…you may find the following resources helpful in helping to make sense of everything:
– St. Ignatius of Loyola’s rules for discerning spirits.
– Nathan O’Halloran’s essay Jesuit Obedience and the Legionaries of Christ. Nathan is a young orthodox Catholic and a graduate of Franciscan University in Steubenville. He briefly considered a vocation with the Legionaries before discerning God’s call to become part of the current Jesuit revival in orthodoxy.
– St. Bruno’s famous Letter to Raoul de Verde.
Tag: Ignatius
Let us prey…
Giselle says I shamed her into posting about how the Legion churns out Fr. Eye Candy for women. I don’t claim to understand it, but I also don’t know of any other Catholic order so particular about its grooming practices as to reportedly include them in its institutional norms. Moreover, as a guy I know there are certain priests – HLI’s Fr. Thomas Euteneuer being a good example – that just strike us as a men’s men.
That being said, I’ve often wondered over the years, privately, why most Regnum Christi members I know are women, while most of my Opus Dei friends are men. Of couples I know in “mixed marriages,” the husband belongs to Opus Dei and the wife belongs to Regnum Christi. I’ve never met a Regnum Christi husband married to an Opus Dei wife.
But back to Giselle’s comments. She says something that immediately sets off my spiritual spidey-sense:
Spiritual headship is not a trump card with these women because the Legion priests have undermined it all these years, teaching the women to wheedle their husbands for more time and money for the Legion. (There is a reason the women’s sections always outnumber the men’s sections.) For those who don’t go to the brink of divorce (or split outright), there is a squaring off within marriages whereby the wife makes her RC commitments sacrosanct and the husband acquiesces for the sake of his sanity.
I’ve been present while the Legion pitches this. One Morning of Reflection, we were all led along the path: “You are princesses (because you are daughters of a King!)” Well, technically yes (though I like “You’re a worm and no man” better). But many of the women were in tears. What the priest touched on cleverly was their brokeness, their insecurities, and their random experiences of abuse. He built them up, using his own brand of “self esteem potion” so that they were putty in his hands. They literally fought to cook for him and to be the most active and industrious volunteers in the coming years.
Some of the nastiest annulment cases I have ever participated in are those in which a priest came between husband and wife. I’m not talking an abusive situation where the priest advised the wife to get out for the personal safety of her and her children. Rather I’m talking about cases where the wife spent more time with the priest than with her husband. Most of the cases involved Catholics who would be considered orthodox.
The relationship between wife and priest was rarely one of sexual attraction. Rather, husband is busy at work, while Father is busy in the parish. Wife becomes active in the parish because Father is “such a holy priest” and she begins to put his needs before those of her husband and family back home. Relieved at the help he’s receiving, Father affirms wife for everything she contributes to the parish and gives her more responsibilities. He intentionally avoids questioning wife about her marriage and home life because he doesn’t want to know. He needs help in the parish! So long as the relationship isn’t sexual, he can justify it as necessary for the greater good of souls. And Father will tell the tribunal that wife is a good woman who hubby grew to resent when she began to take her Catholic faith seriously.
Not really. The vocation of wife and mother is not the vocation of woman religious. Both vocations are good, but there’s a reason God has separated them. No apostolate should come before one’s family.
I am also troubled by Giselle’s story of grown women being described as “princesses”. Sure I refer to my own daughters as princesses, and with three of them Disney has cost me a small fortune in Princess swag. But that’s part of the charm of being father to little girls. You raise them hoping one day they will find their Prince Charming.
However, I don’t see “princess” as appropriate to an audience of wives and mothers. As St. Paul says in 1 Cor 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Thus I find it charming when our parish priest greets my daughters before Mass, saying “Hello princesses.” But I would find such flattery creepy if Father addressed my wife in the same way. So would she.
What pops into my mind is St. Ignatius Loyola’s Thirteen Rule of spiritual discernment – a rule drilled into the head of every Jesuit prior to ordination:
Likewise, [the devil] acts as a licentious lover in wanting to be secret and not revealed. For, as the licentious man who, speaking for an evil purpose, solicits a daughter of a good father or a wife of a good husband, wants his words and persuasions to be secret, and the contrary displeases him much, when the daughter reveals to her father or the wife to her husband his licentious words and depraved intention, because he easily gathers that he will not be able to succeed with the undertaking begun: in the same way, when the enemy of human nature brings his wiles and persuasions to the just soul, he wants and desires that they be received and kept in secret; but when one reveals them to his good Confessor or to another spiritual person that knows his deceits and evil ends, it is very grievous to him, because he gathers, from his manifest deceits being discovered, that he will not be able to succeed with his wickedness begun.
Beware of flattery. It’s never from God and there is always some seduction behind it.
And on that note, I’ll end this post by answering Giselle’s priestly pin-ups with my own:
What you see, dear reader, is 100 percent Semper Fi!
