After the 1971 pilgrimage to Lourdes (and the birth of the international Foi et Lumière movement), a small group of young people, parents, and friends returned home to Italy. Led by Mariangela Bertolini, they planted the first seeds of Fede e Luce by gathering at the Nazareth Institute in Rome. It wasn't long before a natural idea took shape: to spread the spirit of FL through a newsletter called Insieme—the Bulletin of Fede e Luce. The goal was simple: to reach families of children with disabilities with a message that captured the movement's essence: "Our children are specially loved. If we stay together, we will show it." The publication also spoke to friends and educators, inviting them into the quiet revolution of simply being "together" with people who, at that time, still lived hidden behind the walls of their homes or institutions.
Insieme was printed at the Nazareth Institute by Annarella Pantanella, an extraordinary nun everyone called "Nonna" for her great warmth and open heart. She typed the pages, created many of the illustrations, and managed the printing on the old Gestetner mimeograph machine herself.
From its first issues in early 1974, Insieme grew steadily: more pages, more writing, more testimonies. After mother Pantanella's hand-drawn covers came printed ones—an orange card stock with "Insieme" in bold letters, people holding hands, and the words "Fede e Luce." Meanwhile, as circulation and subscriptions climbed, printing moved from Nazareth to nearby San Gioacchino. The assistant pastor there, Danilo Bissacco, had already welcomed the first Fede e Luce community the year before—and now he didn't just lend us his duplicator, the famous oil-ink Gestetner. He gave us access to a newer machine with a dual roller system: you'd insert the original sheet on one side and a blank matrix on the other. As the roller spun fast, it transferred the original onto the matrix, which would then go into the mimeograph. Guenda Malvezzi and I handled most of that printing. I still remember issue 19, in October-December 1978. We printed it all day at San Gioacchino—it was November 4th, and I was turning eighteen. Guenda marked the occasion by bringing me a lovely cake, which I very much appreciated.
After that issue, Insieme got a new look: it was 1979, and the card stock, lettering, and artwork all turned green. The inside pages were white, and the format shifted to the standard A4 size. But the real breakthrough in printing came soon after, when our business manager Francesco Gammarelli bought an offset press—one that would finally be ours alone. We moved back to printing at Nazareth, in a room next to the chapel, which the sisters had set aside as the national office of FL. One section held the new machine; another served as office space; and the largest room was where we held meetings with regional coordinators, welcomed visitors, and lived out our mission—a space always full of life, encounter, togetherness.
With that new equipment, we were truly independent. The print quality was the best available at the time. We could even change colors: soon we introduced two-color pages, green and black—which meant double the work. First we'd print everything in black, then we'd change inks with various solvents and reprint in green. It required precision to make the colors line up perfectly.
Gammarelli brought another major breakthrough: a machine that could transfer original photographs onto clear plastic plates, creating a halftone image like those in newspapers. He also acquired a Vertical—a huge, tall machine with internal lights—where printed sheets, text, and photos were impressed onto plates for the press. It was a bit complicated, but it produced beautiful work over the years. The final issue of Insieme, number 30, came out in July-September 1981. But it was only a farewell. The calling to share the spirit of FL was far too strong and alive to stop there. OL
Stefano Guarino, 2023