UPDATE: A reader points out that I missed the obvious: In trying to minimize Maciel’s relationship to the Legion, Monk argues that Maciel accuser Juan Vaca was the true founder of the Legion (at least in Spain).
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Red Cardigan vs. Monk’s sacred cowl: It’s pure fashion!
Erin Manning (aka the blogger Red Cardigan at And Sometimes Tea) has a knack for applying common sense to LC/RC sacred cows, which is why I always appreciate the clarity she brings to this debate. Thus I was not surprised when she smothered Monk’s latest cow (or is it ‘cowl’ given that Monk’s wrapping himself in it?), namely, that members of Maciel’s movement were attracted to Christ and not to Maciel.
To which Erin replies:
Monk, did you, or did you not, use a prayerbook composed of Maciel’s prayers?
Did you (collectively) receive his letters and have them read to you?
Did you celebrate his birthday and his mother’s birthday as major feasts?
There are many additional questions Erin asks of Monk, which you can read in the comments’ section of this post. At the same time, Erin is also providing another LC-supportive critic with some common sense answers. The fact she ably defends the truth despite being outnumbered is testament to the grace of the Holy Spirit in her life.
Your last post was an apology to amongst others Juan Vaca for not believing him. So what do you make of Monk’s odd defense of LC/RC over at Red Cardigan?
“During that time, MM’s work was mostly in the background – fundraising, founding new apostolates, creating the LC “structure.” I did NOT join because of MM (although I did leave, mostly because of him.) Young apostolic students in Spain joined (during the years that I helped him) because of the extremely efficient work of Juan Jose Vaca (who later accused MM of terrible things.)”
Just to clarify, I cannot apologize for not having believed them, since I did believe them. Thus my sin was much worse: I stood by for the longest time as they were unjustly persecuted, knowing that they were innocent of the lies spread about them.
That being said, I agree. It seems rather strange for Monk to argue that Juan Vaca is the defacto source of the LC charism when the LC has yet to admit publicly that Juan Vaca was telling the truth about Maciel.
Having said that, it’s true that Juan Vaca helped cover up for Maciel during the first AV of the Legion. In fact he openly admitted it, on the record, to Jason Berry and Gerald Renner in “Vows of Silence.”
I can sympathize deeply as he was a young seminarian when Maciel abused him, and he felt the confusion as any young man in his situation. The same with the other victims. Which is why those I have corresponded with tend to be forgiving of those who in good faith believed and contributed to the smear campaign against them.
They understand where their critics were coming from. They too have been in a similar situation with Maciel.
“It seems rather strange for Monk to argue that Juan Vaca is the defacto source of the LC charism when the LC has yet to admit publicly that Juan Vaca was telling the truth about Maciel”
So Monk found the missing charism? Wonder if he’s OK with B16 asking Juan to make the call on what to do with it?
That’s a darn good question. I double-dare you to pop on over to Red Cardigan’s blog and ask Monk directly.
Pete, thank you so much for the link! I appreciate the vote of confidence. :)
I think what’s bothersome in the way some defenders of the Legion write is the strong tendency toward revisionist history. Some of them are starting to believe the comfortable fiction that Maciel wasn’t that important, that he had faded into obscurity long before his invitation to a life of prayer (let alone his death and the revelation of his scandalous life), and that he can thus be neatly excised from the Legion without leaving so much as a scar. “Flawed vessel” is a soothing thing to murmur, when you ignore the fact that everything that is the Legion was poured out of that vessel, and has taken on a lot of its shape.
I know someone who spent a little while in a Legion seminary perhaps 20 years ago, though, and Maciel was still being venerated to a degree that was highly disturbing–at least to people like the one I know, who left in part because of the Maciel-adoration, and in part because no one could give him a straight answer as to what the order actually did (because “Oh, everything!” isn’t an answer). I think that even five or ten years ago the level of Maciel-focus in the Legion remained the same as it was when the person I know was there.
Already asked some other questions there.
The L/R will be so thrilled to know he found the missing charism. They can stop running those biz personals at the back of newspapers.
All Monk said was that Vaca did his job well when he was in the Legion. Reading missing charism into it is simply mocking what he said. And then you believe your own fiction and then go embroider on it. What bullshit!
Not Richard, there is a lot of “bullshit” flying around and 99.99% of it comes from the direction of legion. Get a shovel and start cleaning it up! I’m sick to death of the crap that comes my way from people like you.
