Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado (March 10, 1920 to January 30, 2008) was a Mexican Catholic Priest who founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement.
Pope Benedict XVI disciplined him in 2006, inviting him to “a reserved life of prayer and penitence.” This was followed by Maciel’s resignation in January of 2006. He had been charged with incidents of pedophilia which he vehemently denied.
The Legionaries made the statement that he had “accepted the instruction with faith, total calm, with a clear conscience knowing that it is a new cross which God, merciful father, has allowed him to suffer”. The statement compared him to the falsely convicted Christ, and having pled his innocence he resolved himself to follow “the example of Jesus Christ, [and] decided not to defend himself in any way.”
Despite the mounting evidence the Legion and Regnum Christi members remained adament that their founder had been falsely maligned.
But among those charging him were an ex-priest and an active priest. Over a half-dozen men came forward and labeled him an abuser. I am sorry, I thought from the beginning there had to be some substance to their charges. But menton a word about this too his supporters and they were all over you.
Given the many testimonies of abuse and impropriety, even toward those who became priests, I was thankful that Pope Benedict XVI compelled Fr. Maciel to retreat to a life of prayer and penance. The latest news about his out-of-wedlock offspring (hija ilegítima) just compounds the scandal. Previously, there was a resistence among the Legionnaries to accept or even to investigate the charges against their founder. A number of purported victims claimed that this victimized them anew as liars or deviants. Yes, I believe there has to be a reckoning and probably a change from the manner in which the Legion of Christ usually operates. The criticisms of certain bishops and others may now be treated seriously. Among these concerns are the following: a general air of secrecy, a lack of cooperation with local parishes, the clandestine targeting of certain diocesan priests (usually young) for affiliation with them, and an overly rigid formation of seminarians and later priests that causes a dissolution of ties to family and former friends in favor of loyalty to the Legion. It is being argued that this systemic secrecy and control found in the Legionnaries may have found its initial source in the need to protect and enable the secret life of its founder. If that is true, the apple will have to be peeled to its core with the rotten pieces stripped away.
Let us pray for the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi.
El Informador, Guadalajara Mexico/July 6, 2006
By Francisco González P.
In the twenty years devoted to work and study when I belonged to the Legion, I obtained a degree in philosophy and a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University and was Prefect of Studies at the Legionaries of Christ College of Higher Studies in Rome.
Now in the spirit of helping you also to find the truth, I want you to know that at a young age I was a victim of outright sexual abuse, perpetrated in a deceitful and premeditated way, by Fr. Maciel. For this reason and in spite of having been ordained a priest in Rome by then Pope Paul VI [From Gonzalez-Parga's statement above in an interview with this writer: "I was ordained a priest in July 1966 by Pope Paul VI in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome."], I felt compelled to abandon the Legion and the priesthood, taking with me all the moral and psychological damage that you might imagine. For many years I have lived with illness, have been in danger of losing my life, and have experienced continual depression as a result of the abuse committed against my person by Fr. Maciel. Even now I am suffering from the consequences.
But this is only my story. What about the 100 or more cases reported under sworn oath to the Holy See? I have since forgiven Fr. Maciel and I hope that God enlightens him and helps him to acknowledge the grave sin he has committed against those who were his victims and their families, against society and against those Legionaries of Christ who remain members in good faith of the congregation.
I am addressing you publicly because I am faced with such deceit, falsehood and lies, and because it pains me to know that there are so many people who refuse to accept the truth and still others who “impede truth through injustice.” For some reason they have a need not to want to “search for” the truth or to even “see it.” Otherwise, they would realize that, if Pope Benedict XVI felt obliged for reasons of conscience to take such drastic action against Fr. Maciel by retiring him from all public practice of his priestly ministry, it is because there was sufficient evidence for him to do so — in spite of the dishonor such an act could bring to the Catholic Church, to the person of Pope John Paul II and to his own person, and in spite of the damage this could cause not only to the credibility of the Legionaries of Christ and to the Regnum Christi Movement, but also to the economic, political and social advantages these institutions bring to the Vatican and the Holy See.
