Our houses

The mission in Paraguay was born in 1989 when Fr. Aldo Trento arrived at the parish of San Rafael in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Asunción In the years that followed, several works were born around the parish such as a school, a hospital for the terminally ill, a farm, and other educational centers. This fruitfulness is thanks to the fertile ground that is the love of the Church and the desire to build things together that characterizes the Paraguayan people, still marked in a positive way by the Jesuit reducciones that brought Christianity here five hundred years ago.
The parish is also a lively and growing reality, distinguished for the participation of kids, young adults, and families.
Some of our priests are also involved in teaching in high schools and the university.

The house in Bogota opened in 2016 when the parish of Nuestra Señora de Las Aguas, located in the heart of the city, was entrusted to the St. Charles Fraternity. The unique location of the parish within the cultural fabric of the city allows the priests of the Fraternity to look out on the many faces of Colombian society. Next to the modern university, which counts tens of thousands of students, the priests also live in the world of the average residents of the city, among them those of the La Paz barrio. This is the poorest area of the parish, which sprung up spontaneously thanks to destitute families who were escaping the civil war.

Our missionaries work in the parish, in the university, and at an Italian school.

In October 2007, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra entrusted to the Fraternity the parish of St. Isaiah, one of the oldest of the city. Within its territory are the important Basilica of St. Francis and the Pratello juvenile prison. There are also many university students thanks to the nearby performing arts and engineering departments and several student residences.

Besides activity in the parish and teaching in the schools, the priests of the Fraternity are involved with the CL community of university students and look after the spiritual needs of the patients at the Sant’Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital.

The pastoral unit of Bad Godesberg, which covers the southern part of the former German capital, has been entrusted to priests of the St. Charles Fraternity since 2021. It is a complex reality that gathers into one unit thirteen formerly independent parishes. There are many diverse neighborhoods in this area on the banks of the Rhine: some are well-off, while others are more working class and have seen a strong migration from Muslim countries in the last few decades. The presence of multinationals like Telekom and institutions such as the UN has created an international atmosphere in the city.

Our priests work in the parish and in the schools within the territory of the pastoral unit.

In 2006, after having moved between several locations within Massachusetts, the Fraternity arrived in Boston. Today, our priests have been entrusted Sacred Heart Parish, in the eastern part of the city, a short walk from the harbor. They also teach in two high schools.

The first missionary presence of the St. Charles Fraternity arrived in Budapest in late 2004, thanks to the invitation of Cardinal Peter Erdö. The mission is today carried out in a secularized society that has a significant, but not majoritarian, Catholic presence. The missionaries’ work is aimed first of all at the education of the younger generations and of families.

The priests of the Fraternity also accompany the community of Communion and Liberation in Hungary. They are entrusted with the parish of St. Francis of Assisi.

St. Joseph’s House was born in 2014 in Corridonia, province of Macerata, within the village of the social cooperative PARS, which since 1990 has worked in the field of prevention and treatment of pathological addictions and youth distress.

The house is in a rural location, surrounded by hills and the fields of the Marchese countryside, and is dedicated to priests who are in need of a sabbatical period.

The priests that live there also carry out pastoral work, collaborating with the pastor of the parish of Santo Stefano, in the town of Monte san Giusto.

When John Paul II decided to hold the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver, many asked themselves what was so special about that distant corner of the American West. The seeds planted during that visit were later to bear unexpected fruit. One of these fruits was the invitation, in 2009, to the Fraternity to open a house in Broomfield, a residential suburb west of the city.

Nativity of Our Lord Parish counts 3000 families, many of which are young and have many children. The parish also runs an elementary school of 450 students. Along with the priests of the Fraternity, there are also the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles, who also help with parish activities and with the school.

In September 2018, the Fraternity was entrusted with Saint Swithun Wells Parish, made up of six churches located in the English countryside between Southampton and Winchester. With its 145,000 residents, it is the the biggest parish in the diocese.

The priests currently live in Eastleigh, one of the six cities within the parish’s territory, surrounded by stores, restaurants, a mall, and a large park, which often hosts social events. The historic towns of Romsey and Chandler’s Ford, occupied mainly by the wealthy, also make up part of the parish. It is an eclectic reality, made up of people of all different ages, cultures, religions, nationalities, and social classes.

