Anyone have any info on this? Always best to check out anything with the name "liberation" in our times. If political it could be a concern. If spiritual, it could be a great sign of evangelical priority.
CL emerged out of Gioventù Studentesca during the late 1960s, a period of rapid change in Italian society and within the Catholic Church. Following Giussani’s appointment to a chair in the theology department at Milan’s Catholic University in 1965, GS had begun to drift away from Giussani’s methods and was adopting social and political ideals popular among student movements in Italy at the time. By 1968, a significant number of GS members had left to join the secular revolutionary student movement, and many had become active Marxists. The group that became CL openly opposed these new revolutionary movements in the universities, in contrast to the increasing trend within the official Catholic youth and lay organizations to abandon their traditional antagonism toward secularism and Marxism. The contrast had become a deep division by the time of Azione Cattolica’s revision of its official statutes in 1969 and its adoption of a new policy of “religious choice” (a withdrawal from the sphere of partisan politics and a shift in focus towards spirituality and social justice, ostensibly in response to the Second Vatican Council). The faction of former GS members who rejected both the leftist student movement and the new direction of the official Catholic organizations took the name Comunione e Liberazione (originally the title of a manifesto they had authored and distributed).
During the 1970s, Giussani took an increasing interest in CL, which had resumed many of the distinctive practices and methods of GS and was operating as an unofficial Catholic organization in Italy outside the traditional lay Catholic structures, tending to be viewed with suspicion by the church hierarchy. Nevertheless, during the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce it was CL rather than the official Catholic organizations that undertook the task of defending the Catholic Church’s position to Italian society. Through its role in the referendum CL gained the sympathy and trust of many Italian bishops and of Pope Paul VI, who voiced his support of Giussani and CL at a Palm Sunday youth event in 1975. During this time CL acquired a reputation as an integralist organization and was the target of violence, culminating in 120 attacks on persons and CL offices in 1977, during leftist students riots[citation needed].
The movement endorses a fiscally conservative and a socially conservative agenda on issues such as on stem cell research, end of life issues, same-sex unions, consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.
www.clonline.org
The Movement has truly changed my life.
I’m surprised its not more popular in the US than it is.
Regardless, it’s truly the only authentically human way to live, by my experience. I’ve refered others to it from here in the midst of some debates in times past. For me, it seems to be the true way to “answer” such debates. But to no avail.
Regardless, it’s not a communist organization, in fact quite the opposite. I wouldn’t be surprised if from CL, Pope Francis derived/derives his outlook on “social justice”, which trust me, would be the best place, “conservatively speaking”. Despite its name, CL has nothing to do with “liberation theology”, in fact, we stand in stark opposition to it.
They are a lay organization but they were founded by a priest, Don Luigi Giussani, who started out just by challenging students: "Jesus Christ: who do YOU say that He is?" This is why C+L is described by some as "an evangelical movement within the Church."
This guy Francis I sounds like a really, really good choice.