One topic that keeps resurfacing in LC/RC discussion is the pressure families feel to recruit, join Regnum Christi (RC), and ship their children off to Legion of Christ (LC) schools. Vocations are fragile - that's the justification often expressed - and must be sheltered and protected from the world, where too many temptations abound. The implication being as follows: Not to ship off one's child to these spiritual bomb-shelters is to endanger one's child and his vocation.
This begs a few questions. For example, where are LC priests and RC lay consecrated suppose to minister once they emerge from their spiritual cocoons? As St. John Chrysostom teaches, monastic life and parish priesthood are both pleasing to the Lord, but they require different training.
The RC/LC are often compared to Opus Dei, which came into being around the same time. Both projects were founded by young Spanish-speaking priests during a tumultuous time in their national history, when the Church was under persecution. Both drew Catholics looking for a more fervent expression of the faith.
Having said that, here are some notable differences. St. Josemaria Escriva always saw Opus Dei as an apostolate of Christ embracing the world. Subsequently, Opus Dei members interact with the world quite a bit through social activities, education and the pursuit of professional practice and credentials. Rather than ship teenage boys off to apostolic schools, these young men are encouraged to pursue spiritual and academic excellence, to develop a trade or profession toward which they are suited, and to be active in the world.
There's no pressure to join Opus Dei as a numerary or supernumerary. The vast majority of people I have encountered at Opus Dei events are cooperators - that is, non-members who support Opus Dei's work but who do not feel called to membership. They participate in some spiritual and social activities, insofar as they feel called and find time to do so.
And Opus Dei is happy with that. They understand that a vocation to numerary or supernumerary is a calling from God that needs to be discerned carefully through prayer and contemplation. So Opus Dei's usual reaction when someone wishes to become a cooperator, numerary or supernumerary, is to tell the individual to slow down and take time for discernment before Our Lord.
Yet what about priestly vocations? Some priests discern a vocation to Opus Dei having already been ordained, but the majority are called from the ranks of numeraries - that is, the celibate male members. Most of these individuals are well-established in professional careers as doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, business professionals, university professors, etc. In other words, they're out there in the world, interacting with other people, living in the world, conversant of the world, but not of the world, yet attempting to embrace the world as Christ embraced the world from the cross. Far from being sheltered throughout most of their lives, Opus Dei seminarians enter their seminary formation with proven track-records as spiritual and professional leaders.
This may seem risky to those more familiar with the LC/RC model. To become a priest with Opus Dei, a young man must first finish his schooling, which often involves attending secular schools and universities, then he must practice his profession for some time - all while discerning a lay vocation with the Work. Then he must continue to practice his profession as a member of the movement, while simultaneously taking on leadership positions within the movement. Once he is established in his prayer life, his professional career and his Opus Dei apostolate - and only then! - does he begin to discern the call to holy orders. Which requires more prayer and discernment before Opus Dei ships him off for seminary formation.
So many steps before he even starts his seminary formation! So many potential roadblocks, distraction and temptations. How could a young man possibly make it to priesthood without losing his vocation?
Well... let's see what the numbers say. The LC/RC boast 800 priests, 2,500 seminarians and 75,000 lay members of Regnum Christi. In comparison, Opus Dei's numbers are as follows: 1,900 priests and 85,000 lay members.
If priestly vocations are so fragile that they must be sheltered from the world - sheltered even from good Catholic parents and the family structure, as reportedly happens with the Legion's apostolic schools - how does one account for the fact that Opus Dei has over twice the number of priests as the Legion? Both movements were founded around the same time under similar external circumstances, both appeal to a similar audience, but Opus Dei sends its young men out into the world to live as laymen before calling them back to priesthood, whereas the Legion - like the fearful servant in the Gospel - buries its talents in a field, away from human eyes.
And I'm not even commenting upon the quality or durability of vocation. Opus Dei has one of the lowest defection rates in the Church. Once ordained a priest with Opus Dei, you will probably remain a priest with Opus Dei until you die. On the other hand, nobody quite knows the defection rate for LC clergy - and of the dozen or so English-speaking bloggers who regularly comment on the LC/RC scandal, FOUR are former LC/RC clergy. And this doesn't include numerous readers commenting on the blogs - some now professed atheists - who introduce themselves as former Legion clergy or seminarians.
