Legionaries Acknowledge Founder Abused Seminarians, Ask Forgiveness

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ROME (CNS) – Top officials of the Legionaries of Christ acknowledged that the order’s founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, sexually abused young seminarians, and they asked forgiveness for failing to listen to his accusers.

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I think that as part of the Pope’s agenda to clean house, he should seriously consider closing the Legion of Christ institute. I think that it is ‘suppressed’. This and the Irish Christian Brothers (not the ‘main’ Christian Brothers) in Ireland, home to so many abusers. He is going to have to make some significant gestures in order to address the increasing scandal and criticism.

I think that he definitely *will *visit the UK, and face his accusers and all those demonstrators, but before he goes, he will ‘accept’ Cardinal Brady’s resignation, and those of the other Irish bishops.

If he does* not *do this, and if the demonstrations become more numerous and possibly violent, then the English RC church may have to ask him not to come.
 
Some Dominican priests told me they always considered the Legionaries to be in a cult. Even though they came across as obedient Roman Catholic priests.

The Church is working at present in ministering to them and finding their proper place in the Church. Majority of them do not in any way represent their founder.
 
I agree w/ anode. Close the order down and start over w/out any trace of Marcial.
 
This must be very painful for members of his order and their lay group. I’ll be praying for them!
 
I don’t really see how this story is news. :confused: This scandal broke in 2007, and the Legionaries themselves have acknowledged it for a long time.

Check out this special on The World Over with Fr. Jonathan Morris, L.C. and Fr. Thomas Williams, L.C. It’s over a year old, but it goes into a lot more detail on the issue.

All of the victims, including the L.C. themselves, need our prayers.
 
Havard said:
I don’t really see how this story is news. :confused: This scandal broke in 2007, and the Legionaries themselves have acknowledged it for a long time.
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Its news because of the Vatican visitation…
 
NewEnglandPries said:
Its news because of the Vatican visitation…
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The visitation was announced March of 2009, and it hasn’t concluded, so no, that’s not the story.

The only new thing in this story is a communique that came out this month, but this is just an ‘update’, Father Álvaro Corcuera, the order’s director general, officially apologized and acknowledged the abuse a long time ago.

Watch the link I posted, Fathers Williams and Morris reference Father Álvaro Corcuera’s original statement. And that video is over a year old.
 
I’m a member of RC who became somewhat inactive d/t the busy-ness of my primary vocation to my family several years ago, and who stepped back even further last year, in order to wait for the results of the visitation before making a definitive decision about my future association with RC.

I recently attended a meeting in which an LC gave us an update on the status of the visitation, and fielded our questions/concerns. My impression of this priest (that I think O have of many of the LC’s) is that they are genuine, remorseful, honest, and confused. I feel so sad for these men, who have dedicated their lives to this. I can only imagine the turmoil it must cause to contemplate a possible lack of charism of this order that have loved for so long (which is truly the Legion’s biggest obstacle to having a future, IMO).

I don’t know what the visitation will result in, and I don’t claim to be expert enough to know for sure what must happen. But I think it will be very hard for the faithful (members and not) to trust the Legion again without a re-founding of some sort (or a supression, in which case trust won’t be needed). I don’t know if the Holy See sees it from that perspective, or if that detail is of concern to those making the decisions. They need our prayers because they ARE capable of making a mistake here, and the future of so many holy priests (as well as countless other faithful) depend on whatever decisions they make.

Please pray for those who are now evaluating the visitation and deciding what the future of the Legion should be.
 
I think the Legionnaries should be disbanded completely, superiors demoted, and individual members re-distributed far and wide to other traditionalist orders or back to their own dioceses whereby they have others not of their original order overseeing what they are doing. Hence, they will all be just priests obedient to superiors not of their own choosing. And probably even some of the Legion’s superiors need to be severely censured because of what they knew and going along with it. They must be prohibited from leadership roles for life. I don’t trust any of them as presently constituted to do the right thing in all facets of their institute! The cultish behavior is too deeply ingrained, even in the lay movement. I wasn’t a part, but I know people involved in Regnum Christi and how they operated in our diocese.
 
sparkletina said:
I think the Legionnaries should be disbanded completely, superiors demoted, and individual members re-distributed far and wide to other traditionalist orders or back to their own dioceses whereby they have others not of their original order overseeing what they are doing. Hence, they will all be just priests obedient to superiors not of their own choosing. And probably even some of the Legion’s superiors need to be severely censured because of what they knew and going along with it. They must be prohibited from leadership roles for life. I don’t trust any of them as presently constituted to do the right thing in all facets of their institute! The cultish behavior is too deeply ingrained, even in the lay movement. I wasn’t a part, but I know people involved in Regnum Christi and how they operated in our diocese.
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These men are voluntarily priests as it is. And they did not sign up for ‘just any order’, so moving them into random orders or dioceses without their (name removed by moderator)ut would deny them a basic choice that all discerning lay men have. Are you saying that because of the sins of a few, that all LC should all be mistreated like this? 🤷
 
Havard said:
These men are voluntarily priests as it is. And they did not sign up for ‘just any order’, so moving them into random orders or dioceses without their (name removed by moderator)ut would deny them a basic choice that all discerning lay men have. Are you saying that because of the sins of a few, that all LC should all be mistreated like this? 🤷
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They could be allowed a choice be it order or diocese. Unfortunately, the fundamental problem is with the underlying LC modus operandi. Do you think simply de-programming and shifting around would solve things? I was trying to be nice in my previous post, but will be more honest here. It’s a cult. And they need to be separated from the framework that made it so. My opinion only based on what I know, but I’m sure the Holy Father will do what he thinks is proper.
 
this poses a problem for Roman Catholic theology. Traditionally, papal approval of a religious order is considered to be covered by papal infallibility.
 
