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.
Tag: Legionaries
Speak up! It’s your responsibility as parent, not the Legion’s
Over at Life After RC, reader MnM raises several concerns about Fr. Maciel and the Legion, how children were victimized by him, questioning why the Holy See didn’t intervene in 2006 with an apostolic visitation when children were potentially at risk. After a little back-and-forth, MnM states that he/she is fearful about speaking out publicly because:
My four children attend an LC school. They range in age from PreK to 8th grade. All LC schools require that the children and their parents sign a contract which gives them power to expel the children on the basis of unfavourable behavior from either the children or the parents. The [powers that be] have an immense amount of power and will not hesitate to use it against dissenters.
I’m not here to pick on MnM. As a parent myself who has been involved with movements that ran astray from the Church, I completely understand what MnM is going through. Additionally, I have heard from other parents going through the same thing, parents who re-enrolled their children thinking Fr. Maciel had fathered only one daughter, but who after a summer of reflection and revelation are now questioning their decision to re-enroll their children in LC/RC schools.
I’m not going to tell you whether to do so or not. Only you as the parent know what is best for your children. That’s up to you to discern with God and your spouse, and to make the decision that is best for your child(ren).
However, you should never fear expressing your concerns to your child’s educators. Both the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law are clear: parents are the primary educators of their children. This means exactly what it says: the responsibility for your child’s Christian education falls primarily on your shoulders as parents. Therefore, as a Catholic parent, you have both the RIGHT and the OBLIGATION before God to ask questions and demand answers from those who YOU entrust with your child’s education. If you think your children’s Catholic education may be compromised, then you have the same RIGHT and an OBLIGATION before God to act in your child’s best interest.
You assumed this obligation when you chose the vocation of marriage and parent. To validly marry, canon 1055 states a potential spouse must be open to the “procreation and education of children.” As an ecclesiastical judge, I have judged marriages invalid where a spouse was open to the procreation part, but could care less about the child’s upbringing, saying to the other parent: “You wanted the children, you look after them.”
Therefore, if you fear speaking up about matters that concern your child’s education, and if that fear silences you, then you are not living up to your responsibilities of the vocation you chose before God. It’s that simple. You’re not living up to your marriage vows. It is your duty as parent to make the primary decisions about your child’s education. And it’s up to you to act, if you believe your role as parent and primary educator is not being respected or is being undermined.
German RC territory follows U.S. letter to members (UPDATED)
This letter from the German RC territorial director just appeared in the German edition of Zenit. It is similar to the one released in the U.S. My German is about as good as my Spanish, so I won’t attempt a full German translation, but you can read it here). A babelfish translation shows the letter following the same general chronology of talking points as the U.S. letter.
Could any of our German-speaking readers confirm?
[UPDATE from Richard: I’ve drafted a translation and taken the liberty of adding it here:]
UPDATE: Who were Maciel’s first victims?
[UPDATE: On an interesting – but not as serious – side-note, Berry and Renner confirm that St. Rafael Guiza was among portly saints canonized by the Church. He reportedly struggled with obesity and diabetes, which I find interesting given last week’s discussion on how one rarely encounters portly priests in the Legion (click here).]
Initial Entry
I picked up Jason Berry and Gerald Renner’s Vows of Silence tonight (click here for the DVD with the same name, which includes a Spanish version), after RC Is Not My Life asked me to check the Jesuit connection to Fr. Maciel’s expulsion from the second seminary he attended. It seems that Maciel wasn’t just paranoid – the Jesuits were suspicious of Maciel and the Legion. Berry and Renner report that the Jesuits from the beginning suspected his sexual proclivities.
Yet what caught my eye in re-reading their chapter on Maciel’s seminary days was his expulsion from his uncle’s seminary, the first seminary Maciel attended. Particularly how it relates to the death of St. Rafael Guizar Valencia, who was Maciel’s uncle, sponsoring bishop and rector of the first seminary Maciel attended. Maciel always claimed expulsion due to a “misunderstanding” after his saintly uncle’s death. Berry and Renner explore the alleged misunderstanding, shedding the following light (carefully footnoted) on page 155:
Bishop Guizar died on June 6, 1938. The Legion history says that “misunderstandings” arose. “Marcial had to leave the seminary.” [LC priest and biographer Fr. J. Alberto] Villasana reports that two months after the “holy death” of his uncle, “the vicar-general of the vacant see and the new provisional rector expel from the seminary ‘the Bishop’s spoiled nephew who is planning a foundation‘”–a religious order. The italics are Villasana’s; the quotation is clearly Maciel’s interpretation of what the two churchmen of his uncle’s diocese thought of him. The self-absorbed Maciel misses the implication of two church superiors, in a persecuted land, washing their hands of a seminarian from an influential family. “Spoiled” begs the larger question: what in his character made them recoil?
An even darker explanation may underlie the expulsion. The day before Bishop Guizar died, he had been heard shouting angrily at Maciel. He was giving his eighteen-year-old nephew a dressing down after two women had come to the bishop’s house to complain about Maciel, who was their neighbor. Father Orozco, who was among the original group of boys to found the Legion of Christ in 1941, said he heard the women had complained about the “noise” Maciel was making with children he had brought into his home to teach religion. He said that the seminary officials blamed Maciel for his uncle’s heart attack.
Berry and Renner are careful in their presentation of the alleged incident. They don’t accuse Maciel of molesting children or indirectly causing his uncle’s death. Rather they present the testimony of someone who was present, noting unusual circumstances, and leave us to draw our own conclusions. But given what we now know of Maciel’s double-life, along with what we know about St. Rafael as a holy bishop who sought always what was right in the eyes of God despite the persecution he would suffer, I think we can conclude fairly that this incident concerned more than a mere “misunderstanding”.
As Berry and Renner point out in subsequent passages, the Catholic Church in Mexico was undergoing a severe persecution. The Church was starving for priests. Maciel was from an influential Church family that included two bishops. Yet as Berry and Renner state, two church superiors nevertheless expelled Maciel from his uncle’s seminary.
But let’s look at this from the perspective of other parties who were present. What would compel two church ladies – who, in allowing their children to be catechized during a time of persecution, were likely risking their lives and the physical welfare of their children – to come forward and denounce the seminarian nephew of a bishop much beloved by the Catholic faithful?
One might argue they were anti-Catholic agents who were trying to bring embarrassment upon the Church, but this doesn’t fit the circumstances. First, they approached St. Rafael with their allegations, rather than civil authorities who were looking for any stick with which to beat the Church. Second, St. Rafael acted on their complain, jacking up his nephew in anger. What would compel this holy man of God to tear down his own flesh and blood seeking to follow in his footsteps unless he found the women and/or their allegations credible?
So once again we find Maciel’s life as murky as his sexual proclivities. Which begs the question, who were Maciel’s first victims?
For whom the bell tolls…
I cannot recall this many readers disagreeing with me. I didn’t expect my analysis on the recent letter from the U.S. LC/RC to be popular with most of you. But to say that reader reaction was 99 percent critical (I don’t consider constructive criticism to be negative) would be to exaggerate the support I received.
Besides the comment shared by a reader on CL, you can read Giselle’s reaction and those of her readers here. RC Is Not My Life also critiques the letter and respectfully challenges my position, with 100 percent reader support (as of this writing), here. Moreover, these comments are typical of the reaction I’m hearing from friends still in the RC. Which may be why none of the movement’s apologists have shown up in the comments section of American Papist to defend the letter (as of this writing). I won’t even speculate about potential comments from ExLC and his gang, should he decide to the post the letter. Given that his audience tends to be lean toward former LC rather than former RC, reactions there to LC/RC correspondence are often the most cynical.
That being said, I still believe this letter is a positive step forward for the Legion, despite its weaknesses identified by others. Yet for those on the inside of LC/RC, there’s the dark cloud to this silver lining. And it’s coming not from Giselle or other critics who have left the movement – of course they’re going to be a tad wary of anything coming from the Legion or Regnum Christi – but from those still on the inside. It’s coming from those who gave Legion superiors the benefit of the doubt last February when the news first broke.
This dark cloud was foreseen by Fr. Damien Karras, a 30-year-veteran of the movement who defended Fr. Maciel up until news broke of his daughter. As Fr. Karras stated in a blog to Legion superiors last March:
The tragic comedy of the past few months, with superiors running around telling and not telling, promising transparency but only deepening the murkiness that engulfs the LC, has made their lack of credibility evident to even the most gullible among us. I rank highly on that scale.
And now, no one believes you.
It doesn’t mean that there aren’t LCs who have other motives for toeing the line or flying beneath the radar and making their peace with a system they’ve figured out how to survive in (and some quite nicely).
It doesn’t mean that the LC will run out of yes-men who unctuously cater to authority and offer the same safe old cliches and pre-approved commentaries as they nervously munch their Maria cookies at merienda-cena…
It means that they do not believe you.
And if they don’t believe you, they certainly don’t trust you.
This should not be overlooked or underestimated as you meet in Rome these next few days. Your lack of credibility – not Fr. Maciel’s past sins – will eventually buckle and break the Legion.
I have always endeavored to give hope to those still in the Legion, if only they would apologize to Maciel’s victims and begin a process of self-criticism leading to a reform of the Legion’s internal culture. But I’m no longer sure what – if anything – the Legion can do to restore institutional credibility in English-speaking countries. And believe me – just because most Canadians, Brits, Aussies and New Zealanders haven’t been as vocal as the Yanks, doesn’t mean we don’t support them. Americans enjoy the support of most people I have spoken to from other English-speaking countries. And as for members from Spanish-speaking countries, it’s Mexico and Spain that are driving this story right now, Spanish-speakers are uncovering new allegations, evidence to support these allegations, and breaking this news to the world.
But back to the apology. Yes, it’s the right thing to do. Yes, God will see the members through as individuals if they trust Him. However, there’s a difference between individual and institution. And there’s a difference between this letter receiving a cold response from former members who helped Maciel’s victims bring their allegations to light, and the letter being savaged as insufficient and “more of the same” by those still in the movement (who hope the Apostolic Visitators will reform the Legion and Regnum Christi).
The former speaks to the need for a thorough process of reconciliation and reform. The latter speaks to the internal loss of one’s institutional credibility among those who carry out the movement’s day-to-day apostolate. As any soldier can tell you (given LC/RC fondness for military imagery) no army can function when generals lose the confidence of senior non-commissioned members and junior officers – that is, those responsible for overseeing operations on the ground.
Usually the generals are the last to know. They find out only after the war has been lost.