So remember St. John Chrysostom's advice to parents (and as a saint, doctor and father of the Church, his means have been tested throughout the centuries and found credible): you are raising children, not monks. If God has a vocation for your children, whether it be priest or monk, He will call them when the time is right.
Peter-- you've hit on something that really bothers me about the whole apostolic school model: It seems like parents/LCs are forcing young boys and girls into a 'vocation.'
Even if a boy expresses interest in a vocation at a young age, most Dioceses want him to spend his HS years at home, with his family. Some dioceses will take him at age 18 and send him to college seminary, but others prefer to wait until he's FINISHED college......
Most religious orders prefer that a novice has finished college or had some work experience post-high school.
To paraphrase the Mother Superior in "The Sound of Music," you don't join a convent because you're running AWAY from the world, but because you're running TO God.
Yet the Legion expects TWELVE-year-olds to discern their life-long vocation? Would we expect our 12 year old to pick a career and stick with it? Of course not? That's a pretty flighty, confused age..... but a vocation is so much more serious than a career choice.
For parents considering the Apostolic Schools for their kids: Try meditating on the story of Jesus in the temple. He was 12. Did He stay in the temple? After all, He KNEW what his calling was. But he returned home and spent the next 18 years with his family, working side by side with his foster-father and growing into a man.
Are you really saying that your son is more prepared than CHRIST was??? Remember, as Catholics we're called to model ourselves on the Holy Family. Joseph taught Jesus what it means to be a man. RC Dads, you have the same duty towards your sons.
A good priest must be a good MAN first. And boys learn to be a man from their families. If you send them off to an apostolic school, they'll spend their teen years surrounded by other boys, led by men who also left home at too young an age.......
If your child actually has a vocation, God will keep calling. Think of Samuel. God kept calling until he couldn't just roll over and go back to sleep. God called until Samuel answered.
Think of Jonah. God went to great lenghths to remind him of his vocation.
Think of St. Augustine. It took years, but God got through to him.
A vocation is part of someone's very being-- we won't rest peacefully until we rest in the life we're being called to--- because God will call us to the life that suits us best! There's no need to bundle your pre-teen son off to an apostolic school. Let him have his adolescence, pray for and with him, take him to adoration, and the rest will follow.....
Pete,
The Opus Dei you describe doesn't correspond to the one I had a run-in with. Their recruitment practices are like LC/RC - the love-bombing, concentration at retreats, pushing on discernemnt of a "vocation," etc. Then after you're in, the recruiter friends are no longer friends, and you get to go love bomb new candidates. Then there's the cult of Josemaria which began long before his canonization. All of this is well documented by ODAN, a left-of-center group which nonetheless has its facts straight. (As for the canonization, you, a conon lawyer, could easily point out all the discrepancies in the procedure, e.g., no devil's advocate.)
As for me, I got the love bombing, but when I opted for the Traditional Mass, I was read the riot act by Fr. Sal Ferigle, former head cheese in Boston (God have mercy), 16 years ago. He had the desired effect of scaring me (I was shaking) - but it let me see clearly that they are a cult, just like LC. In fact, it was my OD experience that tuned my nose for the time when some RC family worked on me and my wife, trying to get us away from the Latin Mass.
God bless you for the help you are giving LC/RC'ers.
That's strange. Not only did I never witness this type of behavior on the part of Opus Dei in Ottawa (Canada), but several individuals affiliated with Opus Dei in Canada's capital region were instrumental in building up St. Clement as Canada's flagship parish for the FSSP (and the first post-Vatican II fully tridentine parish in the world). In fact, anyone who knows the history of the tridentine Mass movement within the Church knows that an Opus Dei affiliate played an instrumental role in seeing the original 1984 indult promulgated. That, and Opus Dei canonists and their affiliates were also instrumental in recruiting tridentine mass devotees to the canon law profession (again, in Canada). So the relationship here is pretty friendly between the two movements.