“Monk said was that Vaca did his job well when he was in the Legion”
NR,
He said more than that. He said that MM was in the background and Vaca was the face of the Legion to those who came at that place and time.
(Of course Monk did not find the ‘missing’ charism’. Pete has been very clear that there is no charism)
But on a more serious note, when you remove the the many layers of bad (the webs and the structures that MM built) and look for the elements of a real charism that attracts and forms one runs up against the irony that Monk points out.
anonymous, Pete is no expert on charism. MM was what he was. Charism is just smoke and mirrors. What you have is a valiant, but flawed, human endeavor, that hundreds of people built.
And if you think original sin and bad behaviour is limited to LC and RC, you have a lot to learn about people and their enterprises.
The good that you speak of comes from the individual. LC/RC is corrupt at the core and uses this “good” in each of us to achieve it’s goal as a multimillion tax evasion system. We can all “soldier on” in our Catholic parish’s without the legion. In fact, there will be less damage to humanity.
Lies. Manipulation. Deceit. Thy name is legion.
“Charism: “each Religious Community has a charism—a purpose or mission, and a spirit defined by the Community’s founder.” vocations page, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis (http://www.10000vocations.org/consecrated.html)
“A charism is a gift from God to the Church for the world.” Irish Province of the Order of Carmelites (http://www.carmelites.ie/Spirituality/charism.htm)
“Charism is just smoke and mirrors” Not Richard
Just a quick Google there.
hmm. I’m a mathematician so I like equations-plug and chug!
A gift from God to the Church for the world is just smoke and mirrors? Not.
The spirit defined by the community’s founder is just smoke and mirrors? We have something here.
Smoke and mirrors was the gift of Nuestro Padre to the Church for the world? Ooh. Thanks for your input Not Richard. That was helpful.
“Charism is just smoke and mirrors.”
“The whole Catholic Church is a cult”
“we’re sinners and all categories are fallen and reduce to whatever I want them to” isn’t quite the independent thinking you think it is.
Best of luck. Really.
Oh! I missed the other part! Sorry:
The purpose (of the Religious Community) is just smoke and mirrors.
Not Richard, what is your level of education on charisms? Should I believe what you posted on this topic? You said “Pete is no expert on charism” and then you gave us your view on charism (the above “smoke and mirrors” quote). When you say it’s smoke and mirrors, do you mean just the Legion, or do you mean all Religious Communities?
@ Not Richard: And if you think original sin and bad behaviour is limited to LC and RC……..
So, we are talking about original sin and bad behavior? Is that it?
You have got to be kidding, right?
The Vatican calls what MM did “delicta graviosa” – an excommunicable offense.
Our Lord was even more specific: “…. it would be better for him to have a millstone around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
So sexually abusing, mentally tormenting, emotionally exploiting and spiritually ruining some minors is bad behavior?
Please familiarize yourself with cults, what they do and how they operate. I know, I am married to a walk-away…… this comes from the devil directly.
Bad behavior — my foot!
@Not Richard:… What you have is a valiant, but flawed, human endeavor, that hundreds of people built….
Why do you keep playing down what MM did?
flawed? original sin? bad behavior?
Why do you run around with your head in the clouds?
According to this your every-day serious Catholic is “void of human worth” —– very charitable that is, really.
Here is something that the pederast wrote (or plagiarized), spread and it was used in retreats and guided meditations:
Envoy II, Letter 70 pp. 129-130
“The apostle of the Movement I have always dreamed of is the exact opposite of a person who lives attached to himself, unwilling to contribute, content to vegetate; the person filled with himself, indolent, giving off no spiritual warmth; giving himself body and soul to the capital pleasures of sloth and avarice, or is hostage to his envy, pride, and veiled anger. Don’t expect to find any enthusiasm for the apostolate in these people or any reflection of what is eternal, for they are void of human worth. In their spiritual dimension they are truncated, unrealized, maimed, monstrous, and they do not measure up to a minimum level of human honesty.
The Movement offers a different model. In the life of a man or woman of the Kingdom, the fundamental law of life consists in growth and conquest, for these are intrinsic to the Christian vocation.”
Also,
“And never forget that God’s will for you is shown in the law of God and of the Church and in the duties of your state in life. This all includes the spirit of Regnum Christi. So you should cling to it as to rock that will allow you to be faithful and happy. Love it with the same love that you love Christ. Accept it integrally with simplicity and faith as the path of your holiness. Give yourselves to living it authentically and totally as the source of fulfillment and peace for your hearts. Do not live outside the spirit of the Movement because then you will open up a chasm between God and yourselves. Never underrate it, because that would mean you undervalue God’s love which in it has given your an easy and fast road to holiness. Do not leave it because sooner or later you will find that it was your egotism, pride, vanity or sensuality you were feeding your lives on rather than God’s holy will.” Envoy II letter 95, p 288
(Envoy II Letter 80, p. 186)
“(I)t is possible and we owe it to God to be filled with enthusiasm for the Movement which He has gifted to you in order to give meaning to your life and to channel your apostolic aspirations. Consider that much of your perseverance rests on the identification with your vocation to Regnum Christi. If Regnum Christi becomes an intimate part of what you are, if it is no longer something extra stuck on but becomes your very flesh and bone you will never be able to turn your back on it without a thought, because you would feel a terrible wrenching, as if part of your body was torn away.”
Mum26, thanks for the reminder. These passages, and all of Letters 95-97, made me realize that Legionism is not Catholicism. These passages are really creepy. And his stuff about “humility” was almost funny; I’ll try to find it.
How can you be hanging on to your copies of Envoy? I dumped mine along with every individually published letter of MM as soon as it became apparent that he was a seriously corrupt man and a total hypocrite. You must like feeling your skin crawl.
Is it just me or is there not a very large difference between an individual bishop or priest sexually abusing someone and the founder and head of an order doing the same? For the individual being abused, of course, the damage is the same, but what about the larger picture?
It just seems to me that the founder of an order who sets up rules to facilitate secrecy, no discussion about anything a superior does,etc., who then proceeds to sexually abuse and mentally and spiritually manipulate those he later puts in positions of authority over other young people, has a much larger effect over a greater number of individuals than a parish priest or bishop would have.
If there were the head of a diocesan seminary who did the same thing, I would have the same level of concern. Well, maybe not even as much then because the seminarian, when he left the seminary, would have exposure to those who had not been controlled and manipulated in the same way and might have a chance of seeing what he had done to him. In the case of the Legion, however, the vast majority of these people who have been malformed in this way, continue to live their lives in this small, controlled world that is Legion/Regnum.
Am I off-base or is there a significant difference?
Pete – I was away from the blog’s for a couple of days. As my Irish mother would have said – “you’ve lost the run of yourself!” I just hope that perhaps you said what you said in haste, without thinking about it.
You said “In trying to minimize Maciel’s relationship to the Legion, Monk argues that Maciel accuser Juan Vaca was the true founder of the Legion (at least in Spain).
And you quotes Erin’s blog to state “I was not surprised when she smothered Monk’s latest cow (or is it ‘cowl’ given that Monk’s wrapping himself in it?), namely, that members of Maciel’s movement were attracted to Christ and not to Maciel.”
Not Richard quickly pointed out (thank you, RC!) “All Monk said was that Vaca did his job well when he was in the Legion. Reading missing charism into it is simply mocking what he said. And then you believe your own fiction and then go embroider on it. What bullshit!”
Pete – I could not have said it better myself! I was quite dismayed to read your post. I seriously question your understanding of “charism” and I lament your distortion and manipulation of what I’ve said.
In a peculiar sort of way you remind me of the Machiavellian side of Maciel (that’s not good!)
I find myself wondering if “Not Richard” has penetrated your shell? NR makes a LOT of sense – and he hasn’t hesitated to state his opinions candidly and forcefully. Maybe his very rational disagreements with your line of thinking has bothered you – so much that you feel compelled to distort my comments for the sake of a “headline?”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – (with John Paul 11) “we resemble the company we keep.” I fret that you are allowing yourself to be contaminated with exclusively negative emotion which will eventually impinge on your professional credentials.
Not Richard – I kept mine because I have spent the year healing and needed to figure out why I did feel like leaving was having my flesh rip away from my bone…even when I knew I was called to leave it.
“If Regnum Christi becomes an intimate part of what you are, if it is no longer something extra stuck on but becomes your very flesh and bone you will never be able to turn your back on it without a thought, because you would feel a terrible wrenching, as if part of your body was torn away.” Envoy II Letter 80
It is very healing to read these Envoy quotes and understand that there was nothing wrong with me – it was the methodology of a sick man that I was steeped in. I was told to read them every night as a second degree member and meditate on them, use them to open my meetings, and memorize them so I could share them with others to help them integrate. Of course there is good in there because Maciel stole the good of the Church and mixed it with his warped methodology and now we have to break apart the good and the bad to heal. The LC hierarchy (who knew about the scandal of Maciel for years) allowed their consciences to say to all LC/RC/consecrated and seminarians that it was OK to continue reading this garbage even after 2006 when the Pope said “independent of the person of the founder”.
