Death of Pasquale Foresi, the first Focolare priest, co-founder of the Focolare Movement

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In the night of Sunday, June 14th 2015, Fr. Pasquale Foresi passed away. He was 86 years old. Father Foresi was the first priest member the Focolare Movement (the Work of Mary), and also it’s first Co-President, working with Chiara Lubich.

Father Foresi was born into a Christian family on July 5th 1929 in Livorno (Italy). A communiqué from the Focolare Movement says this: “He met Chiara Lubich in Trento in December 1944. From then onwards he would be by her side and share the responsibility for the Focolare Movement. Prior to this he had recognised a call to priesthood and studied for several years at the Seminary in Pistoia and at the Capranica College in Rome, before interrupting his studies because of a crisis of faith. In his own words, it was several years later that, having observed on the members of Focolare “an absolute faith in the Catholic Church and at the same time a radical evangelical life, that I understood what my true place was and quickly the idea of priesthood reappeared”. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 4th 1954.”

Father Foresi’s role alongside Chiara Lubich was decisive in allowing the Movement’s charism to find its theological and cultural expression, with its social and spiritual dimension. Maria Voce, current President of the Focolare Movement, writes that “Chiara Lubich always perceived in him a particular ‘type’ of incarnation: the task of helping the intuitions and motions that the Holy Spirit gave her to find form in concrete works” and of finding “the adapted structures and the best instruments for mediation and incarnation”. 

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