Pete,
I think you tend to whitewash a bit over Opus Dei's past history which does include some manipulative tactics in the confessional and formation to obtain and hold ontovocations. It too has had to make changes and correct errors in their formation process. Additionally the Legion of Christ is a religious institute and must follow a normative framework for religious orders already pre-set in the Church law for them, while Opus Dei priests are really diocesan priests incardinated into the prelature of Opus Dei if am not mistaken. This may not be therefore a fair comparison without more qualification.
How systemic these aberrant realities are in both cases is very hard to say without any 3rd party top to bottom review and compare. Anecdotal commentary is so so inconclusive and misleading at times. The question however is a fair one, the speculation is just rather superficial. I know from an RC family I know who have a son in their high school seminary, that boys are not required to decide about a priestly vocation, and they as parents do not feel at all sheltered from his day to day life there. They feel very involved even if not versed in what is healthy or unhealthy training. Yet the key point you make is valid and perhaps still being asked beyond the context of the LC issue- is the idea of a high school seminary truly dead for the CHurch as a whole? I think we need someone with a broader experience, outside the Legion experiment, to comment on that one, though your concerns are quite valid.
I think however actual priest defection rates should be made public knowledge for every religious order and institute. I doubt that even the LC's own rank and file members know their own defection rates.Its a great measure of accountabilty for all to see.
You begin a point that I wish would be developed here or elsewhere, which is historical context. We have to see that many brave souls launched themselves in this new world of movements and rising religious orders that were in the broader view of the healthy minded Catholics of the day striving to be authentic in the midst of what was becoming and still to less extent still is an almost total vacuum of spirituality and orthodoxy in ordinary parish and seminary life. Maybe some got it wrong at least partially and need to come back and evaluate. That is an honest and sometimes tough admission when you are dealing with organizations who want something of a divine will and inspiration to root their institute in. Perhaps we should back up and give this part of the process now required in the LC/RC world its elbow room to do just that. I think you are the most balanced blogger in this aspect, unlike those so ridden with hate that as Cardinal O'Malley wrote regarding the divisive rhetoric aimed at him (paraphrasing), 'in their zeal they read suspicion everywhere'.
However, in the end, there is one critical point of difference that I think is a make it or break it for the LCs as an order: The founder is a failure (cfr. Dunningan's article). Can we say in a more definitive way now that the LC needs dissolution and restart in a new canonical framework, shedding this sad part of their history. Every man needs to idealize and interiorize the ideals of his order through the person of the founder(s)- the Church should not let the Legionaries sacrifice that 'spirit of the founder' that has been part of the pull of religious orders for centuries: the integrity of their founders. I hope and wish the real heavyweights in commentary and analysis would keep this part of the reflection going here.
I wanted to point out that the comparison to Opus Dei is also made by RC themselves.
When I was being "recruited" one of the promises that was made to me was that consecrated are able to pursue professional careers, similar to the numeraries in OD. It is written in the principles and norms as well but never executed in reality.
It never happened in my 9 years in, and I am sure it still hasn't happened to anyone yet. These empty promises were excused for the reason that the internal apostolates in RC were in greater need since we were "in foundation". And yet, no one was ever given the opportunity to study outside of an LC institution, and if we expressed a desire to, it was seen as being selfish and lacking humility. And for those of us who had degrees (even from orthodox Catholic Universities) were told that our degrees were worth nothing to them.
After leaving RC I happened to marry a former OD numerary, and after long conversations, we both see that in reality OD and RC are very far from being similar both in the apostolates, and lifestyles of the committed (consecrated) members, and in the internal "spirit" or charism.
Former seminarian wrote: "I think you tend to whitewash a bit over Opus Dei's past history which does include some manipulative tactics in the confessional and formation to obtain and hold onto vocations."
Probably. Of course I don't always see my own biases, but it would not surprise me if some bias was there. Like John Allen, I originally approached Opus Dei with suspicion, before becoming an admirer of their work after observing them and asking several pointed questions.
Also, as I mentioned previously, Opus Dei canonists were instrumental in welcoming Traditionalists into the canon law profession. They also helped us avoid many of the mistakes of their past by sharing their experiences, explaining why the Church had stepped in to temper their earlier excesses, and the lessons they learned from these experiences. Thus Opus Dei helped us understand that anytime the Church intervened in our internal affairs, it was to assist us in living out our charism in a more Catholic spirit. These types of mistake due to excessive zeal are not unusual for a new movement. What matters is the spirit with which the movement accepts correction from Church authority.