The presence of the St. Charles Fraternity in Fuenlabrada began long ago in 1994. The town, part of the autonomous city of Madrid, has the personality of a commuter city, born at the gates of the metropolis as a haven for those who work in the city. There are currently two parishes in Fuenlabrada entrusted to the Fraternity: San Juan Bautista and San Benito Menni. Each is a gathering place for children, young people, and families. In time, various associations and charitable works have sprung up around the parishes. Our priests also serve as chaplain at the Department of Architecture in Madrid and teach in public and private schools in the surrounding areas.

Our mission in Mexico was born in September 1997, when the Fraternity was entrusted with the small parish dedicated to Immaculate Mary in the southern part of Mexico City. Since then, our priests have taught in the schools and at the university, have served as chaplains in various educational institutions, and have accompanied the growth of the communities of Communion and Liberation in the capital and several other cities. For several years, the house of Mexico City also hosted a House of Formation for vocations from Latin America. Today, María Inmaculada is a lively parish with active participation from the community.

In October 2013, thanks to the initiative of Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Fraternity opened a house in Milan, at the parish of San Carlo alla Ca’ Granda, near Niguarda Hospital. From the beginning, it was clear that the missionaries had a desire to serve the Church, and in particular the movement of Communion and Liberation, on all fronts: in the schools, the universities, the parish, and the hospital.

The parish is now a gathering place for many friends of the St. Charles Fraternity who live in Milan and the Lombardy region. The various activities, in which college students and young professionals participate, are an important part of the pastoral work of the parish, particularly in the education to charity.

The Fraternity’s house in Nairobi officially opened in 1997, at St. Joseph Parish, even though a priest of the Fraternity had already been in Kenya since the 1980s. The parish’s territory numbers about 40,000 inhabitants and covers two very different neighborhoods: one middle class and the other poor.

In 2002, the new church was consecrated. Since then, various educative and charitable works have sprung up, which now enliven and support the parish and the local community of Communion and Liberation. Among them are the Emanuel Mazzola Kindergarten, Urafiki Carovana Primary School, and the Meeting Point and Ujiachilie, centers dedicated, respectively, to those who suffer from AIDS and disabled children.

Since 2012, a house of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo is also present.

The mission deep inside Siberia was an important step in the growth of the St. Charles Fraternity. Massimo Camisasca decided to send several priests to Russia in 1991, when the fall of the Soviet Union was imminent. The young priests immediately began the work of rediscovering Christian communities of German origin. There, they met many Catholics who for 60 years hadn’t seen a priest but were awaiting their return. Even today, our missionaries continue to serve the small Catholic communities of Sacred Heart Parish in Palavinnoje and Resurrection Parish in  Krasnozersk, as well as the larger parishes in the town of Berdsk (St. Joseph) and Akademgorodok (St. Augustine).

The mission of the St. Charles Fraternity in Prague opened its doors in 2002. The “incubation” period of the mission lasted a long time: the first missionaries had much trouble learning the difficult language as well as understanding the society that was strongly influenced by decades of Communism. In time, however, the community grew, thanks above all to its presence at the university that slowly gathered more and more young people who today have started families and now make up an active and lively community. The priests of the Fraternity have been entrusted with St. Apollinaris Parish, and their mission is strongly linked to the guidance of the community of Communion and Liberation in the Czech Republic. They also work as teachers in two schools in the city.

On a hill in the neighborhood of Casalotti, a suburb in the western outskirts of Rome, sits the General House of the St. Charles Fraternity, in which live and work the Fraternity’s superiors and employees. The founder Massimo Camisasca always perceived the governance of the Fraternity as a collegial reality, where authority and friendship are closely intertwined.

The same building also hosts the House of Formation of the Fraternity. The seminary welcomes young men from Italy and the rest of the world who want to discern a vocation to the priesthood. During the years of seminary, through prayer, study, work, and charitable works, the seminarians are prepared for the priestly ministry in  the St. Charles Fraternity.

The Fraternity’s presence in the Magliana, a neighborhood in the southwest outskirts of Rome, began in 1997, when it was entrusted with the parish of Santa Maria del Rosario di Pompei. Because of the demographic growth of the neighborhood, a new parish, Santa Maria del Rosario ai Martiri Portuensi, was built in 2007 and consecrated personally by Pope Benedict XVI.

