Our Founder

The Founder of the Marian Community of Reconciliation, Luis Fernando Figari, was born in Lima, the capital of Peru, on July 8, 1947.

His parents were Alberto Figari (1902-1990) and Mrs. Blanca Figari (1909-1995). Both were Peruvians.

Luis Fernando was Baptized in the Virgin of the Pilar Parish, by Father Constancio Bollar, a Passionist Priest, some days after he was born. Father Bollar was not only the Pastor, but also a friend of the family. Bollar had an important role in Luis Fernando’s discernment towards a consecrated life. Since the end of the sixties until he passed away in 1975, he was confessor and spiritual director of Luis Fernando.

The Founder studied in the Immaculate Heart of Mary until he was 10 years of age and then in Holy Mary High School. He finished school in 1963, when he was sixteen years old.

As it was customary, he received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Communion, and Confirmation when he was seven years of age. Presiding over the Liturgy was Cardinal Juan Landazuri, O.F.M., Archbishop of Lima, who would have an important role in the approval of the Sodalitium, as well as in the other religious societies Luis Fernando established.

Since 1972 Cardinal Landazuri maintained a close contact with the young founder, who had begun this path when he was 24 years old.

After finishing High School, he studied Humanities and Law in the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He also studied Law in the National University of St. Mark, in Lima. Afterwards he studied Theology in the Pontifical and Civil School of Theology of Lima, where he also taught in 1975.

He has published many articles and books. Actually, he is considered one of the main Catholic thinkers in the Americas. He has strongly backed the ideal of reconciliation, as well as the organization of congresses on several occasions on the issue of reconciliation. He is fully convinced that the lay members of the Church, flowing from their rebirth in Lord Jesus, must answer the gift of Baptism and, according to their condition, actively assume their specific role in the mission of the Church and strive in their lives towards sanctity.

After participating in politics and searching answers in philosophy, he began to walk through the path of the faith. He reached the conclusion that change in society and in its structures would only be achieved by the changing of the concrete human being. During the seventies and onwards, he has been a strong critic of the marxist liberation theology. His constant effort to promote the Church’s Social Doctrine, and an anthropology that finds its expression in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution Gaudium et spes 22, is well known. He is an advocate of the solidarity with the poor and the sick, under the inspiration of the Gospel. He defends human dignity and rights, as well as the rights of the unborn. For all this he can very well be called a Christian humanist.

Even while for some time in his youth he experienced coldness and detachment from the faith he continued to be a spiritual seeker. He always had the inner conviction that our material nature was totally insufficient to explain the human being. Questions about who we are and regarding the real nature of the human being have accompanied him since his initial university studies and onwards.

What can be called his conversion process, begun in 1968, finds a culminating point in the foundation of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, in 1971. He likes to call that moment a "baptism of a search". The Sodalitium matured in Christian life and through several canonical approvals, until it was definitely approved by Pope John Paul II in 1997 as a Society of Apostolic Life for consecrated laymen and priests. It is ruled by Constitutions, approved by the Holy See, as all other religious societies of Pontifical right.

In 1974 he began the Association of Mary Immaculate for women. This institution still exists today and has an international dimension.

After having participated in Rome in the first World Youth Day, in 1984, pronouncing the "Catechesis on Love" in Saint Paul Outside the Walls, he founded the Christian Life Movement (CLM). It was in the year 1985.

In that occasion he had the inner experience that ecclesial movements were inspired by the Holy Spirit with an answer to today’s secularization of the world. Pope John Paul II’s teachings were of great importance for this religious experience to become concrete in a new ecclesial movement.

In 1994 the Holy See approved CLM as an International Lay Association of Faithful of pontifical right, also known as ecclesial movement.

In 1991 Luis Fernando founded the Marian Community of Reconciliation, for women that discovered in their lives the call to a lay consecrated life.

In the tradition of the pious associations of faithful that were quite numerous in Latin America, he founded in 1995 a Confraternity, under the advocation of Our Lady of Reconciliation.

Years later, in 1998, he founded another religious association for women, the Servants of the Plan of God, dedicated to the sick, the poor and marginalized persons.

All the members of these different institutions are called the Sodalit Family, sharing common spirit and goals. They form a true spiritual family, constituted by men and women of every age and state of life in the Church. The Sodalit Family has extended throughout the Americas, as well as in countries of Europe, Asia and shortly it will have a presence in Africa and Australia.

Throughout all these years Luis Fernando has been responsible for the direction of the consecrated branches of the spiritual family inspired by the Holy Spirit. He has also found time to maintain an intense intellectual activity, writing books and articles, as well as giving frequent conferences.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II named D. Luis Fernando Figari as Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

In 2004, in the last days of November, he had his last audience with H.H. John Paul II, in the Apostolic Palace.

In 2005, after the Holy Father’s passing, he was present in St. Peter’s Basilica to pray before the Pope’s body, and in the funeral Mass held in St. Peter’s Square. He was really enthusiastic about the Pontificate of Pope John Paul, and had even written a book in 1979, at the beginning of the pontificate, called “John Paul II: Voice of Hope”.

He was also present in St. Peter’s Square, with members of the community of the Sodalitium in Rome, at the moment when Pope Benedict XVI appeared to the world as the Successor of Peter. He joyfully assisted to the inaugural Mass of the Pontificate of H.H. Benedict XVI. He has written public letters to the Sodalit spiritual family on this historical and religious event, as well as on Pope Benedict’s inaugural Mass.