As we all know, the inspiring idea of the Economy of Communion was to give rise to business enterprises whose profits could be used in favor of those in need. I was prompted to do this on realizing that, despite the sharing of possessions practiced in the Movement, we were unable to cover all the urgent needs of our members.

I was on a plane approaching the city of São Paulo, Brazil, and I was shocked to look down and see an enormous concentration of skyscrapers surrounded by a vast ring of slums, which I learned later Cardinal Arns had referred to as a “crown of thorns.”

I felt that an Economy of Communion would help us achieve, in a different way, the original goal behind putting our possessions in common: that no one among us would be in need.

Now, it was a matter of setting up business enterprises that would continually produce profits to benefit the needy, giving an example of economic activity inspired by Christianity.

From this project’s inception, we sensed this was a possible new way, in line with our spirituality of unity, toward which the future could tend—a way of communion in freedom.

Later on, an economist went so far as to tell me that he saw it as the “hope of the future” …

Published in Living City (June 2007), the Focolare Movement's monthly magazine of religion, dialogue and culture