St. Benedict: the antidote to Maciel
It’s been quite the week for Catholics concerned with the scandal surrounding Fr. Maciel and the Legion of Christ. Lots of new revelations, accusations and resurgence of strong memories and feelings. As the week comes to a close, my fellow blog hobbits – us little people who believe in building up God’s Kingdom through $20 donations to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries, rather than $1000-hams to Mexico’s Saruman – are trying to make sense of this spiritual shadow that has cast itself over our Catholic shire.
Here’s a summary of how each hobbit is responding to different aspects of this scandal, followed by my own analysis on certain points. RC Is Not My Life has two posts. The first talks about her experience as former RC consecrated and how the women are given little support during the transition period after they leave the movement (click here). Her second post discusses how the Legion obsesses with the numbers of people coming into the movement, but nobody seems to know how many leave.
Meanwhile, Hobbit Giselle at Life-After-RC discusses how the Legion severs family ties when people enter the movement’s apostolates, as you can read here. Which leads to internal struggles when those still active with the movement begin to question their involvement, as Giselle discusses here.
Over in his part of the shire, ExLC posts the personal reaction of a former Legionary priest, who says: “I feel duped, embarrassed, and angry in front of so many lies. I think, without wishing to make false accusations, that this priest did not work alone, that there were Legionaries who knew what went on with Maciel and kept silent, maybe out of fear or maybe just to cover it all up.” His feelings are not unlike those expressed by LC and RC still on the inside with who I am in contact.
ExLC also posts the testimony of a former LC seminarian named Frank, who left after speaking with a Jesuit while on summer break. Here’s the crux of Frank’s story:
While I was home, I contacted a Jesuit priest for help with my internal conflict. “I want to be generous, and give everything to God, but I just don’t feel right about it,” I told him. “Is that selfish? If God calls me to do something I hate, then shouldn’t I just follow His holy will?”
The good Jesuit responded: “Frank, one of the bedrock principals of discernment from St. Ignatius is that one should never make a serious life decision without a sense of true peace, be it marriage, religious life, job change, etc. If you don’t feel at peace with the decision to join the Legion, that’s a clear sign not to proceed.”
Which brings me to my own thoughts as we wrap up the week. Several commentators continue to draw parallels between the Legion and the Jesuits, in some cases suggesting that Rome hand over the Legion to the Jesuits, and in others suggesting that the Legion’s charism is connected to that of St. Ignatius. Says goodguyex in the comments’ box over at CrunchyCon: “[T]he spirituality of the Legion is Ignatian. Perhaps the Legion can “adopt” St Ignatius Loyola as it spiritual Step-Founder.”
I disagree.
One must not be fooled by appearances. Although the two orders resemble each other on the surface, they could not be more different on the inside. The contrast is as different as the life of each founder. The first concerns each order’s understanding of religious obedience. Jesuit seminarian Nathan O’Halloran, a graduate of Steubeville who initially considered the Legion, explains this difference in understanding here.
Secondly, as alluded to by Frank, Ignatian spirituality focuses heavily on the proper discernment of spirits, how to distinguish God’s call from the devil’s temptation. Along that lines, if one believes that the Legion’s leadership knew nothing of their founder’s “double life,” leadership whereas the Legion’s entire leadership, if we believe them, failed to discern some serious irregularities in their founder’s behavior. This is not to say the majority of Legionaries are bad people for being taken in, only that it shows a certain lack of discernment.
Moreover, self-criticism and examination of conscience are a major part of Ignatian spirituality. Yet one of Fr. Thomas Berg’s most pointed criticisms upon leaving the Legion is that the order seemed incapable of self-criticism. “That inability to see and honestly recognize the flaws and errors that so many people outside the Legion are able to see speaks volumes,” he said. I agree. It says that the Legion and Regnum Christi were far too focused on the external trappings of apostolate, the numbers and the high-profile converts, and that something serious was lacking in the movement’s internal spirituality – both collectively as an order, and individually as priests and brothers.
Which is why I believe the best hope for individual Legionaries right now is not the Jesuits. Certainly they have a lot to contribute to the healing process, but I question whether Legionaries are ready to embrace it. For the Legion and the the Jesuits share many of the external trappings of apostolate and obedience, but without the same internal understanding of these concepts. This creates the potential for confusion and brings with it a host of other temptations.
Rather, I think the big hope for individual Legionaries right now is the sons of St. Benedict. Individual Legionaries need to learn to pray again. They need to “retreat” from high-profile apostolate, and rekindle their interior life and their personal relationship with Christ as they work through the consequences of this scandal. A good dose of Benedictine “Ora et Labora” – that is, large doses of daily prayer coupled with simple work and apostolate – provides medicine for the soul.
So my suggestion to individual Legionaries who find themselves falling apart right now – whether it be physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually – is to visit your nearest Benedictine monastery.