It is the opinion of many thinking people that the slight punishment imposed on Fr. Maciel by the pope is the result of a conflict of interests arising out of the above-mentioned advantages the Legion provides to the Vatican and to the papacy. Therefore, instead of trying him for atrocious sexual crimes and abuse of power committed against young candidates for the priesthood, they have hidden him from public view so that he may live in comfortable opulence, attended by his unconditionally loyal servants from the Legion. He does so in light of the pope’s recommendation that he use his time for prayer and penitence. Fr. Maciel will need prayer and penitence because God cannot be mocked. What he needs is courage, honesty and genuine repentance in order to publicly ask for forgiveness from those he has wronged, since this is the only way to vindicate himself and his congregation, and, by so doing, compensate his victims in some slight way.
August 2007
According to a ReGAIN news release, the Legion of Christ will appear in the Circuit Court of Alexandria, Va., on Aug. 22 to demand a pre-trial seizure of the organization’s property, including computers, files and e-mails.
“This is a transparent effort to silence a group that has effectively revealed damaging evidence about the Legion,” the release states. “The ReGAIN organization … has been forthrightly dedicated to helping others understand [the Legion] and to recover from the widely-documented psychological trauma associated with membership.”
THE RELEASE STATES:
“Stating the damage to the Legion of revealing these ‘proprietary materials, including letters and other documents compiled by Legion members intended only for internal dissemination and discussion,’ a bond of $1.5 million has been offered for the defendants’ files. ReGAIN is additionally charged to reveal all contacts with the Legion, past and present; to reveal the true identity of anonymous posters on a discussion board; and to remove all references to the Legion’s constitution, which the Legion doesn’t want publicly accessible.”
Washington Post/September 6, 2007
By Daniela Deane
Former priest John Paul Lennon says the Legion of Christ is a dangerous and ultra-secretive cult that still idolizes its founder even though the spiritual leader was sanctioned by the Vatican after years of sexual abuse allegations.
The Legion accuses the Alexandria man of distributing stolen property and “malicious disinformation” about a fast-growing Roman Catholic Church order with tens of thousands of followers worldwide.
The argument is unfolding in Alexandria Circuit Court in a lawsuit the Legion filed last month that seeks to block Lennon, a Legion member for 23 years, from disseminating on a Web site letters and documents it says are the order’s private property and intended only for internal use.
Some internal documents chronicle the conservative group’s strict rules of conduct, including directives on how a legionary, as the order’s members are known, must butter his bread, part his hair or sit in a chair. The documents also include the group’s “private vows,” which say that members must never criticize the order and must report anyone who does.
[Pope Benedict XVI has asked them to stop making the private vows.]
Under a recent court order, Lennon must turn over any Legion property by Sept. 14, including documents, computer disks and CDs.
Besides Lennon, the Legion is suing Regain Inc., the corporation that owns http://www.regainnetwork.org, a Web site critical of the Legion. Lennon is its president. Other former Legion members and relatives and friends of former Legion members are involved in the corporation and the Web site, Lennon said.
Lennon, 63, a child and family therapist in Arlington, recently found a lawyer to represent him in the suit, which he said came out of the blue. He said the deep-pocketed order, which he left more than 20 years ago because he had grown disillusioned, is trying to silence former members and teach him a lesson.
“They’re also trying to scare anybody else who would dare to share these documents with the public,” he said. “It’s the Alexandria witch hunt instead of the Salem witch hunt. It’s like a 21st-century Inquisition.”
Jim Fair, a Chicago-based spokesman for the order, couldn’t disagree more.
“Regain has some materials that belong to the Legion and that they are using,” he said. “They were not granted use of them, and we’d like them to stop doing that.” Attorneys for the order declined to comment.
In the lawsuit, the Legion is also asking for the identities of individuals writing on the Regain site and on a Web discussion board, http://www.exlegionaries.com, that was once affiliated with it. Regain severed ties with the discussion board this year after pressure from the Legion, Lennon said.
Many of the documents at issue are private letters written by the group’s founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Some of the letters have been posted on the site and the discussion board.
Last year, Pope Benedict XVI took disciplinary action against Maciel after a long, on-again, off-again investigation into allegations of sexual abuse. Maciel is no longer supposed to celebrate Mass in public, give lectures or make other public presentations.