"Yet the key point you make is valid and perhaps still being asked beyond the context of the LC issue- is the idea of a high school seminary truly dead for the CHurch as a whole?"
From my own experience as a canonist, most of the sex abuse cases I've worked on concern priests who attended high school seminaries, and committed a few acts shortly after ordination that would have been considered inappropriate and sophomoric rather than overtly sexual had the priests been teenagers and not grown men. Few cases involve fondling genetalia or any type of penetration. Rather it's stuff like wrestling without shirts on or smacking a behind in the change room, with a hand or wet towel.
Admittedly, my friends and I did stuff like this to each other in phys-ed class or the locker room when we were teens. We would think nothing of it until coach stormed in and gave us all a swift kick in the butt (which nobody ever mistook as sexual).
Coming from each other, these acts were a lack of maturity typical of teenagers. Coming from a grown man who wears the Roman collar, these acts are creepy.
That being said, most of these priests would get hauled before the bishop, put on hospital chaplaincy for a year or two, then sent back to parishes where they ministered for decades without any further complaint or suspicious incident.
Not that this justifies what happened in the first year or two of their priesthood, but one wonders whether these incidents might have been avoided had these future vocations spent their teen years with their families, where fathers and coaches corrected immature behavior.
I have no personal experience with RC. When my wife and I became Catholics, in 1995, we were very much in need of spiritual direction. It took two years, and much nagging, to find out enough about Opus Dei to know that they seemed to be able to help us.
"Anon at September 6, 2009 2:39 PM" comments above on OD - I can only say it seems quite different from anything we have experienced. Pete's own description matches ours. Far from 'recruitment tactics,' we were encouraged to seek God's direction. My wife is now a super-numerary; I myself am a co-operator. For a variety of reasons I have never thought I had a call to become a member myself. Some years back, when I discussed the question with my director, he was simply willing to talk with me without any urging one way or the other.
I can imagine there might be, here and there, the odd individual OD member or priest who might get a little too enthusiastic about encouraging someone; I have seen nothing institutional in that way.
As I said, I have had no experience with Regnum Christi so can't comment there.
jj
The reported problems with OD recruitment of young people -- teenagers urged not to disclose their involvement to parents, young people given guilt-provoking messages about the sinfulness of not accepting your vocation, etc. -- were probably not universal, but they were troubling enough in England that in 1981 Cardinal Hume issued guidelines for OD recruitment, forbidding that anyone under 18 make a life commitment to the organization.
I expect that these manipulative tactics are generally a matter of the past, corrected in response to the bad publicity that OD got in the 1980s. Also, I hope that the statutes for Opus Dei now include regulations on the participation of minors in OD.
Richard, I have OD friends who were young members in England at the time, and who by their own admission perpetuated some of these abuses. They make no excuses about what happened. (In fact they often share these experiences with young, incoming Opus Dei members as a cautionary tale against excessive zeal.)
"The Church had to step in," I recall one of the guilty parties telling us at a retreat for university students. "And it's a good thing they did, because had allowed our zeal to overcome our common sense. The parents had every right to be angry."
I am a Supernumerary in Opus Dei. Here is how it happened. Over the course of years I attened spiritual direction with Opus Dei members, attended evenings of recolletion and cooperator circles and all this and no one ever asked me to join!
Finally, after many years of this, I was having a drink with a Supernumerary who was and is a very good friend and i said this to him, "Pat, I have been hanging out with you Opus Dei guys for years and years and not once have any of you asked me to join. Is there something wrong with me?"
He almost spit out his drink laughing and said, "Consider yourself asked."
These are the high-pressure tactics I experienced!
Best to all!
Austin
Pete:
A religious institute very heavily relies on the "spirit of the founder" for its present and above all for its future, well beyond its existing constitutions which will always need reform. Without a healthy approach to its founder, it cannot reform or find what its specific place in the Church. Is the concept of MM as an authentic founder salvageable? Is there some other canonical structure the LC can assume to shed this history that does not need to rely on a founder with same depth and span that a rel. institute must?