I suspect that when the pope(?JPII) approved of the institute, he didn’t have all the facts at his disposal.

I experience some rueful justification at all of this . On* another forum*, years ago. I received a censure because I had criticized a religious institute. I was quoting from an article on the* Vatican’s English-speaking website regarding Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the CDF, advising Maciel to retire of a life of prayer and penance*, which sounded to me very like a severe censure, mitigated only by Maciel’s age. The Cardinal knew something, probably quite a lot. Some of Maciels’ victims had been interviewed by him or his Congregation. I stated that I would never support my sons’ joining such an organization. I was accused of spreading “internet tittle-tattle”. For shame!
 
lentadv said:
this poses a problem for Roman Catholic theology. Traditionally, papal approval of a religious order is considered to be covered by papal infallibility.
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Do you have a citation for this? I’d be particularly interested to hear what constitutes ‘papal approval.’ Many thanks in advance.

I think Pope John Paul II’s close relations with the LC is problematic and needs some closer examination. Approval of an institute is not the same thing as a statement that any and all of its members - even the founder - are sinless, but nevertheless, I think some exposition on why the pope was so positive about the Legionaries would be helpful. It is hard to understand how he could have been so totally misled by Maciel, and commentary on this from the Vatican would be instructive.
 
sparkletina said:
They could be allowed a choice be it order or diocese. Unfortunately, the fundamental problem is with the underlying LC modus operandi. Do you think simply de-programming and shifting around would solve things? I was trying to be nice in my previous post, but will be more honest here. It’s a cult. And they need to be separated from the framework that made it so.
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Sorry for being late to this, but I think this is a good point – the “rot” within the Legion goes to the core of the order.

The Italian journalist, Sandro Magister, had a couple of recent articles which shows the complicity of the leadership of the Legion:

The Big “Wager.” How to Remake the Legion from Scratch by Sandro Magister:
The statement also makes a severe and unprecedented judgment of the “system of relationships” constructed around Maciel, of the “silence of the entourage,” of the “mechanism of defense” of his disgraceful life.

Writing that “most of the Legionaries were unaware of this life,” the statement implicitly affirms that some of them did know about it.

So there will be no indulgence for the “system of power” that closed ranks around Maciel before and after his death, meaning the current central and territorial leaders of the Legion.

In particular, it is completely unrealistic to think that the ax might spare the two supreme leaders, director general Álvaro Corcuera and vicar general Luís Garza Medina.

The latter of these, until now the real man in charge of the Legion from the financial point of view, has done everything possible over the past few weeks to position himself as a new Talleyrand, capable of remaining in the saddle even in the Thermidor, after having supported the Terror.

But Maciel also appeared “untouchable” – as the statement recalls – and capsized in the end.

Legion Leaders Absolve Themselves Before They Sink by Sandro Magister
… in another note that appeared on May 6 on the website of the episcopal conference of Mexico, the country in which the Legionaries of Christ were founded and have their greatest following.

In it, the current leaders of the Legion are criticized in no uncertain terms. They are accused of “pressuring the pope to act in favor of their interests.” It is taken for granted, as a result, that the papal delegate “will remove en bloc the current governing council of the Legionaries and the regional directors.” And it is predicted that the Legion, in order to “refound itself” on the basis of a new charism, and to make a clean break with its unworthy founder Marcial Maciel, will also have to give up its current name, perhaps returning to its original name of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Both at the Vatican, therefore, given the extremely severe statement of May 1, and in a bishops’ conference as pivotal as the Mexican one is, the views of the trustworthiness of the current heads of the Legionaries are entirely negative.

And yet, these same leaders, and in particular their two highest representatives, director general Álvaro Corcuera and vicar general Luís Garza Medina, both Mexican, continue to present themselves as the men best suited to stay in the saddle, even during the transition phase.

Publicly, the two of them, and Garza in particular, have done this with statements and interviews, before the Vatican statement on May 1.

But it is above all on the inside that they are trying to convince. With constant talks, meetings, letters, they are pressing for the allegiance of the hundreds of priests and religious of the Legion who are most disoriented after the revelations of the unworthy life of the founder.

The longer it takes for the papal delegate to arrive, the more Corcuera and Garza are counting on fortifying the internal consensus around them, making their removal – they hope – more difficult, if not impossible.

One clear sign of their intentions is in the internal memo that the territorial heads of the Legion sent to their subordinates on May 5.

The complete text of this memo – made public on May 6 by the Italian blog “Settimo cielo,” linked to www.chiesa – is reproduced further below.

In it, the current leaders of the Legion not only minimize the damaging force of the Vatican statement on May 1, but they also deny the accusation that they knew for many years about the double life of founder Marcial Maciel, and covered it up.

In fact, they write in the memo that when the Vatican statement says that “most of the Legionaries were unaware of this life,” this “means that the majority knew nothing, including those who are currently in command of the Legion.”
 
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