Maciel, 87, is the founder and patriarch of the Legion of Christ, a worldwide order of more than 750 priests and 2,500 seminarians, and of Regnum Christi, an affiliated movement of lay people that claims 70,000 members around the world. The U.S. headquarters for the order is in Connecticut.
Both groups are built around the aging priest’s “charism,” a church term for exceptional gifts and mission. Maciel, who was close to Pope John Paul II and is venerated by many Catholics, stepped down as head of the Legion after last year’s papal sanction. He then left Rome and moved to his home town of Cotija, Mexico.
Complaints of sexual abuse against Maciel came to light in the 1990s, when nine former members of the Legion, including several priests, alleged that Maciel had molested them when they were young seminarians, from the 1940s into the 1960s.
The National Catholic Reporter newspaper, citing Vatican sources, reported last year that the number of accusers who had come forward was “more than 20, but less than 100.” Lennon said the number of victims is much greater than 100.
Lennon said turning over any documents he has would not stop them from being circulated. He denies that any were obtained illegally.
“They have lots and lots of money,” Lennon said of the Legion. “I don’t have any. The idea is to drag this on in such a way that it will bleed us to death.” Lennon is soliciting donations for his legal defense on the site.
Jason Berry, who co-wrote a 2004 book and produced a forthcoming documentary film about the Maciel case, both titled “Vows of Silence,” called the group’s founder “arguably the greatest fundraiser in the history of the modern church.” He’s also “one of the worst pedophiles in the history of the church,” Berry said.
On the two Web sites, former members of the order discuss the sexual abuse allegations that drove Maciel out of Rome. But Lennon said most members of the order would not even be aware of the allegations.
“They can only watch certain television programs, they don’t have radios and they can’t use the phone without permission from their superiors,” he said. He added that phone calls are monitored.
“The Legion of Christ is trying to shut down Regain, which is a clearinghouse for information on what the Legion is really about,” Berry said. “It shows the group’s extraordinary hubris in thinking they can crush an opponent by trampling on the First Amendment.”
Wall Street Journal/February 1, 2008
By Jose de Cordoba
Father Marcial Maciel, 87, the controversial founder of a powerful conservative Catholic religious order and the subject of sex abuse allegations, died Wednesday in the United States.
The Mexican-born Father Maciel founded the Legion of Christ, also known as the Legionnaires of Christ, as well as a secular movement known as Regnum Christi. During a time when vocations to the priesthood in the Catholic Church had fallen sharply, the Legion, a favorite of the late Pope John Paul II, was able to attract many young men to its ranks.
The Legion announced Father Maciel’s death, of natural causes, on its Web site.
The Legion’s conservative outlook is especially popular with wealthy business families in Mexico and throughout Latin America. Under Father Maciel, the Legion founded schools and universities throughout the region, and assumed a major role in Catholic education, especially for the sons and daughters of the wealthy.
Father Maciel, who stepped down as head of the Legion in 2005, was dogged through much of his career by accusations he had sexually abused young seminarians under his care.
In 1997, eight men, all former seminarians and one a priest, went public with the detailed accusations, which Father Maciel denied. In the years that followed, it seemed for many Catholics as if the Church, caught in a growing worldwide sex-abuse scandal, was protecting Father Maciel because of the Legion’s power, wealth and influence.
But in 2006, Pope Benedict publicly rebuked Father Maciel, “inviting” him to retire to a life of “prayer and penitence” and forbidding him to say Mass in public. Citing Father Maciel’s advanced age and frail health, the Vatican also dropped the canonical process then under way against him.
Boston Globe/February 3, 2009
By Michael Paulson
The Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who before he died last year had been barred from public ministry over allegations of sexually abusing young men, is now being accused of having fathered at least one child with a woman with whom he was having a relationship.
The scandal was first reported by the American Papist blog this morning. And the New York Times is now quoting the order’s spokesman saying, “We can confirm that there are some aspects of his life that were not appropriate for a Catholic priest.”
The Vatican has acknowledged receiving accusations against Maciel starting in 1998. He was not disciplined during the papacy of Pope John Paul II, but Pope Benedict XVI barred him from public ministry in 2006. Maciel died in 2008.
The Legionaries, a conservative religious order whose first U.S. formation house was in Connecticut, claim 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians; their lay movement, Regnum Christi, claims 65,000 members. The movement has been controversial, not only because of its members extraordinary loyalty to Maciel even in the face of multiple abuse allegations, but also because of the movement’s allegedly heavyhanded recruiting tactics, which resulted last year in the archbishop of Baltimore imposing a series of restrictions on the order’s activity in his diocese.
Over at Beliefnet, David Gibson blogs, “It’s hard to see how Maciel, who died in January 2008 after being disciplined by Pope Benedict in 2006, could become more controversial. Maciel was accused of being an almost cult-like leader of the insular community he founded, and so great was his influence in Rome that persistent reports of his sexual abuse of seminarians were ignored.”
And at America magazine, the Rev. James Martin blogs about the implications for the debate over the relation between sexuality and abuse, writing, “Father Maciel’s abuse was against young men, and so most probably assumed, when the abuse revelations were made public, that he was homosexual. Most psychiatrists and psychologists, however, say that sexual abuse against minors is not so much an indication of sexual orientation–whether homosexual or heterosexual–as much as it indicates a stunted or malformed sexuality overall. This is not to deny that most of the clergy sexual abuse was against adolescent boys and even men, and perpetrated by gay men, but rather to point out how the question of abuse is more complex than is usually thought, and whose solution is more complex than simply barring gay men from holy orders.”
Disband The Legion, immediately, if not sooner, Pope Benedict XVI th!The Legion Of Christ is a criminal enterprise, posing as a religious order, and tolerated by John Paull II, no saint himself.
Fiat Lux & Veritas!
Albino Luciani,
MURDERED POPE,
Not Smiling, From Heaven
FATHER JOE: I received a comment from Mike Ference which included his email and phone number. It went by the fanciful name, EXAGGERATED PRESS RELEASE and had the subject line: “Marciel remembered for loving anything on two feet and maybe four.” My first concern was the identity of the person posting the comment. Was this the real source, or someone else playing games? The real Mr. Ference had suffered the tragic loss of his child and both his story and his occupation were noted on the Goggle search engine. The comment seemed too childish and vulgar to belong to him. Lately I have had a number of visitors to my Blog falsely purporting to be others. This particular person seemed overly eager to give identifying personal information. Second, this comment was not funny in any way, just needlessly derogatory in its expansion and invention of malicious gossip. Doing a quick search, I found many comments around the Internet and Blogosphere by Mike Ference and the same comment as posted at my site. This still did not prove the he was the author. I have deleted the comment.
What’s pathetic is that you have no sense of humor, Joe. Lighten up; get over yourself!
The LoCCult is a vicious, vindictive gang, the RC equivalent of Scientologists: brainwashed, Kool-Aid-drinking clones. That, too, is pathetic.
The Legionaries’ Last Stand. An Exclusive Interview with Fr. Thomas Berg
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1339296
The Vatican is investigating the Legionaries of Christ, which is reeling from the transgressions of its founder. And for the first time, one of their authoritative members breaks the silence on the crucial problems that have exploded in the congregation.
by Sandro Magister
ROME, July 13, 2009 – In two days, the announced apostolic visitation of the congregation of the Legionaries of Christ will begin.
The visitors appointed by the Holy See are the following five bishops:
- Ricardo Watti Urquidi, bishop of Tepic in Mexico, in charge of the visitation in Mexico and Central America, where the Legionaries have 44 houses with 250 priests and 115-120 religious and aspiring priests;
- Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, responsible for the United States and Canada, where the Legionaries have 24 houses with 130 priests and 260 religious and aspiring priests;
- Giuseppe Versaldi, bishop of Alexandria, responsible for Italy, Israel, the Philippines, and South Korea, where the Legionaries have 16 houses with 200 priests and 420 religious and aspiring priests;
- Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, archbishop of Concepción in Chile, in charge of Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela, where the Legionaries have 20 houses with 122 priests and 120 religious and aspiring priests;
- Ricardo Blázquez Pérez, bishop of Bilbao, responsible for Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Holland, Poland, Austria, and Hungary, where the Legionaries have 20 houses with 105 priests and 160 religious and aspiring priests.
The investiture of the five visitors took place at the Vatican on the morning of Saturday, June 27, in a meeting with the cardinals Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state, William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, and Franc Rodé, prefect of the congregation for institutes of religious life.
At the meeting, the five were read the conclusions of the Vatican investigation that led in 2006 to the condemnation of the priest Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ and of the lay movement Regnum Christi connected to it, for the sexual abuse of many of his young disciples, over the span of several decades.
After his death in 2008, at the age of 88, it was discovered that Maciel also had a daughter, who is now about twenty years old and lives in Spain, born from a relationship between the priest and a Mexican lover.
For a religious congregation that had its undisputed model in Maciel, the disorientation has been extremely severe. This has led to the Vatican decision to proceed with an apostolic visitation. At the end of the investigation, the visitors will deliver a report to the Holy See, which will decide on the basis of it.
The request for an apostolic visitation had been advanced, in the early months of this year, by some of the most prominent Legionaries themselves.
One of these is the American Thomas Berg (in the photo), a member of the Legionaries of Christ since 1986, a priest since 2000, professor and confessor at the Legion seminary in Thornwood, New York, and very involved in formation activities. In April, he left the congregation, and asked to be incardinated into the archdiocese of New York. Archbishop Timothy Dolan made him a vicar of the parish of St. Columba in Hopewell Junction. Berg is also the director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.
In this interview, Fr. Berg explains in measured terms what is truly at stake, what are the strong and weak points of the congregation under investigation, what must be demolished and what rebuilt. He denounces the cult of personality that still surrounds the figure of Maciel. He criticizes the reasons why obedience to superiors often degenerates into blind submission. And he highlights the fundamental question: how it is possible that so many good things have come out of an institution that has been shown to be so full of flaws.
It is the first time that an authoritative member of the Legionaries of Christ, a member for many years, has spoken publicly and candidly about the crucial problems that have exploded in this congregation.
“An unprecedented question in the history of the Church”
Interview with Thomas Berg
Q: When you recently left the Legion, you expressed in a statement your sympathy for the congregation in which you were formed as a priest. What are your hopes now that the apostolic visitation to the Legion of Christ has been announced?
A: I, like the vast majority of persons in the Church, try to remain positive and hopeful for the Legion and Regnum Christi movement. We only want the best for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We understand that this might involve taking some tough medicine, but I believe it is possible for a majority of these wonderful men and women will rise to the occasion because they really do have a profound love for Christ in their hearts. I would like to insist again that I bear no hatred, anger or resentment toward the Legion. Much less, do I spend every waking hour thinking about the Legion. I am getting on with my life. Nonetheless, your initiative in posing these questions has afforded me the opportunity to say a number of things that in conscience I believe need to be said at this juncture.
Q: How do you predict the visitation will go?
A: It would really be foolish of me to even begin to speculate on this.
Q: What would be your suggestions to the five visitors?
A: I will limit myself to one overall suggestion: help the Legionaries to engage in an honest and objective self-critique. What I have found most unsettling of late is the kind of group-think that has settled in among the Legionaries: “We really don’t think there is anything wrong with the internal culture of the Legion, but if the Holy See tells us to change things, we will.” The docility to the Holy See, though laudable and correct, masks a huge internal flaw: the Legion’s corporate inability to engage in a healthy self-critique. This is no time for a business as usual approach, but that has been the impression one generally gets from the Legionaries over the past five months of the crisis.
That inability to see and honestly recognize the flaws and errors that so many people outside the Legion are able to see speaks volumes. The Legionaries should be reminded that it is not the task of the Holy See to reform the Legion. The Legion will only be genuinely reformed when it reforms itself from within. But that can only begin with a self-examination that arises from within the Legion and owns up to the Legion’s errors.
Q: And your suggestion to Regnum Christi members?
