Twenty-five years have passed now, as Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell recalled—and I take this opportunity to thank him for inviting me to speak—since the famous meeting of St. John Paul II with the movements, in the context of which the then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, gave a memorable report in which he sketched for the first time what can safely be called guidelines for a “theology of the ecclesial movements.” Much water has passed under the bridge since then. First there was the papacy of Ratzinger himself, who became Benedict XVI; then came the pontificate of Pope Francis, during which there have been at least two weighty magisterial interventions on this matter: the first, theological in character, is the letter Iuvenescit Ecclesia, issued in 2016 by the CDF and approved by the pontiff; the second, more canonical and disciplinary in nature, is the decree “Associations of the Faithful,” issued by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life in June of 2021. To the latter we can add the many speeches by Pope Francis addressed to the members of several of the movements represented here, not least the address on September 16, 2021, to the participants of the meeting organized by the dicastery on the theme, “The Responsibility for Governance in Lay Groups: An Ecclesial Service.”

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