Spin Time: Defending the hope of the most vulnerable

By Nicolás Paz*

Last October, I had the opportunity to participate in the 5th World Meeting of Popular Movements at the Spin Time center in Rome. Cardinal Michael Czerny accompanied us; we celebrated the first Jubilee Pilgrimage of Popular Movements by crossing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, and we met Pope Leo XIV in an audience, where we heard his heartfelt “I am with you!”

Spin Time was born in Rome in October 2013, when the movement for the right to housing occupied an abandoned public building that had been the headquarters of the former INPDAP, the public body responsible for managing social security, pensions, and assistance for workers and public-sector officials in Italy.

Over time, the space became much more than an occupation aimed at addressing a housing emergency: it became a social and cultural laboratory for coexistence and an effective, nonviolent response for many families facing the violence of a system that left them excluded and on the streets. 

Since its beginnings in 2013, the Church has provided pastoral support to Spin Time thanks to Sister Adriana Domenici and the auxiliary bishops. The priest Mattia Ferrari, with whom some members of Spin Time had shared experiences of working with marginalized communities, has also been a key figure in this process.

In May 2019, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, then the papal almoner of Pope Francis, personally went to Spin Time after the building’s electricity was cut off and helped restore the supply. The gesture had an enormous public impact and became a symbol of an embodied Church that stands alongside vulnerable and excluded people.

From then on, collaboration between Spin Time and different sectors of the Church expanded: parish and pastoral activities were developed inside the building, and Spin Time became a meeting place for social movements, religious communities, associations, and people from different traditions.

In 2024, L’Osservatore Romano presented the experience as the “Spin Time model”, highlighting the collaboration among residents, volunteers, associations, the Church, and institutions to defend the rights of its inhabitants.

Spin Time: A House and School of Peace and Nonviolence

The 5th World Meeting of Popular Movements was an opportunity to learn about this model firsthand, a living testimony to an organization of hope that refuses to resign itself.

As director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative of Pax Christi International, I found that the meeting experience confirmed for me that this is an authentic house of peace and Gospel nonviolence in the heart of Rome and at the service of the most vulnerable people, families, and groups.

Its creative, constructive resistance, and in dialogue with the whole city and with the world, is an example of nonviolent response.

There have been many attempts to end this experience since its inception, but many creative forms of resistance persist there and bear witness at Spin Time.

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A Community at Risk

Sadly, these days Spin Time has once again appeared in media outlets around the world, from The Guardian to Al Jazeera. A small fire has forced the families living in the building, as well as the dozens of associations sharing projects there, to evacuate.

On the night of July 29, they were forced to leave the building because of that small fire, and they are now being prevented from returning due to the resulting judicial sealing of the property. Since then, the families have been camping out on the street, awaiting authorization to return to their homes and resume the numerous social, cultural, and solidarity activities that have brought this space to life for years, ranging from food banks, free co-working spaces, a hairdresser, and a recording studio to extracurricular, educational, and cultural activities.

The fund that owns the property has imposed its interests—the prospect of a luxury hotel hangs over the property—and negotiations for the city to purchase it, thereby guaranteeing Spin Time’s continuation, have failed in the face of the owners’ economic interests, even despite the intervention of Baldassare Reina, the Cardinal Vicar of Rome. The City Council is now seeking solutions to the emergency.

Defending the Hope We Have Built

Those who do not know the experience of life and solidarity carried out over more than a decade want to reduce Spin Time to a mere matter of occupation or illegality. However, Spin Time is much more than that. Spin Time is the nonviolent, creative, and Gospel-inspired response to injustice, exclusion, and vulnerability.

It is a response of hope in an unjust and violent world that seeks to put the interests of speculation and money above families, children, bonds, and communities of life.

Spin Time is a reality built around making possible lives for those who had been discarded by everyone, for those lives that seem not even to have the right to exist. Spin Time is an internationally recognized example of coexistence, democratic participation, and the defense of the right to housing.

It is a humanizing response to dehumanization and indifference. It is everyone’s task to preserve, recover, inhabit, and continue making Spin Time viable. It cannot end with the dispersal of the very community that made it possible, because the true power of social transformation resides within the living community. It may seem like a minor matter, but at Spin Time, the hope built there is at stake.

Today, we must all raise the shared cry of Pope Leo XIV: “Land, housing, and work are sacred rights. It is worthwhile to fight for them, and I would like you to hear me say, “I am here,” “I am with you!”

* Nicolás Paz is director of Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative