(…) I must confess that when I listened to Chiara Lubich’s speech in Brazil, exactly 30 years ago, when she launched the Economy of Communion project, I was very impressed but also quite shocked. Economy as a science uses many words such as ‘wealth,’ ‘income,’ ‘efficiency,’ ‘productivity,’ and ‘equity,’ but it does not use the word ‘communion.’ I asked myself: “How could someone like Chiara whose cultural background did not include studies in economics have launched an intellectual challenge of that kind?” There had to be a special charism at work, and we know today that there was. This disturbed me in a positive sense. I began to reflect and asked myself: “Why, in the long history of economic thought, has this concept never been addressed?” A few years later, I came across the work of Antonio Genovesi, the founder of civil economy, and I understood a whole series of connections between the Economy of Communion and civil economy.

Obviously, in the beginning, there were many difficulties for the Economy of Communion. I remember that in 1994 in Ostuni, a city in Puglia, Italy, the MEIC (Ecclesial Movement of Cultural Commitment) organized a series of cultural seminars during the summer. In a presentation chaired by a famous Italian economist, two newly graduated focolarinas had the audacity to present the Economy of Communion project. This professor began to say: “This is nonsense, because it does not satisfy the criterion of rationality.” I was present and asked him: “But do you think that the gesture of the Good Samaritan satisfies the criterion of rationality? You see,” I continued, “you are a slave to a paradigm, to a way of thinking that you have sucked out from your studies without addressing the problem, because the rationality you think of is instrumental rationality,[1] but there is also expressive rationality.[2] Who said that instrumental rationality is superior to expressive rationality? Don’t you know that the Economy of Communion is part of the model of expressive rationality? In this case, ‘expressive’ means that a charism is expressed – because charisms must be expressed and translated into historical reality.”

The Economy of Communion has made it possible to recover that tradition of thought regarding civil economy that began in Naples in 1753. For example, think of the economy and the school of civil economy over which Luigino Bruni presides. In addition, the recent big ‘Economy of Francesco’ event was really a mixture of civil economy – a paradigm, which is a view of reality embodied in models, projects, and different theories – and the Economy of Communion. This event took place recently, but I am sure its impact will soon become apparent.

To close, I would like to use a word that has, unfortunately, disappeared from use for at least a century: this word is ‘conation.’ Coined by Aristotle 2,400 years ago, it derives from the combination of knowledge and action, meaning that knowledge must be put at the service of action, and action cannot be exercised and bear fruit unless it is based on knowledge. I say this because the challenge of the next 30 years, and even more, for the Economy of Communion is to strengthen the knowledge component. Up to now, priority has rightly been given to action, to achievements. But we must be aware that if action is not continually nourished by knowledge, it risks disintegrating.

Chiara Lubich had a capacity for intuition and understanding, and therefore, for foresight, even on subjects in which she was not a specialist. Indeed, the contribution of the Economy of Communion to the evolution of economic thought as a science has been remarkable. Luigino Bruni directs a research doctorate program in the Economy of Communion and Civil Economy at the LUMSA (Libera Università Maria Ss. Assunta) in Rome, Italy; here in Loppiano, there is the Sophia University Institute and in other universities, too, it is no longer forbidden to speak about the Economy of Communion. I think this is a great, great outcome. (…)

Lorenzo Russo

[1] Refers to the pursuit of a particular end goal, by any means necessary.

[2] Refers to the pursuit of good reasons for individual action that refer to someone’s enthusiasm, desires, feelings of sympathy, and opposite emotions as motives.