A: I am in no capacity to speak to them collectively. In February, a private email I intended to be shared broadly but to remain private was published all over the internet. But if any Regnum Christi member were to ask my personally, my advice would be along those same lines: focus on Christ, work carefully at discerning your own personal way ahead, be engaged in your parish, seek to grow in your interior life, strive to engage in a healthy and informed critique of the Legion and Regnum Christi.
Q: What do you think will happen with the Legion in the long run?
A: Again, it would be unwise for me to even begin to speculate at this point. That is up to the Holy Spirit who fortunately has multiple options open to him!
Q: How would you suggest dealing with the centrality given to the writings, the person and the figure of the founder, Marcial Maciel?
A: I hope that the Legion will very quickly accelerate its disavowal of, and disassociation with, Fr. Maciel. On that point, I see no other way forward. All – and I mean all – the pictures of Maciel yet hanging in Legionary houses have to go. They have to stop referring to his writings in public (I understand that at one recent Legionary community mass the homilist still saw fit to quote from one of Maciel’s letters). A simple step in that direction, by the way, requires the immediate abrogation of their custom of referring to Fr. Maciel as “nuestro padre” or “mon père” – terms of endearment whose use he allowed and fostered. Amazingly, many if not most Legionaries still insist on using the term.
Q: What are the strengths you think the Legion and Regnum Christi can count on in this uncertain process?
A: If the Legion is true to its word, then the Church should be able to count on the docility of Legionaries and Regnum Christi members to embrace whatever is ultimately determined about them and their future. The Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi are composed of hundreds of good, holy men and women of God. I have the deepest esteem for so many of them. They, collectively, constitute a reason for optimism. But ultimately, our confidence has to rest in the power and working of the Holy Spirit, who, through the Holy See, will help all involved to arrive at a proper discernment of the most adequate solution for the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement.
Q: What are the issues you think should change in the internal culture of the Legion, especially related to the recently suppressed “vow of charity”, meaning the vow not to criticize one’s superiors?
A: At the core of serious problems in the internal culture of the congregation is a mistaken understanding and living of the theological principle – in itself valid – that God’s will is made manifest to the religious through his superior. The Legionary seminarian is erroneously led to foster a hyper-focusing on internal “dependence” on the superior for virtually every one of his intentional acts (either explicitly or in virtue of some norm or permission received, or presumed or habitual permissions). This is not in harmony with the tradition of religious life in the Church, nor is it theologically or psychologically sound. It entails rather an unhealthy suppression of personal freedom (which is a far cry from the reasoned, discerned and freely exercised oblation of mind and will that the Holy Spirit genuinely inspires in the institution of religious obedience) and occasions unholy and unhealthy restrictions on personal conscience.
Furthermore, Legionary norms regarding “reporting to,” “informing,” “communication with,” and “dependence on” superiors constitute a system of control and conformity which now must be considered highly suspect given what we know about Fr. Maciel. They furthermore engender a simplistic, and humanly and theologically impoverished notion of God’s will (its discernment and manifestation) that breeds personal immaturity.
More seriously, the lived manner in which Legionaries practice obedience is laced with the kind of unquestioning submission which allowed the cult of personality to emerge around the figure of Maciel in the first place and covered for his misdeeds. Legionary seminarians are essentially trained to suspend reason in their obedience and to seek a total internal conformity with all the norms, and to withstand any internal impulse to examine or critique the norms or the indications of superiors.
Granted, the primary motivation behind such living of obedience is the ideal of total “immolation” of oneself for the love of Christ as embodied in the relentless living of all norms and indications of the superiors. This “immolation” of intellect and will is at the heart of the “holocaust” that the Legionary is invited to live for love of Christ and the Church. While the motivation is valid, and generations of Legionaries have pursued this in good faith, in the long run it not only proves profoundly problematic, but also explains the negative personality change which many, if not most, Legionaries undergo over time: the shallowness of their emotional expression, the lack of empathy and inability to relate normally to others in so many contexts, the general sense of their being “out of touch,” etc. Only exceptionally do Legionary priests move beyond this, but only thanks to the multiple talents and human gifts they brought with them to the Legion.
Q: What elements do you find more disturbing and in need of special attention from the visitors?
