Igino Giordani was called a ‘co-founder’ of the Movement by Chiara Lubich herself. He was a unique and special focolarino, called throughout the Movement by the nickname: Foco. Although he loved peace at any cost, he became an officer in WW1, was wounded and decorated. He was a teacher, anti-fascist, librarian, husband and father of four children, and also a noted Catholic polemicist, a pioneer of Christian commitment in politics, a writer and a journalist. After WW2, during which he was in exile as an opponent of fascism, he was elected to Italy’s Constituent Assembly that drew up the Italian constitution. He was a Member of Parliament, a committed layperson and an early ecumenist. It was he who brought married laypeople to be part the Focolare’s inner core, opening it, in a sense, to the whole of humanity.
The cause for the canonization of Igino Giordnai, called Foco, is under way. His body rests in the chapel of the International Centre of the Focolare Movement in Rocca di Papa, where Chiara Lubich’s body also lies. ‘This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn 15:12) is the sentence on his tomb, words from the Gospel that sum up his life.
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