I met the movement at the beginning of 1986, when I was 12 years old. My family and I were invited for a meeting of new families near Belem in Brazil. My parents and brother (11 years old) went there and we loved it! A few weeks later I went to a Gen 3 meeting. I was enchanted by everything there! I also wanted to sing and be happy like the other girls! In July of the same year, we went on a Mariapolis holiday to Mariapolis Araceli (now Mariapolis Ginetta). We were very happy with everything.
Little by little, however, the focolarine began to tell me how to live, what God's will was for me. As I was so young, I believed in everything. The same happened with my mother, who later joined a group of married focolarine. There were many things that I could not understand. Why were many focolarine almost always angry and toxic? Once, at a new families event, a focolarina told me that I was like a clown because I had make-up on my face. Why did she tell me this? My mum was a hairdresser and had a beauty salon and all the focolarine went there without paying anything. My mum was happy to offer this to them.... I was a gen 3 in the rainbow unit so I couldn't have a boyfriend. I had one who was 15, but after 2 months my assistant gen told me to end it all. I cried a lot! I lived in the gen house in Loppiano for 6 months in 1992 when I was 18. I suffered a lot with the focolarina responsible for the house. She was a very difficult person... There were many traumas and I often talk about it in therapy. I am hoping to get better and not to have to think about these things any more. After I finished reading Renata Patti's book (https://focolareabusi.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/io-e-il-movimento-dei-focolari-renata-patti-01-2.pdf) I had the courage to write a post on Facebook in January 2021 in Portuguese. Same with many "friends" in Facebook who still participate in the movement. I am no longer afraid of anyone. I feel free to write to welcome so many people who have left the movement and are suffering.
This is the post I wrote on Facebook (excuse the translation with errors because I haven't practised Italian for a long time): Everything starts with lots of smiles and attention. They fill you with sympathy and tell you that everything is beautiful. I confess that it was very easy to be enchanted by all that aura of a "united world" and that you had to "see Jesus" in everyone. Loving everyone concretely, I was told at the age of 12 in 1986. Hours, days, weeks, months and years listening to the messages of the foundress who was treated like a goddess, as what she said was considered almost "sacred". I was taught her ideas much more than those of the Gospel. Then they invited me to the meetings. Little by little they started meddling in my life, down to the smallest details. I was just a teenager. Yes, they had more power over me than my parents. Examples of phrases I have heard countless times as an "internal" participant: - There is no real happiness outside the "ideal". - You cannot reason. - You cannot question (things in the movement). - Cut off your head. - This is not God's will for you. - It is God's will for you to attend this meeting instead of going to a family event (they even convinced me that I should go to a meeting instead of attending my sister's baptism). These were years of psychological abuse until I was 19 years old, which unfortunately mark me today. Reading this book (by Renata Patti) made me sad to see that I was not the only one traumatised. There are hundreds of former participants who feel very sick and lost after such an extreme and cruel experience. If you have participated in this movement and feel bad about leaving, you are not alone. There is a lot of life and happiness outside of this so-called "ideal". If you understand Italian, I highly recommend reading this book which was written by Renata Patti who participated in the movement for 40 years and managed to free herself. Please receive my affection and understanding. Warning: if you participate internally in the movement and you are happy, I advise you not to follow this post. You can suffer for what you have written and shared here.
And to think that at that time there were several meetings to say that the "will of God" was to vote for Collor as president of Brazil, how about that? The interesting thing was to see a disagreement between the female and male sides because the men campaigned for the PT (Workers Party) and voted heavily for Lula ... You'll see who was right ... Things I heard and was immensely shocked to hear when I lived at the gen house in Loppiano: Telling the white gen [group leader], Noce, in front of all the gen: "You are the cancer of this gen school". I can't even imagine what that young woman felt at that moment of public humiliation. I have never understood why. To this day, I don't know what she did to deserve such a reprimand. Was that behaviour of our "leader" in accordance with what we have been taught to "see Jesus in each one"? Woe to her or him who asked a question! I had to listen to everything very quietly making "unity".
Another thing I don't understand: was it really necessary to use such an aggressive vocabulary with us? What were the aims of this kind of treatment? We were told during a 'meditation' while listening, as always, to a message from Chiara: 'You can leave now for work because you have just aborted Jesus in the midst.' What?! We looked at each other without understanding who were the targets of that rebuke. As always, we could not question anything.
One situation that surprised me was that I had worked with my gen house to make products such as diaries and other things for Benetton. I think it was a big order and they needed the help of many people, which is why they called us all from the little house. I remember well that the focolarina in charge told us very clearly that nothing was to be questioned. Interestingly, we worked in the Fantasy basement of the Ave Centre [women's craft centre at Loppiano] where visitors had no access or were even aware of... It seems that the movement did not want to show the public that it needed to work for companies outside the movement, especially for Benetton, which at that time scandalised the church with its very shocking posters (such as the one of a man dressed as a priest kissing a woman dressed as a nun on the mouth).
