Former Focolare President Maria Voce dies aged 87

Maria Voce during her 2019 visit to Birmingham

The first President of the Focolare Movement after the foundress Chiara Lubich, Maria Voce, passed away on 20th of June 2025, at home in Rome. She was 87 years old.

The announcement was made by Margaret Karram, the current President. In a message to the Focolare Movement worldwide, Ms Karram paid tribute to Maria Voce's contribution. "As the first president of the Focolare Movement after our foundress, she was able to take ahead with intelligence, farsightedness and the necessary determination the difficult transition of our Movement from its foundation to the post-foundation phase," said Ms Karram. "She was able to combine her inspiring faithfulness to the Charism of Unity with the courage to deal with the many challenges of a worldwide association like ours, which operates on so many levels of human, social and institutional life".

Maria Voce visited the UK in July 2019 to take part in the meeting of the General Secretaries of the European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE) in Birmingham. She also took the opportunity to meet members of the Focolare Movement in Britain.

She was invited to give her testimony to the CCEE on the importance of charisms within the Church. In her talk entitled "Petrine profile and Marian profile: together for a new Pentecost", Maria Voce proposed that the hierarchical and charismatic gifts in the Church are co-essential.

She also visited the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewa Jatha Gurdwara, the centre for one of Birmngham's Sikh communities. The President, Bhai Sahib Bhai Mohinder Singh, warmly welcomed her together with a group of children from two secondary schools in the city, the Nishkam High School and Saint Paul's Roman Catholic School.

During the visit to the Gurdwara, Maria Voce was given the "Peace Charter for Forgiveness and Reconciliation", signed by several leaders and international religious organizations. "Division is not God's plan; God's plan is unity and we believe in this" - Maria Voce concluded - "what binds us are not only the efforts of collaboration for the common good. We are bound by a gift from God: the dream of unity for the whole human family".