Legion of Christ/ Regnum Christi – Page 5

Jason Berry follows the money to Rome

UPDATE: Currently reading Berry’s piece. Was heartened by Berry’s following admission, given his past criticism of Cardinal Ratzinger’s handling of the Maciel case (prior to Cardinal Ratzinger being elected Pope):

One cardinal who rebuffed a Legion financial gift was Joseph Ratzinger.
In 1997 he gave a lecture on theology to Legionaries. When a Legionary handed him an envelope, saying it was for his charitable use, Ratzinger refused. “He was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said.

Good for His Holiness. And good for Jason Berry for showing journalistic integrity in pointing this out.
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Jason Berry’s first installment of a two-part series investigating Legion of Christ finances was published today. You can read the article by clicking here. For those new to this whole controversy, Jason Berry is one of two Hartford Courant journalists who in 1997 broke the story of Maciel’s sex abuse of minor seminarians. This afternoon has been pretty busy so I have not yet had time to read his latest expose. But Giselle has posted some comments here.

Pope John Paul II, Medjugorje and Marcial Maciel

Patrick Madrid has blogged an excellent post discussing Medjugorje, Marcial Maciel and Pope John Paul II’s (alleged in the case of Medjugorje) support of these two ecclesiastical movements. To read it, please click here.

New monk and cow!

Reader AG at The Risk of Truth blog has posted a new monk and cow story! It concerns a naughty abbot who, under the guise of holiness, secretly pushed peasants’ cows over cliffs. He got away with it for several years, having convinced the archbishop of his sanctity. However, his plan goes awry when the Vicar General clues into the Abbot’s bovine fetish. You can read the whole story by clicking here.
To read other monk and cow stories, please click here.

The monk who misunderstood holiness

Among Eastern Christians (both Catholic and Orthodox), there’s a compendium of spiritual texts known as the Philokalia. It’s a sort of spiritual reader, collecting stories from early saints and other monastic spiritual guides throughout the centuries. What follows is one of my favorite stories from the collection:
Two monks were praying on the mountain when the first monk turned to the second and said: “I cannot understand why you enjoy such renown among the people for holiness.”

From ‘untouchable’ to out-of-touch

Anonymous raises an interesting question in the Was Maciel’s ‘medical condition’ contagious? blog discussion:

In reading the followup comments on the linked blog entry, and seeing more than one claim of abuse at the apostolic school, what in these days would make anyone fear exposing abuse in a court of law: I mean we know for better or ill, there are personal injury lawyers that would mop the floor with the LC’s with these kinds of cases, and that would not take into account criminal prosecution of any act still within the statute of limitations.

I think the issue is that Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, until very recently, were considered ‘untouchable’ within the Church. Victims were often sued, threatened with lawsuits and ostracized for speaking out. Maciel was, to a certain extent, protected by Pope John Paul II and several powerful curial Cardinals in Rome.