Put another way can you separate REALLY "person of the founder" from "spirit of the founder"? Clearly this is what the Holy See is at least letting the Legion try to do.
I am following these blogs and comments with great interest. I am part of a new foundation that has laity (married and consecrated single people), diocesan priests, and monastics. One of the important features of our association is to respect the vocation of laity within the context of offering a way to consecrate themselves to living either in the "spirit" of the evangelical counsels or to embrace a celibate life with certain aspects of poverty and obedience that do not conflict with their status as lay persons.
Even in the monastic fraternity that is a branch of our association, freedom and conscience are always respected. This was from the beginning of our foundation; I pray this will always be the case.
These comments and blogs have confirmed that we are on the right track. God does not coerce; Satan does. God beckons and inspires. Guilt, pressure and manipulation have no part in the discernment and embracing of a call to consecration.
The family must always be respected. To separate members from one another out of a sense of an inauthentic "divine mission" is not from God.
Thank you for your courage, all of you, to make these things known. You are in my prayers each day.
"Vocations are fragile - that's the justification often expressed - and must be sheltered and protected from the world, where too many temptations abound. The implication being as follows: Not to ship off one's child to these spiritual bomb-shelters is to endanger one's child and his vocation."
When I was in RC and I heard this sort of talk, I liked to point out several prominent LCs who survived "the world" yet found their way into a vocation with the Legion - Fr John Bartunek, Father Thomas Williams, Father Jonathan Morris, for examples.
Hi Jane. Maybe you or some ex-3gf's would take a look at odan.org/tw_how_opus_dei_is_cult_like.htm and and give some comparisons, e.g., do RC women sleep on a board? As everyone is waiting for LC to come clean, has OD ever come clean over the many accounts like this one?
Lord have mercy! I spend enough time following the Legionary scandal without delving into allegations about Opus Dei too!
I have had no contact with Opus Dei ever in my life, I have no opinion, and I am merely here because the Legionary crisis has affected my life and I care about the outcome.
Maybe other visitors to this site would be interested in visiting your link and commenting?
Okay, some thoughts for everyone, perhaps you may even find some helpful...
****
Austin, my experience was similar in many ways, in that I basically showed up on their doorstep, a young Traditionalist journalist who had recently returned to Church, having just been accepted into a canon law licentiate program because of a gentleman who was close to the Work, and was suspicious to know why. I had lots and lots of questions, which they patiently answered.
I attended several activities, and never felt any pressure to join. Some of my friends would visit from my hometown, want to join, and were told they needed to take time to pray and discern, that Opus Dei was a vocation that could not be rushed, that the Church recognized many different paths to sanctity and holiness, and they needed to make sure Opus Dei was a good fit for them. However, I noticed that I was never offered spiritual direction whenever I showed up for recollection, or retreats.
So one day I said to the director: "Am I being singled out because I'm traddy?"
He laughed, and said: "Yes and no. The work is a path to holiness recognized by the Church, but not the only path to holiness that the Church recognizes. The Church also recognizes your involvement with the Ecclesia Dei movement as a path to holiness, you have a good spiritual director back home who is guiding you on this path, and we don't want to interfere with that unless he feels it would help you."
And it was true. My spiritual director back home was an elderly Benedictine moral theologian who often assisted the local Tridentine indult priest. One day Father came to Ottawa to visit me, do theological research, and he quietly wanted to check out Opus Dei since a number of his parishioners had made contact and expressed interest. They invited Father to stay at their residence.
At the end of the weekend, just as he was loading his suitcase in the car to return home, Father turned to the director, pointed at me and said: "Make sure you keep an eye on my Pete while he's down here. He needs some good spiritual direction to keep him focused on his studies when I'm not around. If he gives you any problems, call me."
The director laughed, and after that I was invited to receive spiritual direction. That being said, I never felt called to join, and they never pressured me to.
***
Former seminarian asked: "Is there some other canonical structure the LC can assume to shed this history that does not need to rely on a founder with same depth and span that a rel. institute must?"
Yes, as I mention in my most recent blog, it really falls into the hands of the co-founders. I know this is Legion-talk, but it's appropriate in these circumstances. Several institutes were co-founded by a group rather than by a single person. The Servites are a good example, as is the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter which basically brought the Lefebvre charism back into full communion with the Church, through a group of priests and seminarians. Additionally, nobody is quite sure who founded the Carmelites, if I understand correctly.
***
Fr. John Mary, ISJ wrote: "I am part of a new foundation that has laity (married and consecrated single people), diocesan priests, and monastics."
Good luck with your new institute! One piece of advice, from my experience as a canonist and author covering many of the new movements, is don't allow married couples to live in your community unless they are retired and their children have grown up and established their own lives. Family is its own form of community life, and needs to be respected as such, with boundaries to protect its privacy.
I've seen several instances where families were brought into community, living in community as part of day-to-day community life, under the best of intentions. It ALWAYS ends badly. Even when everything seems good from the outside, the children resent it, will put on an act to survive it, then eventually rebel against the community and often the Church as well. There are many other problems that erupt as the family feels torn between the community and itself.
I know of one exception only where it did not end badly. And that was because the founder, a holy woman of God whose cause is now been opened for beatification, recognized the warning signs, put it to serious prayer, sought outside advice from Church authority and other experts. She discerned just in time that the families needed to separate themselves from the community, establish a firewall of privacy, and then reconnect themselves in another, lesser capacity. So she helped them move into their own homes in the nearby area, while inviting them to continue participating in some of the community's activities.
She also set up some special family cottages in the community, where once a year each family could come live in the community for a week. However, even when visiting the community each family would be housed in its own private cottage.
***
Jane wrote: "I liked to point out several prominent LCs who survived 'the world' yet found their way into a vocation with the Legion - Fr John Bartunek, Father Thomas Williams, Father Jonathan Morris, for examples."
It's interesting to note that the most high-profile LC priests in America came from the world. However, after clashing with Fr. Eutenauer on Fox News, the question is whether Fr. Jonathan Edwards's (sorry, I mean Morris) survived Legionary formation.
***
Anony wrote: "Maybe you or some ex-3gf's would take a look at odan.org/tw_how_opus_dei_is_cult_like.htm and and give some comparisons, e.g., do RC women sleep on a board? As everyone is waiting for LC to come clean, has OD ever come clean over the many accounts like this one?"
While I think Odan raises some legitimate concerns, and while Opus Dei has in the past admitted to excesses and that it could have handled the concerns of former members better, my concern with Odan is that it seems to want to stretch a lot of non-issues into issues in order to convince people Opus Dei is a cult. I wish they would simply stick to real concerns.
Here's an example of a non-issue being given too much significance, or being presented as dark and sinister, when the practice is nothing abnormal to a Catholic institute. It concerns the speaking in tongues or special language as a cult warning sign or form of thought-control. The Odan article to which you link, states:
"In Opus Dei, numeraries don’t speak in tongues, but they do speak in Latin. They attend mass every day in Latin in their centers and all of the responses are recited in Latin. They read along with a missal with the words in Latin. They also greet each other in Latin: one member says 'Pax,' (Peace) and the other member says, 'In aeternum.' (For all eternity) Many of the spontaneous prayers passed down from the Founder or the Prelate are in Latin, like 'Omnia bonum.' (all for the best)"
I've attended several Opus Dei masses. Most of them were celebrated in English and French, with some Latin thrown in for common parts of the Mass, like the Kyrie Eleison (oh wait, that's Greek!) Maybe once or twice they've been all in Latin. Regardless, I've never had a problem with it or thought it unusual. This is the Roman Catholic Church. Latin is the language of the western Church. Even many local parishes now inject some Latin into their Masses from time to time.
Pete: Thank you for your encouragement and wise words. We were blessed to have Archbishop Raymond Burke, long before he became a bishop, to be our canonist and spiritual advisor. And as Providence would have it, he made us a Public Association of the Faithful when he was our diocesan bishop. He has given us wonderful direction and advice. The married members in our association live in their own homes; we do not have a "mixed" community situation. And if any want to live by our monastery and participate in our life, they do so in their own homes. Our spiritual focus is the life of Nazareth; each member is called to make the home a place of holiness. You are correct; the mixing of families within a religious community setting has a lot of hazards. God bless.