Many years ago I used to write anonymously on a site (www.focolare.net) that gathered hundreds of people who had left the movement. Everything I experienced and witnessed in the movement was put there. Why anonymously? Because I was very afraid. There are many reports in different languages. It was interesting to know that a gen spoke in a meeting about these posts I had written. They went so far as to plan posts contrary to what I had written ... Even though I wrote anonymously, they "discovered" me and wouldn't acknowledge the traumas I experienced ... I mean, I couldn't even share my traumas ... A real horror .... Another moment when I was very embarrassed was when the father of a Brazilian gen went to visit the gen house and met our leader. He arrived "joking" that he wanted to meet the woman who had traumatised his daughter. It was just me and her ... How would I translate that "joke"? Think of it as a perfect fit!
The last straw happened when I fell ill and was resting at home when I had already returned to Belém after living in Loppiano. Since we lived on the top floor of my mother's beauty salon, which always did the focolarine's hair for free, one day the zone leader came to have her hair done and decided to visit me, even though I had already decided to leave the movement. She was very nosy and wanted to know the details of my courtship with my fiancé. I didn't answer the questions: I just said that God had been merciful. Her comment? 'Sinners will burn in the flames of hell!' Wow, what terror! What an abuse! Is this something you say to someone who was sick? I started crying profusely and she left.
The interesting thing is that when she left, she asked Mum if she thought what she had just said was right. Mum responded: 'The movement has lost Cintia forever.' This post is helping me to put out some of the trauma I went through from the ages of 12 to 19. I am no longer afraid. I am very happy with my husband and daughter. I don't need any movement or religion to tell me how I should live and lead my life to be a good person. I want to repeat: if you participate in the movement and you are happy there, wonderful, continue to participate happily. I only ask, please, not to send me any material produced by the movement. I have no interest in participating in anything or receiving a word of life, Chiara's film, magazines and the like. I already know everything very well from there and have no interest in knowing the 'news'. I have many acquaintances in the movement and I like many of them very much. However, I still carry traumas that I keep trying to heal and every time they send me something, I feel sad and all those traumas come back to the forefront ... Unfortunately, my mother also suffered a lot of trauma with her focolare 'boss' as she prepared to become a married focolarina. She confided in me that she did not understand the reasons for being so mistreated since she was only doing good. She stayed in the movement a little longer, but then she couldn't take any more toxic people and broke free.
I recalled another absurd suggestion that a focolarino made to Mum. He told her to beat my brother to punish him when he was about 17. Mum was shocked and clearly did not "make unity" with this focolarino. The movement also did not 'see Jesus' in my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time. He was treated extremely badly by several internal members. I think they wanted him and that's why they wanted him to leave me ... Even the zone leader was very rude to him in an interaction in a Mariapolis! Seriously, I don't understand it! Is there any explanation for this? Rudeness and bad temper were trademarks of several focolarini and focolarini, including the leaders. Until today, I wonder what kind of "Jesus" they saw in the people around them - being so toxic.
Now it is becoming increasingly clear that it is very important to talk about abuse. We cannot let fear continue to dominate us. We must ensure that this abuse will never happen again! You, a participant in the movement who is reading all that we share here, I beg you, I implore you, to no longer allow people of good faith to be humiliated and psychologically destroyed. You don't know how serious this is for the future of these people! Who knew that something that happened to me until I was 19 years old in 1993 would affect me so much even now when I am 47 years old in 2021! This is very serious! Ask psychiatrists and psychologists from outside the movement. Learn to treat people with dignity! Put into practice what the movement teaches and don't just mouth the words. I bet there are many people from the movement who read everything here without any reaction: no problem, no need to comment. I recommend you read read Renata's book which is in the link in this post. Read the other links with testimonies of former focolarini. Learn from your mistakes as we all do in our work. We always need to learn and update ourselves with various materials and from different sources.
I am immensely happy that I can finally feel free to expose many of my traumas without any fear. This is all thanks to Renata Patti's courage in writing her book. She has empowered me! I will be forever grateful to her and I hope she can have a happy life after 40 years in the movement. Focolarine, never, never tell a teenager that she "looks like a clown" just because her mother was a hairdresser and loved to make up and prepare her daughter for an event. You have no right to humiliate a teenager! You don't! Stop being cruel to children, teenagers and adults! Stop it! If you don't have praise or words of affection to say to people, shut up! Please! Only now am I finally able to let it out after hearing this humiliation around 1987 or 1988 ...
Yes, I'm venting, I need to get all this trauma off my chest. You couldn't have forced me to end my relationship with my fiancé! You couldn't! You manipulated me by saying it wasn't "God's will" for me. How stupid I was to believe what you told me in Loppiano! It was a real torture to write a letter breaking up with my fiancé with the contents dictated by a focolarina! I had tears streaming down my face and she dictated what God wants! Torturer! After buying the express stamp, she still sends me to talk to "Jesus inside" in the college chapel. Does this woman have any idea of the psychological abuse she has committed against me in the name of God? I simply have no more trauma because my fiancé did not take that letter seriously. We have been together and married for almost 30 years!
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