Here, the priests minister in a working-class suburb, lively and rich with a diversity of familial and personal situations. The intense educational efforts, aimed especially at youth and young adults, are carried out in the various parish activities,. Besides the priests of the Fraternity, there is also a house of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles, who look after the old church, now a Marian shrine, and carry out an intense apostolate in the neighborhood.

Since 2003, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Domnica, known to the Romans as “the Navicella” (meaning “little boat” and referring the statue in front of the church) and located a short walk from the Coliseum, has been entrusted to the Fraternity. The priests live out their mission in the heart of Rome, full of all the contrasts which enliven the Eternal City. They are involved especially with the young people who come to “The Center”: an educative proposal, a place which embraces all of life in its various forms, and, therefore, welcomes families, college students, and kids. Following the charism of Fr. Giussani, it has given birth to groups such as Gioventù Studentesca for high-school students, The Stars of St. Lawrence for elementary-school kids, and Peter’s Boat for kids in middle school.

The ancient parish of Sant’Eusebio, in the Esquiline neighborhood of Rome, is located at the northern corner of Piazza Vittorio. Among the oldest in Christendom, it was founded in the 4^th century on the ruins of the house of Eusebio, a Roman patrician, priest, and martyr. The parish has been entrusted to the Fraternity since 2009.

The Esquiline neighborhood, beyond being one of the historic rioni of the capital, is a neighborhood of immigrants, characterized by overcrowding and social decay. Despite the current challenges, there is also the possibility of coexistence between the Italian residents and the various ethnicities present in the here, whose businesses line the streets of the neighborhood.

Puente Alto is a populous municipality in the southwestern part of the Santiago metropolitan region. Sprung up during the years of the dictatorship at the behest of Pinochet, who pushed many of his opponents there, it has an urban structure designed to unite and at the same time separate: small houses for large families and few meeting places. The parish, entrusted to the Saint Charles Fraternity since 2006, is named after Blessed Peter Bonilli. It consists of six different chapels and serves about 80,000 residents. Each chapel, built by the local people, has its own identity and history.

Our priests, in addition to serving the numerous people in the neighborhood, are also involved in hospitals and universities.

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city, after Minneapolis, of the state of Minnesota. The two cities, located on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, actually form a single diocese and metropolitan area commonly known as the Twin Cities.

The Midwest mission is the St. Charles Fraternity's newest on U.S. soil, joining the houses in Washington D.C., Boston, and Denver. St. Peter's Church was entrusted to the Saint Charles Fraternity in 2017. An elementary and middle school is also attached to the parish.

The house of the St. Charles Fraternity in Taipei was born in September 2001, with two missionaries, newly-ordained deacons, arriving on the island, invited and hosted by then-Archbishop Ti Kang. A small community of the Communion and Liberation movement had already sprung up thanks to two young Italian families sent there by Fr. Luigi Giussani. Over the years the mission has grown to see our priests involved in leading two parishes (St. Francis Xavier in Tai Shan and St. Paul in Xin Zhuang), in the university environment, where they study and teach, and in accompanying the community of Communion and Liberation.

In the heart of the university district of Vanchiglia, the center of Turin's Movida, stands the parish of St. Julia, founded in 1866 by the Servants of God Giulia and Tancredi di Barolo and entrusted to the St. Charles Fraternity since 2014. Opening the doors of their home daily, the missionaries are engaged in the education of children, youth, university students, and in accompaniment of families. The vibrant parish community is a point of reference for the life of the neighborhood and for many Communion and Liberation groups.

The priests are also involved in teaching in schools.

The house of the St. Charles Fraternity in Vienna was founded in 1996 after Cardinal Schönborn asked the movement of Communion and Liberation to send priests to his diocese. The cardinal initially entrusted them with the parish of Saints Peter and Paul located in the hills west of the city. Since 2012, they have been entrusted with Annunciation Parish with the adjacent former monastery, located in an affluent neighborhood in the city center.

In addition to the parish, our priests are currently engaged in two schools in the neighborhood, the university chaplaincy, accompanying the Persian community and also the community of the Communion and Liberation movement.

The house of the St. Charles Fraternity was opened in 2002 in Bethesda, a residential suburb in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The priests who live in this American house are all engaged in study, teaching, or directing educational institutions.