Pete said:
"However, after clashing with Fr. Eutenauer on Fox News, the question is whether Fr. Jonathan Edwards's (sorry, I mean Morris) survived Legionary formation."
I know Fr Jonathan took alot of heat for that fiasco (and rightly so) but I hope he gets his chance to live it down. For some reason, I have always had a soft spot for Fr Jonathan. I've always thought it was just bad luck that he was a cute and photogenic LC, because it landed him in front of the camera, like a guppy into the shark tank. I don't think he was ready for it. Now that he is at least on a leave from the Legion, I am praying he is on the road to living out a truly scandal-free vocation in the service to the Church as God intended for him.
I'm a little disappointed that Opus Dei hasn't been more forthright about the early problems Pete noted, and I hope they have done away with the spiritual direction for children they used to give. And I suspect that unless there are lots of miracles attributed to St Escriva's intercession, he'll keep that Roger-Maris-like asterisk next to his name for having been canonized under lower standards.
But that's small potatoes, especially next to what's going on with the LC .
I spent almost 2 years in the Pre-Candidacy school in Rhode Island. I initially went to the summer camp, which was to go for 6 weeks. After hating it for the first few weeks there, i ended up asking my parents to stay at the school. Although in some respects it was a fantastic experience, living overseas etc, I felt as though I didnt get a chance to act my own age. I was 14 when i went there and was practically living like a consecrated...no talking in the hallways or dormitories, only being allowed to wear skirts, no physical contact with anyone (hugging etc), only being allowed to talk to those in the same grade and the grade just above mine (11th and 12th graders were not allowed to speak to 9th and 10th graders), having our mail read by a consecrated before we sent it out and before we received any - i could go on and on. It was full of restrictions and such specific rules that it ended up not really being about finding your vocation in life but finding a vocation ONLY with Regnum Christi.
I had asked to leave the school and return home and was told again and again to pray about it. To an extent, yes that was good advice, so as not to rush into any decisions. But it reached an extreme when i was constantly told that the Holy Spirit told them I was meant to stay there. I asked to go home in February and it wasnt until September that I was allowed to leave. When it did come to the time i was allowed to leave, I was told on an outing to the beach that my plane was leaving the next day and had to go home straight away and pack so that nobody else would know I was leaving. I was not allowed to tell anyone I was leaving or say goodbye to anyone, I just had to go. It had happened a number of times before when someone was there one day and gone the next and everyone is left wondering where they were. It was my turn to do the same then. It felt horrible leaving - all the friends I had made over those 2 years, I just had to leave behind.
I dont feel as though there was room for your individuality. It was like a production line - everything is the same and it just keeps moving along. I am now 22 years old and I am still feeling these things. When I came home, I lost all of my friends because I just wasnt anything like I used to be. I believe people change but not to that extent. I have had problems with confidence and belief in myself ever since.
I also witnessed on a number or occasions in private audiences with Fr Maciel in the USA and twice in Rome, him telling everyone about how hard it was to deal with people accusing you of things you didnt do - regarding these claims people had been making for years about abuse. We all believed him. Everyone practically worshiped him. And although I dont have much to do with RC anymore, I cannot help but be hurt by all the lies and deception that occured. You strive to be like someone and find out they are a fraud. The movement is struggling, it was struggling as it was and although it seems as though everyone is trying to change things and apologise for him, you cant take that hurt away. All the people who gave thier lives blindly to God, and live according to the rules set by someone who is so corrupt - can you imagine what they are feeling.
If you have a vocation, then you have a vocation. A vocation is from God, but I believe you shouldnt have to change yourself to live it. Anyone who denies that these allegations againt Fr Maciel are true is clearly blinded by the false front he put on for everyone. It just goes to show that although there is a leader of a movement, or order, the work they do is from God. So we shouldnt treat them as though they are untouchable or royalty, they are just a messenger of God - it is Him that we need to look up to. It still would have been painful, but I think the blow would have been softened if Fr Maciel wasnt revered the way he was.
I pray that everyone can seek peace soon about this and I pray for all those who have been hurt by the false life he lead, expecially for those who were immediately effected by his actions.