I'll break the cardinal rule of journalism — you're supposed to lead with what happened, when, where, why, and who was there — and instead describe this extraordinary gathering through three moments I'll never forget.
The first took place in the great underground church of Saint Pius X. For those unfamiliar with it, the building curves like an overturned boat. It holds more than twenty thousand people. Trucks can drive inside.
About thirteen thousand of us had gathered there for the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday evening. When we reached the Lord's Prayer, we joined hands. Suddenly I felt the full beauty and meaning of that single "web" of thirteen thousand people — different ages, different nations, different physical conditions, different mental capacities, all linked. I looked at the two hands I held: one belonged to a young man from France, judging by the ribbon and name tag on his chest; the other to a middle-aged Australian woman.
We began the Our Father, each in his or her own language — people from about sixty countries. That murmur rose and fell, a deep, modulated sound made of thirteen thousand different voices filling the church. It was incomprehensible, yet I knew exactly what it said, because like everyone else I was speaking and thinking: *Our Father, who art in heaven...* And then it struck me: this was the voice of the People of God. One voice, unique, yet whole — a voice that held all the others, and that each of us could understand. And that voice of all of us was calling God Father. I could see and feel the Gospel of John coming to life: *that they may all be one...so that the world may believe.*
The second unforgettable moment was the Easter afternoon celebration. The occasion was profound, though familiarity can dull even this: Christ's resurrection — proof and sign of our liberation from death.
Before the mountain that holds the grotto and basilica of Lourdes, across the river, in a green valley bright with spring grass and budding leaves, the afternoon began to fill with communities arriving in groups and straggling lines. Each person wore a white poncho, more or less wrinkled, decorated with colored drawings.
Months before, when the French leadership of Fede e Luce had sent instructions for the pilgrimage, this detail about wearing a white "poncho" — a square of cloth with an opening at the center for your head — had struck me as bureaucratic trivia, nothing more. But when thousands of people from every continent arrived in that green valley wearing white vestments, the edges of their ponchos lifting diagonally with the March wind — one corner ahead, one behind, two at the sides — it was beautiful. It was moving.
The valley filled with white cloth and hundreds of small colored banners from each community. Music and voices poured from two stages, leading us in song. Above them hung a large white banner showing Christ risen in the simple style of Fede e Luce's catechism drawings — it came alive with the sun, the wind, the passing clouds that shifted the light.
The songs and joyful calls from the stage gave way to something more organic. Circles and groups and choirs formed and dissolved across the valley. Dancing broke out spontaneously. The celebration became what mattered most: simply being together. Just that.
To capture those fleeting, tender encounters that kept happening, people asked each other for signatures, drawings, a phrase — on the poncho, of course. Pens and markers appeared. It became a kind of game, rooted in a desire to remember. I kept my poncho covered in handwriting. I think everyone did the same. And from time to time we'll pull it out and look at it, remembering how we stood together that Easter day at Lourdes.
Fede e Luce at Lourdes
During Easter week 1991, thirteen thousand people — people with intellectual disabilities, their parents, and friends from Fede e Luce's nine hundred communities — made pilgrimage to Lourdes from fifty-nine countries. By the number of countries represented and the number of participants with intellectual disabilities, this was a record for Lourdes.
Fede e Luce itself was born from a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1971. It consists of "encounter communities" of about thirty people each, with those who are most vulnerable — people with intellectual disabilities — at the heart. Their needs for affection and their simplicity shape the community's style, values, and spiritual meaning.
Catholic in foundation, the communities draw from different Christian churches and different faiths. This twentieth-anniversary pilgrimage stood as a sign of unity among people of different abilities, different social classes, different countries.
That afternoon, the sense of joy and affection was overwhelming. Outside any framework of faith, it would be impossible to explain. What were we actually doing? Standing in a great crowd on a meadow, wearing squares of cloth on our shoulders, singing a bit, signing ponchos, playing children's games. And yet I suddenly realized I was living through an intensely symbolic, deeply representative experience of God's kingdom — if paradise, as we believe, is being together in the happiness and love of God.
A third moment, rich with wonder and meaning, came the morning of Easter Monday.
One of the "greatest" moments of the Lourdes pilgrimage. Cardinal Martini, the Anglican bishop, the Orthodox bishop, the Methodist pastor knelt before the young man with Down syndrome who embodied the risen Christ. He lifted them up, gave them peace, and sent them into the world to proclaim the Good News.
It was the final community gathering of the pilgrimage — the sending forth. Once more, it was a day vibrant with spring. The plaza of the Rosary Basilica, cupped by the arcaded ramps leading to the two upper churches, was alive with singing communities and their hundred bright banners overhead. At the center, on a low platform at the church steps, stood Cardinal Martini, archbishop of Milan; a bishop of the Anglican Church; a bishop of the Orthodox Church; and a Methodist woman pastor, mother of a handicapped child. On a large white canvas behind the platform was painted the empty tomb of Christ, the round stone rolled away.
A young man with Down syndrome played the risen Christ bringing good news to those who came grieving to his tomb. Then the three bishops and the woman pastor knelt before this Christ-boy. One by one, he lifted them and embraced them. The four embraced one another in the exchange of peace. "Alleluia, He is risen," sang the crowd in the plaza.
Watching those simple gestures, I thought about what stood there before us: Martini, a Jesuit, a great cardinal of Rome, president of the bishops of Europe. The Orthodox and Anglican bishops — representatives of two churches born from painful schisms, long separated by harsh enmities from Rome, yet all followers of the same Christ and believers in the same Gospel. The woman pastor, and the fraught place of women in the Catholic Church — a wound that causes deep pain. And I realized I was witnessing an episode extraordinarily rich in meaning, profoundly authentic ecumenism — far more genuine and important than countless documents, analyses, and discussions. Once again, I saw the Gospel realized: *that they may all be one.*