catholic breviary for prayer. The rosary is recited frequently, and praying the Angelus, the Regina Coeli, and the Memorare is often encouraged, as is the use of the invocation to the Holy Spirit, Veni Sancte Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

Giussani's desire to encourage readership of both Catholic and secular writers who could aid in further comprehension of the Christian experience led to the "Book of the Month," a series of texts regularly recommended by Communion and Liberation.[17] Music proposals are instead compiled in the Spirito Gentil collection.[18]

Members of Communion and Liberation are educated to charity through "charitable work," a recurring time to serve those in need.[14] Charitable work might constitute of activities such as assisting the elderly and the disabled, tutoring immigrant children, or providing support for families in need.

The movement of Communion and Liberation is, in its essence, a missionary movement, meaning its adherents dedicate themselves to bringing the living presence of Christ to all men. Its consecrated men and women live out the missionary life as missionary priests and sisters.[19]

Communion and Liberation communities regularly engage in local cultural initiatives, occasionally giving life to events that have become popular in time. The largest and most famous of these cultural initiatives is the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, an international cultural festival that takes place annually in Rimini, Italy.[20] Among other smaller recurring events inspired by the Rimini Meeting are the New York Encounter,[21] Encuentro Madrid,[22] Rhein Meeting,[23] Meeting Lisboa,[24] and the London Encounter.[25]

The official magazine of Communion and Liberation is Traces, a monthly publication that is available in eleven languages, including English.[26]

Until the 1980s, Communion and Liberation's official publishing house was Jaca Book. Since then, publications tied to the movement have been published by various publishing houses, including Notre Dame Press, McGill-Queen's University Press, and RCS MediaGroup.

In 2015, La Cascina,[28] an Italian coop with some ties to Communion and Liberation, was involved in a Mafia Capitale investigation due to the corruption of some of its managers. The company was placed under judicial management until July 2016.[29] Fr. Julián Carrón responded to the scandal in an interview with the Italian newspaper Repubblica. "It is a burning disappointment. The ideals of the movement of Communion and Liberation are far from the corruption surfacing in the Mafia Capitale investigations. And seeing that among those being investigated are people of the movement is cause of profound sadness for us."[30]

In December 2016, Roberto Formigoni, ex-governor of Lombardy and former unofficial Communion and Liberation political spokesperson, was sentenced to six years in prison for bribery and corruption after four years of investigations.[31] In 2012, when Formigoni resigned as governor due to scandals, Fr. Julián Carrón released an interview in which he stated, "There may have been people who used CL in a certain way ... we don't intervene in the documents or acts of those with political responsibilities. There are no CL candidates, there are no CL politicians. The sooner this is made clear, the better."[32]

In 2017, Pope Francis defrocked Italian priest Mauro Inzoli, formerly of Communion and Liberation, who in 2016 was convicted of sexual abuse against five boys.[33] Inzoli was removed from the priesthood in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, but was reinstated by Francis in 2014.[33]

• The Religious Sense, McGill-Queen's University Press,1997. ISBN 9780773516267.
• At the Origin of the Christian Claim, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0773516274.
• Why the Church?, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0773517073.
• The Psalms, The Crossroads Publishing Company, 2004. ISBN 978-0824521240.
• The Work of the Movement: The Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, Nuovo Mondo, 2005. ISBN 8884170982.
• The Journey to Truth Is an Experience, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0773531482.
• Is It Possible to Live this Way? Vol I, II, III, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0773534049.
• Generating Traces in the History of the World, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0773537682.
• American Protestant Theology, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013. ISBN 9780773541979.
• Christ, God's Companionship with Man, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015. ISBN 9780773545663.
• The Risk of Education, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019. ISBN 9780773557499.

• Disarming Beauty, Notre Dame Press, 2017. ISBN 9780268101978.

• The Life of Luigi Giussani, Alberto Savorana. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2018. ISBN 9780773551855.
• A Generative Thought, Eliza Buzzi. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0773526310.
• Communion and Liberation: A Movement in the Church, Davide Rondoni. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0773520318.

• La lobbi di dio (English: God's Lobby), a journalistic inquiry about the Movement by Ferruccio Pinotti (in Italian)
• The Pope's Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church, Gordon Urquhart, Bantam Press (June 1, 1995), ISBN 0-593-03388-4
• Comunione e Liberazione: A Fundamentalist Idea of Power, Dario Zadra (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994, pp. 124–128 – Fundamentalism Project)
• Fundamentalisms Observed, Martin E Marty, R Scott Appleby (University of Chicago Press, 1 lug 1994), ISBN 0-226-50878-1
• Italy: A Difficult Democracy', Frederic Spotts, Theodor Wieser, (Cambridge University Press, 30 apr 1986), ISBN 0-521-31511-5
• Strong Religion, Gabriel Abraham Almond, R Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan (University of Chicago Press, 2003), ISBN 0-226-01498-3