In 1971 Mariangela had participated in the famous pilgrimage to Lourdes with him and her friend Marie-Hélène Mathieu, along with thousands of people with intellectual disabilities, as well as their parents and friends. In the spring of 1982, during my holidays back in Italy, I visited the Faith and Light community in Rome, where I met its Italian founder, Mariangela Bertolini, who enthusiastically arranged a meeting with her great friend Jean. I was very impressed and curious to know more of him and his work. It was 1981: about four years before I started the Fu Hong Society (FHS). Fr Bonzi is one of the founders of the Fu Hong Society, a network of family homes where healthy people and people with disabilities can live together.īefore meeting Jean personally, I came to know his spirit and his mission by reading a book that a friend had sent me from Italy, La comunità, luogo del perdono e della festa (original title in French La Communauté : lieu du pardon et de la fête English edition: Community and growth). Let us thank him and God for giving us a man of such great testimony.”įather Giosué Bonzi, a PIME missionary, for almost 50 years in Hong Kong, met and worked with Jean Vanier.
He worked not only for the last but also for those who risk being sentenced to death before their birth. From the mystery of those who are discarded in the world. Yesterday, Pope Francis, on his way home from a visit to Bulgaria and North Macedonia, remembered Jean Vanier, expressing his “gratitude for his testimony, a man who knew how to read the Christian strength from the mystery of death, the cross, and disease. Faith and Light, which brings together people with special needs, their families and friends, is present in at least 80 countries with 1,800 communities. L’Arche is present in 35 countries with 147 communities. In 1963, an encounter with disabled people led him to help abled and disabled people to live together, encouraging individuals who in the eyes of the world are "healthy" and "efficient" to share with those who are seen as more "fragile".
At some point he abandoned his military career to study philosophy and work as a teacher. Hong Kong (AsiaNews) – Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche (The Ark) communities, died yesterday at the age of 90, spending a lifetime building communities in which healthy people and people with physical and mental disabilities live together.īorn in 1928 in Geneva (Switzerland), Jean Vanier was a naval officer.
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