Biography
(By Kenneth Pierce)
The Founder of the Marian Community of
Reconciliation,
Luis Fernando Figari,
was born in Lima, the capital of Peru, on July 8, 1947.
His parents were Alberto Figari (1902-1990) and Mrs.
Blanca Figari (1909-1995). Both were Peruvians.
Luis Fernando was Baptized in the Virgin of
the Pilar Parish, by Father Constancio Bollar, a
Passionist Priest, some days after he was born.
Father Bollar was not only the Pastor, but also a friend of the
family.
Bollar had an important role in Luis Fernando’s
discernment towards a consecrated life.
Since the end of
the sixties until he passed away in 1975, he was
confessor and spiritual director of Luis Fernando.
The Founder studied in the Immaculate Heart
of Mary until he was 10 years of age and then in Holy
Mary High School. He finished school in 1963, when he
was sixteen years old.
As it was customary, he received the
Sacraments of Reconciliation, Communion, and
Confirmation when he was seven years of age. Presiding
over the Liturgy was Cardinal Juan Landazuri, O.F.M.,
Archbishop of Lima, who would have an important role in
the approval of the Sodalitium, as well as in the other
religious societies Luis Fernando established.
Since 1972 Cardinal Landazuri maintained a
close contact with the young founder, who had begun this
path when he was 24 years old.
After finishing High School, he studied
Humanities and Law in the Pontifical Catholic University
of Peru. He also studied Law in the National University
of St. Mark, in Lima. Afterwards he studied Theology in
the Pontifical and Civil School of Theology of Lima,
where he also taught in 1975.
He has published many articles and books.
Actually, he is considered one of the main Catholic
thinkers in the Americas. He has strongly backed the
ideal of reconciliation, as well as the organization of
congresses on several occasions on the issue of
reconciliation. He is fully convinced that the lay
members of the Church, flowing from their rebirth in
Lord Jesus, must answer the gift of Baptism and,
according to their condition, actively assume their
specific role in the mission of the Church and strive in
their lives towards sanctity.
After participating in politics and searching
answers in philosophy, he began to walk through the path
of the faith. He reached the conclusion that change in
society and in its structures would only be achieved by
the changing of the concrete human being. During the
seventies and onwards, he has been a strong critic of
the marxist liberation theology. His constant effort to
promote the Church’s Social Doctrine, and an
anthropology that finds its expression in the teachings
of the Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution
Gaudium et spes 22, is well known. He is an advocate of
the solidarity with the poor and the sick, under the
inspiration of the Gospel. He defends human dignity and
rights, as well as the rights of the unborn. For all
this he can very well be called a Christian humanist.
Even while for some time in his youth he
experienced coldness and detachment from the faith he
continued to be a spiritual seeker. He always had the
inner conviction that our material nature was totally
insufficient to explain the human being. Questions about
who we are and regarding the real nature of the human
being have accompanied him since his initial university
studies and onwards.
What can be called his conversion process,
begun in 1968, finds a culminating point in the
foundation of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, in 1971.
He likes to call that moment a "baptism of a search".
The Sodalitium matured in Christian life and through
several canonical approvals, until it was definitely
approved by Pope John Paul II in 1997 as a Society of
Apostolic Life for consecrated laymen and priests. It is
ruled by Constitutions, approved by the Holy See, as all
other religious societies of Pontifical right.
In 1974 he began the Association of Mary
Immaculate for women. This institution still exists
today and has an international dimension.
After having participated in Rome in the
first World Youth Day, in 1984, pronouncing the
"Catechesis on Love" in Saint Paul Outside the Walls, he
founded the Christian Life Movement (CLM). It was in the
year 1985.
In that occasion he had the inner experience
that ecclesial movements were inspired by the Holy
Spirit with an answer to today’s secularization of the
world. Pope John Paul II’s teachings were of great
importance for this religious experience to become
concrete in a new ecclesial movement.
In 1994 the Holy See approved CLM as an
International Lay Association of Faithful of pontifical
right, also known as ecclesial movement.
In 1991 Luis Fernando founded the Marian
Community of Reconciliation, for women that discovered
in their lives the call to a lay consecrated life.
In the tradition of the pious associations of
faithful that were quite numerous in Latin America, he
founded in 1995 a Confraternity, under the advocation of
Our Lady of Reconciliation.
Years later, in 1998, he founded another
religious association for women, the Servants of the
Plan of God, dedicated to the sick, the poor and
marginalized persons.
All the members of these different
institutions are called the Sodalit Family, sharing
common spirit and goals. They form a true spiritual
family, constituted by men and women of every age and
state of life in the Church. The Sodalit Family has
extended throughout the Americas, as well as in
countries of Europe, Asia and shortly it will have a
presence in Africa and Australia.
Throughout all these years Luis Fernando has
been responsible for the direction of the consecrated
branches of the spiritual family inspired by the Holy
Spirit. He has also found time to maintain an intense
intellectual activity, writing books and articles, as
well as giving frequent conferences.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II named D. Luis
Fernando Figari as Consultor to the Pontifical Council
for the Laity.
In 2004, in the last days of November, he had
his last audience with H.H. John Paul II, in the
Apostolic Palace.
In 2005, after the Holy Father’s passing, he
was present in St. Peter’s Basilica to pray before the
Pope’s body, and in the funeral Mass held in St. Peter’s
Square. He was really enthusiastic about the Pontificate
of Pope John Paul, and had even written a book in 1979,
at the beginning of the pontificate, called “John Paul
II: Voice of Hope”.
He was also present in St. Peter’s Square, with members
of the community of the Sodalitium in Rome, at the
moment when Pope Benedict XVI appeared to the world as
the Successor of Peter. He joyfully assisted to the
inaugural Mass of the Pontificate of H.H. Benedict XVI.
He has written public letters to the Sodalit spiritual
family on this historical and religious event, as well
as on Pope Benedict’s inaugural Mass. |