A: Just to name a couple. Why, for example, were approximately 25 Legionary priests convoked yet again – as groups are every year – to a two-month long “spiritual renewal” at the Legion’s center for spirituality in Cotija, Michoacan Mexico, housed in the very house (now retreat center and museum) that Fr. Maciel grew up in? Why there? Why in Cotija? Why now?
Why, furthermore, has the Legion continued to engage in vocation work? Now? In these circumstances? It would be a very honest gesture for the Legion of Christ to simply call a halt to all vocational work at least for the duration of the canonical visitation, and even better until it finally gets its house in order.
And one of my deepest concerns is that current Legionary seminarians are not presently in a position to adequately discern what Christ is calling them to do. And this is because they are systematically deprived of the kind of information they not only have a right to know but a fundamental need to know: a complete presentation of the basic facts of Fr. Maciel’s double life; the understanding that the religious life, with its norms and internal discipline, they have come to live is deeply problematic and in need of thorough scrutiny and review; a thorough presentation of the reasonable criticisms that have been leveled against the Legion and Regnum Christi; and an honest admission on the part of the major superiors of the Legion’s errors. We should all find it deeply disturbing that most Legionary seminarians – and the same can be said of consecrated members of Regnum Christi – to this day live their daily lives largely unaware of most of these things, shielded as they are from virtually all negative information about the Legion and Regnum Christi. Consequently, they lack the requisite interior freedom to genuinely discern God’s calling in their lives at present. This is something to which the visitors need to pay careful attention.
A much deeper issue, of course, is the question of the charism. I personally feel the need for the Church eventually – in some formal way – to reaffirm the validity of an institutional charism in the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi. Regnum Christi members especially need to know from the highest Church authority whether there ever really was a genuine charism inspired by the Holy Spirit at work in the Legion and Regnum Christi, or whether what the Church has witnessed in the sixty-eight year phenomenon of the Legion was rather God simply drawing much good out of a primarily human and deeply flawed enterprise.
This question – whether there is a genuine institutional charism present here or not – is very serious and, as it presents itself in the case of the Legion, unprecedented in the history of the Church. I hope that the visitors will turn up useful information that will assist the Holy See in discerning the answer to that question.
Finally, I fear there may be more victims of Fr. Maciel out there. Their welfare has to become more clearly a palpable and obvious priority for the Legionary superiors. I am hopeful that the major superiors of the Legion who may be now have acquired much more information in this regard will be entirely forthcoming with the visitors.
Q: Do you think that the current leadership of the Legion is too closely associated to the founder to continue directing the Congregation?
A: That’s a valid question. The Holy See might weigh in on it, but ultimately it seems the proper answer to that question would have to arise from a general chapter of the congregation which, in my opinion, should be conducted under the close supervision of the Holy See and suspending the current dispositions for a general chapter as outlined in the current constitutions of the Legion in a manner that would allow broader participation by a diversity of members, especially those who are not or have not been in leadership positions.
Q: Can a congregation such as the Legion survive without the “model” provided by a founder?
A: God can do all things. The Holy Spirit could surely raise up a group of Legionaries – cofounders who have disassociated themselves interiorly from Fr. Maciel – who, under the Spirit’s inspiration, could provide model lives for future members and direct a new generation of Legionaries to draw from the rich treasure trove of religious spirituality which is the Church’s patrimony. This could also be transmitted to the Regnum Christi movement.
I have been reading the “life and times of Fr Maciel”. It is a disgrace that we as Roman Catholics have had our spiritual home thrown to the swine. I can’t believe these men who have laid down the laws of the church and supposedly God are capable of such deceipt. It happens in Australia too. The power they weal through power, money and politics is never ending and can destroy a life with mental reservation and stroke of a pen. Calling on collegiality and “understanding” in all things negative to prevent scandal.
To become a Catholic I had to rearrange my life which I have no regret and honour. I reared my children in accordance with church teaching which wasn’t easy in today’s society and the disrepute of our spiritual home from the top echelons, leaves me thankful for my simple faith nurtured by the wonderful Salvation Army women who raised me.
I would never accept in my home what we as Catholics are
expected to tolerate.
Will the true Holy Spirit please stand up