Those quotes above are utter blasphemy to Christ and his Church and I was so ingrained in the methodology I did not realize it.
Praise God for truth and freedom!
P.S..this quote below is why so many have a hard time breaking away and the LC hierarchy has not helped RC but heeped on more guilt (like leaving is jumping off the boat in the storm while Jesus is on the boat….Fr. Evaristos address at the YFE in Mexico last month.) or the innocent RC lady who said that she would not leave RC just like she would not leave her husband and kids if they did something bad.
“Love it with the same love that you love Christ.”
Throwing all this away does not let you move through the pain – it needs to be confronted, called what it is and renounced! That is freedom and love.
Okay, Monk, I’ll bite:
Appealing to Pope John Paul II, you write: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – (with John Paul 11) ‘we resemble the company we keep.'”
That’s precisely the problem. The LC/RC resemble the company of their founder.
Hence the question marks surrounding the movement’s methodology and charism.
“Not Richard quickly pointed out (thank you, RC!) ‘All Monk said was that Vaca did his job well when he was in the Legion’…I lament your distortion and manipulation of what I’ve said.”
(I’ll pass by the nonsense you re-pasted about Pete believing _my_ ‘missing’ ‘charism’ joke)
In fairness you said a lot more than “Vaca did his job well”.
I summarized it as “MM was in the background and Vaca was the face of the Legion to those who came at that place and time”
Any complaints?
…as in human face.
Pete, In fairness your update headline needed a bucket of punctuation:
UPDATE: Vaca ‘source’ of Legion’s ‘charism’,
ex-Legionary ‘suggests’
Fire whoever writes your headlines.
LOL! You can write this one, anon 11:02. Hit refresh.
A little better. Now that you’re just like the Legion, perhaps they can hire you as headline writer for their website. Alvaro’s writes the copy. All you get is 1 line at the top.
Or better yet maybe Dawn Eden is available. Multiple sources credit her as the headline writer for this one.
HURT IN LINE OF DOODY – EXPLODING-TOILET SUIT
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/hurt_in_line_of_doody_exploding_2bZvEFQic8NZ3DmVtQ6zvI
Not Richard,
I bought my copy of Envoy II in the fall of 2005; Challenge had begun recruiting in my parish. My spidey sense was tingling even though my pastor was gung-ho about all things Legion. I was warning people to thoroughly research the Legion before getting involved but of course I needed to make sure I knew what I was talking about before directly contradicting my pastor. The websites (both now shut down by the Legion) exlegionaries.org and lcfacts.org said almost opposite things so I decided to look at Maciel’s own words. I learned that there was a book of letters, carefully selected and edited, that Legion and Regnum members are supposed to study. (This, and not WHO wrote Envoy, is what we now need to keep in mind!) The first half was filled with Maciel obsessing about his birthday (his birthday was a first-class feast day, September 8 was a third class feast day. yikes) Then at Letter 70, things got really scary. The second half of the book was filled with non-Catholic theology, just awful stuff. It’s no wonder it’s almost impossible to get a copy, and it’s no wonder that Peter Hopkins launched that lawsuit to get Legion writings out of the public domain.
Anon out of RC, it is probably a good thing that you did not read the original Spanish version. If you thought that exhortation was schmaltzy and over the top, I can just imagine what the original was like! Actually, I think that a lot of the confusion over RC is cross-cultural. Mexicans say things that would have gringos cringing under the table.
I am glad that, though painful the passage was, you have come of age in the Church. I am sure that you will never read anything with the same amount of credulousness.
In a way, it is the lack of religious culture present, and most people’s lack of experience with it that had lead to so many people reading MM without a grain of salt. Most people my age, with our degree of experience with nuns and religious of all kinds, would have dismissed that exhortation for being an exagerated figure of speech, a total excess, chuckled, and gone on. Never abdicate your conscience again.
Not Richard:
Although I agree wholeheartedly with your last post, particularly the last paragraph, I am astonished that you would post that today. As a bluenoser, shouldn’t you be out drinking green beer and celebrating St. Paddy with all other Maritime folk?
Please tell me you’re WiFi’ing your comments from the neighbourhood pub.
Otherwise, I’m banning you from the blog until tomorrow. It’s for your own good. I shalt offer up the next round of screech in atonement for your transgression.